Todber Manor – Silvers Open – 15th July 2025

Pete Z organised a Tuesday match on Ash and after really enjoying fishing the wiggler on Saturday, I booked a day off work for another go. After a lovely brekkie, it was time for the draw, only eight of us fishing today so 62 and 63 were left out but I still decided to have the last ticket which turned out to be number 75, a decent peg but I’d rather have been on my usual 70 or 71!

The wind was hacking up the lake so with the long pole out of the equation I set up rigs for the edge and top five plus the waggler. On the whistle I fed my lines before starting down the edge where I had a few small fish, two skimmers and a couple of decent perch. I’d been pinging some corn across and after half an hour, I was itching to go on the ‘wiggler’.

I was getting loads of bites but just couldn’t hit them and was probably connecting with one in six at best! The problem was, when I did get one they were decent fish and I became somewhat preoccupied with it. When Guy came for his usual lunchtime wander, it sounded like it was fishing relatively hard and I felt like I was doing okay. John L on 73 was having a few carp issues and had landed two double figure fish.

With around two hours to go, the missed bite madness on the waggler was doing my head right in so I dropped in on the short pole line and caught quite steadily for the remainder of the match to finish up with 39 fish and I was left kicking myself a bit for spending so long on the waggler. John’s fun and games continued when he latched into a rather large fish and did well to land the resident ghostie that was getting on for 20lb!

The scales worked their way up from the other end and as they reached Andy A on 71, I wandered down to have a look at the board, Nigel H on 66 was leading with a brilliant 41lb 4oz followed by Rocky with 34lb 6oz. Andy had 25lb 2oz, John didn’t weigh (he’d been too busy catching carp!) and then my fish went 25lb 8oz. So after the top two, there were a string of close weights, Mark Harper on 69 had 32lb 10oz, Pete Neate weighed 26lb 8oz, Pete Z on 70 had 25lb 10oz and then Andy and me were just ounces behind. Photos courtesy of Todber Manor*

Mark had 32lb 10oz on peg 69*

Rocky was second with 34lb 6oz of skimmers (and a little cat)*

Nigel H had the top weight with a fantastic 41lb 4oz*

1 – Nigel Hargreaves (Todber) – 41lb 4oz
2 – Rocky (Todber) – 34lb 6oz

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