For a long time now Mr Dew and me have employed the ‘hanging back’ drawing technique of having the last two tickets in the bucket and it’s been working a treat. In fact, looking back through my records I haven’t drawn the near end since November last year and Ade has never been on a bad peg at Todber! The trouble is, every week now I’m convinced fate will intervene and my run of good pegs will come to an end.
After the usual lovely breakfast and plenty of banter, it was time for the ‘Cards of Kindness’ or ‘Tickets of Terror’ (delete as appropriate!) and as everybody started delving into the bucket, me and Adrian took up our normal positions at the rear. When there were two pegs left, the cards of fate were dealt, Ade got 74 (not quite his usual bunghole) while I opened my ticket to reveal 63 which is exactly where I didn’t want to be, probably the worst peg on the lake! To be fair, it has done some decent weights but I wasn’t feeling the love, I was in good company though with ‘venue pro’ Guy on 62 and Sean Rhodes to my right.
On the whistle I fed a nugget of groundbait and some casters down the edge, corn and micros at five sections and began pinging some corn across for the waggler. I started on the top kit and had a couple of little skimmers along with a few roach and small perch but it was short lived. The waggler was next but I was struggling to feed corn anywhere near where I wanted and after 15 mins with no bites, that was the end of that! Guy had a couple of early skimmers but it wasn’t really happening for him either while we were already hearing that they were catching further up the lake.
I fed a new line at 13 metres with groundbait and started getting very occasional skimmers on corn or double caster but it never really got going and it was the same for my neighbours as well. Guy hooked a carp that tore off taking his rig, elastic and everything and then a bit later I lost one that straightened my hook out. I just couldn’t string any bites together and even tried a little strung out rig with single caster at 14.5 metres but only had one indication which I missed.
With around an hour to go, Sean on 64 decided on an early bath and not long after, Ade West who was on 75 also headed off home. I pretty much went through the motions for the next 45 mins and then had a roach followed by a decent skimmer before pulling out of another at the all out.
The scales started at our end with Guy weighing 9lb 10oz, my meagre catch went 6lb 14oz, Pete Neate on 65 had 10lb 10oz and then Andy A went into the lead with an excellent 25lb 12oz. Lee Jan had 12lb 6oz on 67, Martin Fuller weighed 12lb 4oz and Nick P on 69 had 10lb 2oz. Photos courtesy of Todber Manor*
Andy had the top weight with 25lb 12oz on 66*
Parker ‘The Pole’ weighed 9lb 6oz, Alfie Rhodes had some decent skimmers for 12lb 14oz, then Mike H on 72 had 16lb 2oz which put him third behind Roy W who weighed 20lb 8oz and Mr Dew had 10lb 12oz to claim the nuggets from Guy and me.
Alfie had 12lb 14oz on 71*
Mike was third with 16lb 2oz of skimmers on the feeder*
Roy continued his good run of results with 20lb 8oz for second place*
1 – Andy Akehurst (Sensas) – 25lb 12oz
2 – Roy Worth (Todber Manor) – 20lb 8oz
3 – Michael Hunt (Todber Manor) – 16lb 2oz
Nick generously donated £5, Roy W gave me the pound he had off Ade last week and Mr Dew added the nuggets he won from Guy and me as the charity total climbed to £375.
The ‘Nugget’ ceremony*
There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling
Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here
And if you could spare five minutes to leave a nice review on Amazon, it would be very much appreciated.
Next up – Ruthie’s Cup
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
#sponsoredpost #affiliatelinks
