It was back to Todber on Saturday with a full house of 14 and it was great to see Exeter Mike who I haven’t seen for ages and he gave me £20 for the Nugget-O-Meter, what a lovely gesture! Draw time arrived and I decided to continue with the hanging back strategy even though it has faltered a couple of times recently! As people started opening their tickets, rather worryingly nobody was writing their names next to 62 or 63 and when it got to just three pegs left, they were still in the bucket along with 69. Ade went for it and was disappointed when he opened his ticket to reveal 63 which meant I had now had a 50:50 chance. I selected one and was resigned to being at the near end but was overjoyed when I’d drawn 69 in the epicentre!
The Nugget-O-Meter received a nice boost courtesy of Exeter Mike, thanks mate!
For company I had Parker ‘The Pole’ on my left and Nicky ‘The Nurdler’ Collins was on 70. On the whistle I fed my pole lines and started pinging some corn across before starting on the top kit down the edge I had a few roach and two skimmers but I was itching to pick up the waggler rod.
First chuck on the wiggler, I had a 12oz skimmer which was hopefully a good sign but it proved to be a bit of a false dawn. By the sounds of it, nobody was really bagging, Pete Neate down on 66 was getting the odd better skimmer swapping between the float and bomb and Nicky was ‘nurdling’ roach next door. I was catching in spells but they were decent fish so I stuck with it. As always I was missing quite a few bites which is really frustrating, I also hooked what I felt sure was big skimmer only to be disappointed when a 2lb carassio popped up!
Mike H on 71 was catching some better skimmers on the feeder and then hooked a big fish which turned out to be handy bonus 5-6lb catfish which put him in the driving seat. Heading towards the end of the match, I thought Mike would run out a comfortable winner but there were several people in the mix for second and third. I’d been feeding the short pole line all day and with just ten minutes to go, dropped in on it for the first time and missed a couple of bites before catching a 6oz skimmer which was my last fish.
I finished up with 34 fish which I thought would go 17-20lb but I didn’t think it would be enough to frame today. As the scales headed up the lake, Pete was leading with 20lb 13oz which surprised me as he thought he’d had more than that. My fish went 23lb 4oz, Nicky had ‘nurdled’ 17lb 6oz and then Michael H went into pole position with an excellent 31lb 4oz. When McKenzie weighed 17lb 11oz, I started to think I might actually frame but then Glynn had 24lb 5oz to go into second place. Exeter Mike had enjoyed his first visit catching 15lb on the waggler and then Dave Brittain on the end peg pushed me down to fourth with 24lb 3oz as once again it had been a very close match. Photos courtesy of Todber Manor*
Ade had 10lb 10oz on 63*
Pete Neate weighed 20lb 13oz which included two nice tench*
Lee Jan had 9lb 10oz*
Parker ‘The Pole’ weighed 6lb on 68*
I caught 23lb 4oz of mainly skimmers on the wiggler*
Nicky ‘The Nurdler’ had loads of fish for 17lb 6oz*
Mike ‘The Catfish Cuddler’ had the top weight with 31lb 4oz*
McKenzie did well on 72 with 17lb 11oz*
Glynn was second with 24lb 5oz on peg 73*
Exeter Mike weighed 15lb on peg 74*
Dave Brittain was third with 24lb 3oz*
1 – Michael Hunt (Todber) – 31lb 4oz
2 – Glynn Wickham (Todber) – 24lb 5oz
3 – Dave Brittain (Todber) – 24lb 3oz
The Nugget-O-Meter had an absolutely fantastic day, along with Mike Hosgood’s very generous £20, there were also kind donations from Guy Manton (£5), Nicky Collins (£5), Nick P (£2), me (£2) plus Adrian’s pound and the one he had off Lee saw the total rocket up to £454.
Dave Brittain won the nuggets*
I was a bit gutted to miss out on framing by 15oz and second place by 1lb 1oz but it’s always pretty close at Todber with a fish or two making all the difference. Lots of methods and baits seem to work and it’s a great bunch of lads that fish it every week.
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 – Summerhayes
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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