Todber Manor – Silvers Open – 6th September 2025

Saturday I headed down to Todber and after a lovely breakfast, it was time for the draw. I was going to employ the hanging back technique but as 62 and 63 both went quite early, I delved in while there were a few tickets left and the resulting peg 73 was bang on, just where you want to be at the moment. There was another Jamie on 72 and I had the dubious pleasure of Roy ‘The Bomb’ to my right while Parker ‘The Pole’ was on 75.

Typically, it was fairly calm before the start and I could comfortably hold the pole at 13 metres but no sooner had the all in been called, the wind began howling down the lake! I fed my lines before kicking off on a top kit down the edge and had a few small roach while Roy got off to a much better start with a decent skimmer on the feeder. When he followed that with another shortly after and then a third, I was reaching for my feeder rod. I was hoping for a similar quick response but it took an age to get a bite which resulted in a gudgeon!

Woy was still catching and Steve on the end was netting some skimmers on the pole so I chucked the rod up the bank and shipped out to 13 metres with worm on the hook. It was a bit of a struggle trying to control the pole in the increasingly strong wind and although I began getting a few bites, I wasn’t really setting the world alight with a couple of 4-6oz skimmers, a roach and two (non-counting) carrassio.

Sixty minutes in, I hadn’t got a pound in the net while both Mr Worth and Sir Parker of the Pole had considerably more! In a bid to try and make something happen I switched from a maggot feeder to a little cage with worm on the hook and first chuck the rod got pulled round before I landed a nice 2lb skimmer. Next chuck I had one around 8oz only to then somehow miss both keepnets with it and I was beginning to get a feeling of how today was going to go!

While my neighbour was getting one a bung and seemingly on for a big weight, I was waiting ages for bites and missing most of them. My next brainwave saw me try hair-rigging worm which wasn’t the answer and I was already on Plan E with less than two hours of the match gone! I chopped the hair off and went back to putting worm on the hook (Plan F) and connected with a skimmer which came off at the net and if I had a white flag, I’d have been waving it already!

Ade walked up from 66 and reported that it was fishing hard with Andy A and Pete N doing the best, both admitting to around 10lb, I said Roy probably had double that already! So with it sounding like low teens might be enough to get in the frame and around 4-5lb in the net, I decided to get my head down fishing a top kit to see what I could do in the remaining 90 minutes (Plan G).

It was a bite a chuck, mainly small roach along with the odd better one and two chunky perch, I bumped and missed loads as well but probably had over 100 fish in the remaining time. There was also some mid match entertainment when the Jamie on my left had his rod dragged in by a carp (he hooked several during the match) and without hesitation, he jumped straight in after it and fair play to him, he managed to grab the rod and land the fish!

I wasn’t too upset to hear the final whistle and I’ve really lost my way at Todber lately and was in full on headless chicken mode today! The scales began at the other end and as they worked their way up the lake I went to have a look at the board. It had fished really hard for most although there were some decent weights, Andy A was leading with an excellent 21lb 10oz from 65 and Adam W was second so far with 20lb 3oz. I knew I had nowhere near that and as I was sure Roy had over 30lb, my only chance of coin was Ade’s nugget as he’d struggled for 8lb 8oz. Thankfully my fish went 10lb 11oz to take the side bet although I wouldn’t have it long as I’d be handing it over to Roy.

Pete Neate did well again weighing 15lb 4oz on peg 64*

Andy A is always there or thereabouts and was second this week with 21lb 10oz*

Adam Weller was third on the day with 20lb 3oz*

When he pulled his net out, he’d done enough to win with 22lb 2oz but it was a lot closer between him and Andy than I thought it was going to be, in fact just one skimbob separated first and third place. Steve P had also done well with 13lb 6oz which included a nice tench. Photos courtesy of Todber Manor*

Woy Worth had the top weight with 22lb 2oz of mainly skimmers*

1 – Roy Worth (Yeovil) – 22lb 2oz
2 – Andy Akehurst (Sensas) – 21lb 10oz
3 – Adam Weller (Todber) – 20lb 3oz

Roy collected nuggets from me and Ade as well as the winners envelope*

Norts joined us for breakfast and gave me a very generous £10 and Roy donated the pounds he won from me and Ade to take The Nugget-O-Meter to £557.

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

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