Todber Manor – Silvers Open – 29th November 2025

I haven’t been to Todber for a few weeks so booked in for the Saturday open, there were only eight of us but it has been fishing quite hard. The usual lovely breakfast set us up for the day and it was great to see Parker ‘The Pole’ there again and also Matt Parsons who I haven’t seen for ages.

The draw was announced and I was just hoping to avoid 64 and 65 at the near end and got my wish when I pulled out 70, right where I fancied. Andy A got my usual swim (71), Pete Neate was on 68 while Stevie P drew 64 and I really wouldn’t have wanted that today.

The lake was quite coloured and there were odd small fish topping although I still thought it would fish hard with 8-10lb being a good weight. A nice simple approach today with a single pole rig for 13 metres and a little feeder to fish across. On the whistle I fed half a pot of loose groundbait with a few pinkies on the pole line before starting on the feeder. Andy had a small skimmer first chuck on the pole and missed a couple of indications and I was contemplating trying my pole line when a positive pull round after 10 mins resulted in a nice 8-10oz skimmer.

A little 2oz blade next chuck was followed by a small roach and then another decent skimmer had me thinking it might fish better than I’d first thought! Going into the second hour, some small fish were being caught on the pole and with no more bites on the feeder, I had my first look at 13 metres. I caught a couple of small roach and blades but also pulled out of what felt like a better fish, I did have one skimmer around 6-8oz.

By all accounts, nobody was running away with it and I was sure somebody would find a couple of those big skimmers. Back on the feeder, a lovely bite resulted in another 10oz skimmer and then next chuck the rod nearly got dragged in, it was pulling too hard to be a skimmer and I was praying it would be a tench, perch or carassio but of course a 2lb carp popped up!

Pete had a few skimmers on the pole and pulled out of a couple so I had another look and briefly hooked what felt like a better fish but it came off, then had one of a pound, I shipped back out and the float went straight under with a 10oz skimmer but that was it. I tried going past the feed but only had a couple of tiny roach so went back on the feeder and the tip wanged round, this time I was sure it was going to be a little carassio but it turned into a 8oz carp!

Adrian Dew turned up after his recent drawing arm transplant and while he was with me I missed a lovely bite on the pole and I don’t think he saw anything to threaten his ‘King of Todber’ title! I was hoping for a couple of better skimmers in the last hour but it didn’t happen and I only managed a few more tiny roach. At the all out, the scales started at the other end and when they reached Pete, I went to have a look at the board and Parker ‘The Pole’ was leading with 6lb, Rocky weighed 12oz on 65, Roy ‘The Bomb’ DNW’d and then Pete had 3lb. I knew I didn’t have 6lb but I wasn’t far off as my weight was called at 5lb 14oz, Andy had 3lb 7oz, Mark Leader on 73 weighed 3lb 11oz and then Matt had 2lb 3oz. Photos courtesy of Todber*

1 – Steve Parker (Ilton) – 6lb
2 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 5lb 14oz

So a really tough match but one of those days where anyone could have won it right up until the end. I picked up £45 for second behind Steve P who had done brilliantly from a peg I don’t think anybody wanted at the draw in the morning.

A pound from Roy ‘The Bomb’ took the Nugget-O-Meter up to £48.

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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