Todber Manor was the destination on Saturday but my stuttering drawing arm seems to keep avoiding the middle pegs and the once reliable and patented ‘Hanging Back’ technique isn’t working anymore. After a cracking breakfast it was time for the ‘Bucket of Doom’ and to be honest I wasn’t surprised when I opened my ticket to see 64 staring back at me!
Todber always seems to have a bit of a blow on and today was no exception so I decided on a little groundbait feeder across and then a top kit line up the edge. Just before the start, Roy came for a wander, winding people up on the way before sitting on Dan’s box and having a waggle with his pole! It’s such a rare occasion for him to be seen with ‘The Foulhooking Stick’, I had to quickly get a pic for posterity!
A rare photo of Roy with a foulhooking stick!
Starting on the feeder I was getting quite a few indications and had a couple of small skimbobs and a little perch but the lack of quality was a tad concerning. Trying hair-rigged corn resulted in two 10oz skimmers, a half pound tench and a decent roach but with 2.5 hours gone, I only 2lb or so in the net and was miles off the pace.
Coming in on the top kit line with either double caster or corn on the hook I began catching some nice roach along with the odd 8oz skimmer. I did pull out of one around 1.5lb and then hooked a big fish that I initially thought may have been a carp until a big 3-4lb bream leapt out the water and then fell off!
Things never really improved after that and I continued getting odd skimmers to finish up with 50 fish which I knew wouldn’t do any good today. The scales arrived at Amanda on peg 62 and she’d done really well weighing 17lb, Dan had 11lb 4oz and then my fish went 10lb 10oz. Rod on 65 had 8lb 8oz, Glynn weighed 16lb 8oz, Steve W had 14lb 4oz before Rod Dunford on 68 had an excellent 21lb 8oz to go into the lead. Photos courtesy of Todber Manor*
Amanda did brilliantly on 62 with 17lb which included a nice tench*
Rod had some big bream in his winning 21lb 8oz*
Martin F weighed 10lb 12oz, Nick P had 10lb 4oz, Roy on 71 weighed 15lb 14oz and Jamie W had 3lb. Steve O on 73 weighed 5lb 8oz, McKenzie just pipped his old man with 16lb 14oz and last but definitely not least was Parker ‘The Pole’ who had a nice net of fish to go into second place with 17lb 2oz.
Parker ‘The Pole’ was second on the day with 17lb 2oz*
1 – Rod Dunford (Todber) – 21lb 8oz
2 – Steve Parker (Ilton) – 17lb 2oz
3 – Amanda Rowett (Todber) – 17lb
Glynn won the sidebets and added the £4 to the pot plus £2 each from Nick P and me saw the Nugget-O-Meter jump to £397.
Glynn won the nuggets and kindly donated them to the charity pot*
So after Rod’s winning 21lb 8oz, there were five weights separated by just 1lb 4oz which makes for a really close match.
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
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