Mark Poppleton had kindly text message about this match, I was glad to get booked in on it, as there is a series starting on Todber next week and I paid up to fish it, without having seen the place. So a good opportunity to check out the route and to get a feel for the place. I have been wondering if I have done the right thing, booking in, as it is a snake lake, with a 16m reach to the island, not my favourite past time, dangling pellets next to islands.
It was a nice easy drive down, an hour and five minutes, so not too bad at all and the sat nav took me straight to it, although I did have the old faithful Ordnance Survey map, just in case.... 23 fishing today and I drew peg five from the groundbait bowl that held the swimcards, totally meaningless to me, but a couple of the usual suspects announced it as a flyer, although they then did the same about several other pegs, so I was none the wiser really.
I hadn't sussed out that it was fishery nets, so had the dregs that were left in the trailer, dodgy top rings and angle adjusters and no rings in the last two sections, these nets have obviously seen some use. There were some nice shiny new Colmic nets, but these had been snapped up early by those in the know. So back to the van for a set of pipe grips and the best made of worn adjusters and my quick release fittings swapped on to them.
It was forecast to be windy and I was far from convinced that I would be fishing 16m of pole in those conditions, so had a 9' lead rod set up, with an elasticated method feeder, to fish tight over, I did set up and plumb a rig to fish banded pellet tight over, I had one fish on it and spent a few minutes fighting the wind, before it was consigned to the rig roost for the rest of the match. The other rigs were a NG Gimp 0.3 on 0.16 with a 0.14 hooklength and a 16 B911 for fishing maggot at the bottom of the nearside slope, I also set up a MW Slim with a single bulk and 0.12, in case the F1's were in evidence.
Bait tray consisted 6 pints maggots, 4 and 6mm hard pellet and softened micros to mix in with some GB for the method. I started on the method and had 25lb or so in the first 45 minutes, before it went quiet, this is when I tried and gave up as a bad job the pole at 16m. Switching to the 5m line I caught carp and the odd silver, feeding was tricky, too little and no bites, too regular and the peg had lots of roach in midwater. I kept fish coming from this line steadily, having a couple of looks on the feeder when the line went quiet, but the initial burst of fish on it was to be the only fish it produced.
With a couple of hours to go I started feeding the margin and left it half an hour before dropping in, I caught fish up to 7/8lb throughout the last hour and twenty minutes, Alex Nadim (Spelling??) was on peg 7 and was also catching decent size fish down the edge, we were just about matching each other fish for fish.
Just a word for Mark Poppleton, his wedding ring (two weeks old....) slipped off his finger and now lies at the bottom of the lake, despite his best efforts to recover it, hope Mrs P is the understanding type.....
On the all out I thought I had 115-120lb, but I do seem to be getting worse at judging fish sizes and I was some way out, putting 149.04 on the scales for first on the day, pleasing seeing as I had never seen the lake before, but hoping I haven't used up my Todber "good draw" before the series starts.
1: Chris Fox 149.04 peg 5
2: Alex Nadim 134.04 peg 7
3: Mark Poppleton 128.00 peg 37
4: Glen Picton 118.00 peg 18
5: Dan White 94.15 peg 26
6: Calum Craig 94.12 peg 1
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