Tuesday 25 November 2014

Todber Manor Individual League Round Three, Sunday 23rd November 2014



Having been working since the last round of this series, I was looking forward to getting out on the bank and catching a few fish.   I was due to be in what has been the poorest section weight wise, but had no concerns about that as the only aim is section points.
Nice to be a passenger down again with Tim, who managed to draw the peg next to me – 25 and me on 26, frustratingly there were two no shows in the section, which gave the other anglers plenty of room, whilst I was in the middle of the section.

I still felt I would catch and was surprised to note the water had coloured up a little since the last match……. the 3 slices of bread I’d brought weren’t coming out of the bag.  Bait tray consisted of maggots, dead and alive, micros, a few dampened 4’s and a few expanders, I also cubed up one tin of meat.

Rigs were as per the last couple of matches, in fact two of them, the ones for down the track, plumbed up spot on with no adjustment needed.  The margin was deeper than the other pegs I have fished on this lake, the far shelf was very similar to the previous peg.  Starting on maggot across, feeding fairly negatively, I expected some indications early, but nothing, then a gudgeon and a small roach.  I had fed a few micros and dead maggots at 5m and some meat at 7m off at 11 o’clock, these lines were just as unproductive and with 1 ½ hours gone had about 3oz in the net.  Tim on 25 had two fish for 16 or 17lb and Ash on peg 28 was catching regularly.

I persisted and ended up with 7 carp and a couple of small silvers for 24.08, the carp were small compared to those that Tim was catching and I must admit to getting pretty frustrated as Tim and Ash caught, whilst I sat for long periods without any indication that there was a fish in the peg.
I wish I could say I fished it wrong, I’m convinced I didn’t do it drastically wrong, my meat line never gave me a bite all day, my fish came to maggot, 3 of the fish down the edge in the last hour.  I am convinced that the fish were sat in the gaps to Tim’s left and Ash’s right, they would not come past either of them.

With 5 minutes to go, I saw the first indication of a fish on the far shelf and dropped a double white maggot tight across, the float buried and a decent carp was on, but came off halfway across, just about summing up my day, although it wouldn’t have made any difference, I was well beaten , I feel by circumstance and the draw, rather than my own hand. 

So a real test for my new found PMA, tricky to analyse when the peg seemed so devoid of fish.  I think these ‘snake’ type lakes suffer worse than bigger lakes when there are gaps in the pegging, as the fish can drop into them and have no reason to move.

It looks like that's the end of my series, but with one match to go, a section win and a couple of results going my way could see me sneak into the last one or two payout places, but with the section I am in next having been bossed by peg 38 - its won the section every time so far - once again the draw will play a big part.

1: Ash Tomkins  115.05 peg 28
2: Alan Oram  74.04 peg 38
3: Tim Clark 61.09 peg 25
4: Dan White 54.04 peg 13
5: Mike Nichols 51.12 peg 23
6: Ken Rayner  51.10 peg 11

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