Todber Manor Open, Saturday 8th July 2017

Good number booked into this one, 37, so with the standard of angler fishing, a decent draw was required, 54 revealed its self as I opened the draw card - a peg with plenty of room, but sadly today, the wind coming right off the back of it.  Not that there was much wind, but it meant the peg was flat calm, not ideal on such a hot sunny day.

Pellet has served me well on my previous visits, so that was to my main attack, with some meat, in case there was a chance of the big boys showing up.

I set up a homemade diamond to fish at 13m, this had a 0.14 hooklength and 16 LWG with a band, a rig to fish just up the near shelf, again with a band.  The obligatory margin rig, before the start Scott Russell had given me some information and I plumbed up towards the point at 14.5m.

I did set up a method rod, although there is no feature to cast to on this peg and a waggler.

Starting at 13m, I had a couple of fish, but unusually for this venue (in my limited experience) the fish wouldn't go down on the deck and feed, I was getting liners, indications and either nothing on the lift or a fouler - first time I have had that here.   I switched to the short line and had a run of fish, before this too went 'iffy'.  I started up a new line and had a few before that too died off.  I think it was a combination of the weather and the complete lack of ripple - on a lake that is normally in the teeth of a gale!!! - the other important component was feeding, too little and no bites, too much and liners, foulers and frustration.  I even tried a line dump potting and they still came up over it, but I couldn't catch shallow, didn't have a bite trying it.

The margin had to be my saviour, but as the water is very shallow close in I picked an area about 1m or so from the bank and fed,  First drop in saw a stockie netted, next put in a better fish was hooked and after a battle a 16lber was netted, that was a confidence boost, but it was a lone fish, as I had some more stockies, but nothing else in this size bracket.  There is a wide flat shelf where I was fishing, giving the fish ample opportunity to get behind the rig.  So I refed closer to the haybales and shallowed the rig up, this brought a couple fish, but nothing big.

I tried meat up the long margin, but was plagued with unhittable bites, I came back on the shortline and could only get bites on meat, not sure if it was the weather, or if the fish are getting a taste for it in preference to pellet - I hope they don't its a great venue for banded pellet fishing, not sure if meat becomes dominant it will be such a good thing.

I swapped and changed between the short line, the LH long margin and a RH short margin, this saw odd fish coming to the net, but it was never going to be enough and my 97lb was a nice days fishing, but in the context of the match, no good.