Tony Rixon's Float Only, Todber Manor, Sunday 30th June 2019

There was a lot of anglers who were really looking forward to this one, myself I haven't fished it since the beginning of January, so no up to date info on it.

I drew peg 87 on Homeground, meant nothing to me, but had a lovely looking island chuck with a waggler, so shallow and depth rods were  the first bit of kit set up.  Then trying to keep it simple, a shallow rig, a banded pellet rig for on the deck - I had planned to fish this at 11m, but that soon changed!  A rig for meat short and a margin rig, although I didn't expect that to work, given the pegging is quite tight.

On the all-in I went out to 11m and saw that Martin Ryatt on 86 was straight onto 2+2 and those to his right were also starting short, as they were catching from the off I dropped back in on that line and with 8mm Burts polony pellet om the hook I had a decent first hour putting just over 50lb in the net. That was on a par, if not ahead of the others on the bank, but then it slowed up and I tried the waggler, going long again and soon started losing ground to those who stuck it out on the short line.

The wind was strong enough to completely ruin the waggler fishing and I did start to lose my way, at one point I was looking at anglers with a 2" lash fishing short catching hungry carp and I was questioning why I was there, is that really fishing?  I am not saying it shouldn't be like that for those that want to do it and there is no doubt that there is ability and skill involved in amassing the weights that were seen on the day, but I just wasn't enjoying it and really had no competitive spirit left.

I did start to catch some better fish towards the end on meat, but knew I was a long way behind those to my right and Neil in the corner who was getting one a bung, after a slow start.  Wwll to him on the win.

I must be either alone, or in a tiny minority that weren't raving and praising the fishery after the match on social media, I can say the fishery is well maintained, a great shop onsite, its welcoming and is very accessible with parking behind many of the pegs, but I just don't think its for me, I was looking somewhat jealously at the posts on social media from the guys who had been fishing the Superleague on the Huntspill.

Time to take stock and maybe have a change of direction, weigh sheets below, the weights are quite unbelievable.