Todber Manor Winter League, Penultimate Round, Sunday 8th March 2020

This should have been the last round of the winter league, but one round was postponed due to a storm and high winds.

Travelled down with Tony and he must have had a funny turn as he waned me to draw for the team, I did advise it wasn't a good idea and he paid the price when I drew him 16, Mark Poppleton went off looking for Prozac after he saw his draw....

My prize was peg 34, the 'poor' section of Hillview, I was advised that there were no fish to be caught on the pole, so I set up a waggler - it was windy, but it was from behind me, so no problems fishing the waggler.  Two lead rods, one for bread and one with a maggot feeder on.

I did set up a couple of topkits, didn't bother with the margin, just two for out in front, one with a Kaizen hook, one with a eyed LWG and a band for hard pellet.

Started on the bread, but didn't give it too long, as no liners or bites were forthcoming.  It was slow in the section, with no one catching.  I could get maggots out to the island with a catapult because of the wind, so fully expected to catch, I did, but it was a small skimmer and a roach.  Troed the maggot feeder, nothing - I was going nowhere fast.

I picked up the pole and fed two lines, one at 14m off to 11 0'clock with micros, 4 and 6mm hard pellets, the other at 9m off at 2 o'clock, fed with the same pellets and a few dead maggots.  I had a carp after about 5 minutes on maggot over the short line, switched to the long line and soft 4mm pellet, this brought another fish after 20 minutes.

I caught odd fish on 4mm soft pellet switching between the two lines, feeding after every fish, I did have an hour spell without a bite and retried the waggler, that was the same as before, one skimmer.

I had a couple of small tench and another skimmer, with the odd carp until the all out was called, I thought I might have finished 3rd in section behind Ben Hagg on 38 who caught on the lead and Steve Tucker on 37, but luckily my 43lb odd just beat Tucks to take second behind Ben's 60+lb.  That was nowhere in the match with plenty of ton + weights - but not in my section....

Teamwise we did no good, but Tony was warned....

Final round is now next Saturday, so fingers crossed for one of the flyers - no, 5 of the flyers for the team..

Individual
1st Ryan Shipp 175lb
2nd Nick Ewers 152-06
3rd Tony Picton 152.00
4th Glen Picton 142lb.00
5th Paul elms 130lb

Silvers
1st Paul Greenwood 25lb
2nd Chris Davis 22lb
3rd lee Woodhouse 18lb.

Winning team
Codfathers 11pts

Overall
Thatchers vets 55
Bac 58.5
Parsigns 61.5
Sw all stars 62
One local 67
Westerleigh 69
Pi thatchers 71
Tackle UK 71
Sas 73
Cod fathers 73
Misfits 81
Pr floats 98