Todber Winter League, Final Round, Saturday 14th March 2020

This was a reserve date, so I was hoping a week later on than the league should have finished, my turn on the high numbers of Hillview would see a decent days fishing and for us as a team to claw our way into the money.

Well, Barry drew me peg 50, 49 and 50 had been 1st and 2nd in the match last round, so myself and Ricky Mills who was on 49 weren't too upset. These pegs are just into a arm off the main lake.

50 gives you a check to the far bank, open water and a edge down to 51 which is not pegged.  The wind was blowing L to R and would make fishing the long pole either hard work or impossible - it varied.  I set up a bomb rod, a method feeder, a waggler and 4 topkits.  The topkits were one for meat short, one for banded pellet as long as I could go, an similar one for soft pellet and a rig to go down to the pallet of 51, but not too close in, as I didn't think they come into water that shallow.

Started on the method, a perfect cast, hit the clip and a nice little plop into the water, and the next cast, the third one somehow got caught on a frond sticking out from the far bank, that was the end of that feeder... Switched a pellet feeder as I hadn't had a bite and soon had a small fish, and then a couple more, but that was slow going, 6 or 7lb in the first hour, it was slow both to my left and right,so it didn't point to me doing anything drastically wrong.

Ricky started to get the odd better fish as he switched to fishing more to his left into the body of the lake, I was getting an odd fish on the method, but had been pinging pellets to the middle or just past and picked up the waggler.  I had three or 4 on the waggler, all small but it was bites, this died off and I ended the match with a brief run of slightly better fish on meat short in the last 45 minutes to stave off a last in section.  All of us in the arm struggled, Ricky had 62lb, I had 52lb, Chris Martin on 52 has had 42lb and MarkWynne on 53 had 57lb.  Section one and two was 48 and 54 who both fish into the main body of the lake and both weighed around the 110lb mark.

So not the best day and luckily my disaster didn't do too much damage and we moved up into 4th place and managed to pick up some coin, so well done team.

Overall on the day

1st Jon gray 128.10

2nd Martin Rogers 125.09

3rd Mark Poppleton 118.12

Overall league

1st thatchers vets 71pts

2nd sw all-stars 72pts

3rd BAS 76. 5pts

4th one local 79pts

5th parsigns 79.5pts

6th tackle UK 87

7th pi thatchers 87

8th Westerleigh 90

9th cod fathers 90

10th sas 93

11th misfits 100

12th pr floats 125