Todber Manor – Silvers Open – 20th April 2024

Saturday we were back at Todber and although the weather looked a bit brighter, it was still deceptively nippy. A full house again as these matches continue to be popular with some fantastic silvers anglers in attendance. When Guy announced the draw, I was fairly near the end of the queue and along with everyone else, was hoping to see 75 on my little card. Those hopes were dashed early on when Jenny revealed she’d got it for Nick.

Still not to worry, a peg in the middle would do, what I didn’t want to see, were the digits 6 and 3 staring back at me, which is exactly what happened and I’d only gone and drawn it for the second match running. Although we’d have a days fishing and hopefully plenty of bites, the first three pegs (62-64) have struggled to compete so far in the matches. Saying that, when I had it last time, I felt I should have fished the short pole all match and not wasted half the match fishing the feeder as I weighed nearly 17lb and only 23lb was needed to frame.

With that in mind, the feeder rod was staying in the bag today and I set up a little 0.3 gram Guru F1 Slim for the top two plus two line along with a Preston Innovations F1 Maggot to fish at 11.5 metres if the wind allowed. On the side tray were maggots, casters and worms plus some Bait-Tech Special G F1 and Dark groundbait.

For company I had Shaun Rhodes on 62 and Nicky Collins the other side so we’d have a laugh whatever, although, as always there was a fair old blow on the lake which was bloody cold and hacking up our end!

On the whistle I fed the short line with a modest amount of loose groundbait and some casters while 11.5 metres got a sloppy ball of chopped worm and casters in a little gb. Starting on the top kit plus two line with a single maggot, the float’s gone straight under and a small 2oz skimbob was swung to hand. It was a bite a chuck and I’ve had a brilliant first thirty minutes with more roach, a 12oz skimmer, a decent hybrid and an 8oz perch for about 3lb.

Nicky was also catching well short while Shaun had started on the feeder and was getting the odd skimmer. Going into the second half an hour, I was still getting lots of indications but from smaller roach and probably only added a pound or so. Lee Jan on peg 65 was fishing long and starting to catch decent skimmers regularly and when Nicky had a look at 13 metres and caught a couple of better skimmers, I had to follow suit.

Maggot resulted in a few small skimbobs so I tried the head of a worm and had a couple of 6-8oz fish but also pulled out of two better ones. I did hook one fish that I thought might be a small carp but actually turned out to be a nice tench around 1.5lb. Worm was still resulting in quite a few small fish and missed bites so I tried double caster and had to wait ages for a bite but then hooked what felt like a big skimmer only for disaster to strike when it came off shipping back!

That killed the swim so I refed it and tried short again but it wasn’t really happening and I just wasn’t getting bites there either. Lee was now bagging and catching some big skimmers and even had a little bonus catfish around 2lb! It looked like people up past Lee were also landing fish regularly so really it felt pointless doing anything other than trying to catch skimmers.

Fishing double caster I was getting the odd better fish but never felt I was catching enough to compete and a little 2lb carp didn’t help matters. Going past the feed resulted in a couple of quick skimmers and towards the end of the match I began feeding at 13 metres and had a few more but knew I hadn’t done any good today.

Shaun had fished the feeder for most of the day and had some decent skimmers for 13lb 2oz plus quite a few carp, my fish went 20lb 8oz and then Nicky weighed 22lb 2oz. Lee had a lovely net of fish for 37lb 2oz which was top weight on the day. It was close though with Jon Gray only a skimmer behind with 36lb 2oz on peg 67, Freddy Roberts had 35lb 4oz on the feeder for third place and Stu White was in the frame yet again with 31lb 6oz on 68. Nick had struggled for 15lb 8oz and the top pegs had fished quite hard. Photos courtesy of Todber Manor*