With some time off over the festive period, I always try to fit in a few matches and the next one was another trip to Todber with the Ilminster ‘Massive’! A lovely breakfast in the Lakeside Kitchen set us up for the day before we all added to John Candy’s holiday fund by spending loads in the shop.
Draw time arrived and I was hoping for one of the pegs in the middle and 67 was definitely in the right area. Parker ‘The Pole’ got 64 which hasn’t been very good and Nick was on 72.
The lake was flat calm and there were some decent fish topping right across which I think were probably ide. I set up a Preston Innovations F1 Maggot for a line at 13 metres and a little 0.2 gram float to fish through the water. The side tray contained the usual disco pinkies, maggots and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark plus I had some worms in reserve.
On the whistle I fed a nugget of groundbait and some pinkies at 13 metres angled to the right and also begin pinging some maggots at the same distance angled to the left. I started with the light rig and it took twenty minutes to get my first bite which I missed. Next chuck I bumped a little roach and then not long after hooked a decent fish which I’m sure was an ide but that came off as I shipped back, so not the best of starts!
I finally got off the mark with a 4oz skimmer and was getting a few indications, Roy Vassie on my right was fishing a waggler across and started bagging up with ide and for good measure added a couple of decent skimmers as well. Regularly feeding maggots and laying the rig in, I’ve had a really nice spell catching six lovely ide to 12oz, a couple of quality roach, a decent 8oz skimmer and then hooked a fish which felt different and then in the clear water I could see it was a nice 10oz perch.
Then very much like the last match, after a great hour it just died and I couldn’t get a bite! It sounded like it was fishing really hard with Roy the only angler catching consistently. I tried going past the feed at 14.5 metres but only had a couple of tiny roach and didn’t really know what to do next. It crossed my mind to put some chopped worm in long and just sit on it but Andy Akehurst down on 65 was fishing 16 metres and hadn’t had much although he did pull out of a decent skimmer.
I did get my rarely used 16m section out the bag and after 15 mins or so the float disappeared and I missed it, another bite out of the blue resulted in a nice ide but that was it. Nobody was catching now, even Roy was struggling although he’d probably already done enough.
Dropping back to 14.5m, I had a positive bite and was into a decent fish, I could see it was a big skimmer so was being ultra careful shipping back as I didn’t want to lose it. Andy shouted up that it looked like I was playing it in slow motion which made me chuckle! After what seemed like an age, I slipped the net under a 2lb fish and when I had a decent ide not long after, things were beginning to get interesting!
Unfortunately, the fairy tale ending never happened and with half an hour to go, Andy started hooking big skimmers on his long line although he pulled out of several. I did have an ide around a pound on double pinkie just before the all out and netted it after the whistle. My final tally was 24 fish (9 ide, 2 decent skimmers, 2 nice roach, a perch plus some small fish).
The scales didn’t take long to reach me as the near end had been really tough with just Parker ‘The Pole’ weighing in a pound and Andy had 5lb but was cursing losing several big skimmers. My fish went 10lb 14oz, Roy had a lovely net of fish all on the waggler for 12lb 6oz and Dave Griffiths on 69 had some decent fish on the feeder for 5lb 13oz. Photos courtesy of Todber Manor*
I had some nice fish for 10lb 14oz*
Roy had a lovely day on the waggler to win with 12lb 6oz*
Mark Harper on 70 had 4lb 8oz but also landed a 12lb carp and then the top end had been a real struggle. Nick had a pound but lost a nugget to Guy who weighed 1lb 7oz and Matt Syme on 75 had 3lb 3oz. So I ended up second and we’d obviously been in the right area with the top three all in a line.
1 – Roy Vassie (Todber) – 12lb 6oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 10lb 14oz
3 – Dave Griffiths (Todber) – 5lb 13oz
A nice pick up of £70 for second and I really like fishing for those ide but they do seem to ball up on a few pegs. I would love to see more of them in the South West as there aren’t many places with them in.
There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling
Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here
And if you could spare five minutes to leave a nice review on Amazon, it would be very much appreciated.
Next up – Summerhayes
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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