On my last two visits to Todber, I’ve done well catching some of the recently stocked ide and when I heard Ash lake had received a further injection of skimmers, I was really looking forward to Saturday! Another cracking breakfast in the Lakeside Kitchen set us up for the day and after getting some bait and paying our pools, it was time for the draw.
The middle of the lake (pegs 67-71) has been the area to draw so I was happy with 70 and the rest of the ‘Ilminster Massive’ were on 67 (Nick) and 68 (Parker ‘The Pole’). My neighbours for the day were Rocky on my left with Andy Akehurst on 71 and both anglers have been in great form at Todber, winning or framing most weeks.
I set up a Preston Innovations F1 Maggot for two lines at 13 metres plus 0.1 and 0.2 gram rigs to fish through the water. On the side tray I had the usual disco pinkies, lots of maggots and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark. The pond was flat calm and there were some decent fish topping which is always nice to see and I even hit a fish as I was plumbing up so hopefully there were a few there!
At the all in, I fed 13 metre swim angled to the right with a little nugget of gb and pinged some maggots on the other line while 14.5 metres was fed more positively with groundbait and maggots. Andy started long on the pole and Rocky was fishing the waggler across to the far bank.
I wasn’t sure what to expect really, would those new fish show or would it take a little while for them to acclimatize? It didn’t take long to get an answer as Andy was into a skimmer within a few minutes and I missed a good bite over the groundbait not long after. I got off the mark with a nice 8oz skimmer and it was a bite a chuck, mainly from 8-10oz skimmers along with the odd roach.
My plan was to keep loose feeding the left hand swim and leave it for at least an hour while I would just feed maggots and little smidges of groundbait via a toss pot on the right. For the first sixty minutes it was fish for fish between Andy and me and I had 16 fish (12 skimmers and 4 roach) for probably 6lb or so. Rocky was getting odd fish as was Parker The Pole on his left but I couldn’t really tell how the others were doing.
I was expecting sport to slow but the bites kept coming and if anything, the swim was getting stronger! Now I could wax lyrical about how I was fishing a really good match but truth be told, there were a lot of fish in front of me and although the pegs either side were catching well, I was on the epicentre.
As we reached the two and half hour mark, I had 59 fish on the clicker, mostly skimmers with a few roach and couple of cracking ide for 20lb+ and it was still a bite a chuck. Rich Chave turned up to see how we were doing and took a few photos* While he was with me, I decided to have a look on the left hand line with a little light strung out rig and was expecting to catch ide but carried on catching skimmers and some quality roach.
Netting a nice skimmer*
The skimmers were like peas in a pod around 8-10oz with odd pound fish*
Although I felt I was ahead of Andy and Rocky, I wasn’t counting any chickens as I was still expecting it to slow up at some point and it would only take a run of those bigger fish to cancel out my early lead. I decided to start loose feeding on the right hand line as well and swapping between the two swims, it was just lovely fishing. Occasionally flicking the rig out past the pole tip would result in a quick bite and as the match wore on, I began getting some mint big roach with a couple approaching a pound.
Rocky had some big skimmers short on the pole, Steve P was netting some decent fish and Andy was catching regularly although he was waiting longer for bites. I began having the odd quiet spell and tried the 14.5 metre line but hadn’t been keeping it topped up and never had a bite there so for the remaining time, I swapped between the two shorter lines putting odd fish in the net. On the final whistle, my clicker was reading 97 fish and although I knew I’d done well, I had no clue what weight I had!
The scales started with Dean on 63 who weighed 3lb 3oz and that end had been hard going again, Karl had 7lb on peg 65, Nicky C weighed 4lb 4oz, Nick P chucked back and then Parker ‘The Pole’ had some big skimmers for 14lb 10oz but had pulled out of several as well. Photos courtesy of Todber Manor**
Parker ‘The Pole’ did well with some decent skimmers for 14lb 10oz but just missed out on framing**
Rocky pipped Steve with 15lb 2oz and then my fish went 41lb 8oz, a proper red letter day, Andy did well again with 18lb 15oz to go into second place and then Dave G on 73 had 8lb 5oz and Martin on 75 chucked back. So the top five weights were all in a row which shows where all the fish were. Both ends have been the areas to avoid but it will be interesting to see how it fishes once the weather warms up and the fish become more active.
Rocky was third on the day with 15lb 2oz**
I had a fantastic days fishing to win with 97 fish (skimmers, roach, ide and hybrids) for 41lb 8oz**
Andy was second with a lovely net of skimmers for 18lb 15oz**
1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 41lb 8oz
2 – Andy Akehurst (Todber) – 18lb 15oz
3 – Rocky (Todber) – 15lb 2oz
A nice £70 envelope topped off a cracking day and a generous £4 from Nick P plus my £2 saw the Nugget-O-Meter total rise to £98.
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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