I was looking forward to heading back to Todber on Saturday but of course as it was the weekend, the temperature dropped, it was freezing cold and another tough day could be on the cards.
After another cracking breakfast in the Lakeside Kitchen it was time for the all important draw. Along with the usual ‘Ilminster Massive’ (Nick P, Parker The Pole and me), Yeovil Raiders Norts and Part Time Priv were also fishing today.
The most consistent area in the last few matches I’ve fished has been pegs 67-71 so when I opened my little card I was slightly disappointed to see 74 staring back at me. Saying that, in the teams of five last Sunday, peg 75 had the top weight so hopefully we might get a few today. Norts had drawn the end peg and I had Todber legend and banter bandit Guy Manton on 73.
Winning weights have been around 20-25lb but with it being brutally cold, I thought more like 15lb would be enough today with possibly 8-10lb getting in the frame.
I set up a Preston Innovations F1 Maggot for 13 metres plus a 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. A couple of decent fish topped before the start which was encouraging although I thought it might take a while to get bites.
On the whistle I fed a little nugget of groundbait at 13 metres to the right and began pinging a few maggots on the left hand line. As expected it was a slow start with nobody catching on the pole or feeder. With sixty minutes gone things were looking bleak with people already walking around and not long after the chap on 72 headed off for an early bath.
Around two hours in, Guy missed a bite and started getting a few indications on the feeder, after several failed attempts he finally hit one and landed a small fish which was winning the match! He added three more fish quite quickly and when Norts had a nice roach on the feeder, I was regretting only bringing the pole with me and seriously contemplating popping to the shop to buy a cheap feeder rod and reel combo!
Another sixty minutes passed and then I think I missed a bite but I might well have been imagining things. Next chuck the float definitely went under and a miniscule roach saved the blank. I had a couple more but any chance of a heroic comeback soon dissipated as Matt Skyme landed a big skimmer and Mark Harper on 71 had a decent fish on the feeder and some smaller ones on the pole.
The remaining two hours didn’t really get any better although Guy, Norts and me had a right laugh which helped to keep our spirits up. I did manage two more roach including one around 4-5oz but needed a couple of skimmers and it didn’t happen.
The weigh in didn’t take long as only five of us had caught, Mark had the top weight with 2lb 3oz, Matt’s skimmer was 2lb, Guy weighed 15oz, I had five roach for 8oz (mainly small fish!) and Norts single roach weighed 4oz.
1 – Mark Harper – 2lb 3oz
2 – Matt Skyme – 2lb
3 – Guy Manton – 15oz
So a disappointing day and I’m getting really fed up with this weather now, everywhere is fishing hard and it’s not much fun being freezing cold, wet or blown off the banks every week!
Norts very generously gave me £5 as the Nugget-O-Meter jumped to £123.
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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