MFS website match Todber Manor

Mark Poppleton organised another website match at Todber and I was given a lift to the venue by fellow blogger Ken Rayner. We were slightly concerned at the gusty wind which was blowing and arriving at the lake other than the right hand end (pegs 20 to 25) it was blowing very hard. I drew peg 13 which put me on another flyer (I was told) the oak tree peg. I could see why it was good the far bank to the left has slipped in creating a recess to fish into, trouble was it was 14.5 metres away.

I set up a dibber rig for shallow with banded pellet, 0.16 to 18 PR36, a 4x10 Durafloat 10 for on top the far shelf where it was about 18" deep, also for banded pellet. A 4x14 Preston PB14 for meat at 5 metres with 0.16 to 14 PR47. The margin was very deep and I couldn't get into shallow water so a 4x12 Durafloat was set up for this in about 3.5ft of water. Lastly I decided to set up a small 15g Preston method feeder, I used my 10ft Preston mini carp rod for the first time with 0.20 and a 16 PR38 to take an 8mm boilie. I mixed up some gbait for this, Thatchers original.

To my right was a lad called Chris from Gloucester, and to my left was Garbolino BMV angler Johnny Atkins, when the whistle went we all started differently! I fed corn and pellet in the margin, and a pot of 6mm pellets across into the recess, and some meat at 5mtrs. I went straight over into the recess with the 18" rig with 8mm pellet and had 2 small carp in the first 2 chucks, followed by a couple of F1's. I was trying to feed with a catty but it was hard to hold the pole and feed, within 20 mins I was struggling to hold the rig in position and as a result fouled a couple. I tried the shallow rig but it was no good and the wind forced me to change. So i picked up the method and cast it under armed into the recess. It was obvious there were a lot of fish there as the tip was moving all the time! I was catching F1's and some small carp on this and still feeding pellet over the top. I had a good first couple of hours and then Guy Manton turned up and I couldn't catch well, he did advise me to feed even more pellet across and this worked after a while.

I had some really good spells on the method when I would get 5 or 6 carp in as many chucks, then it would be funny bites from F1's. I tried the pole and had a couple on the meat but was missing lots of bites, the margin never produced a bite all day! I had to keep persevering with method, and from what I could see I seemed to be doing better than most and I had taken three carp around 5lb and an 8lb fish which is a lot of those F1's! With 45 mins to go things went wrong, the method dried up (but I still had liners) and I could not hit the bites on the meat line, and I probably only had 3 fish in this last spell and I knew it would cost me.

The scales came down from peg 1, there had already been three tons, with peg 7 having 133lb 9oz, John weighed 71lb and I weighed next with 134lb 5oz which was just enough to win the section. Chris next to me was in the next section and had 95lb which was not good enough for any coin. Ken Rayner will show the full result on his blog (he had the sheets) but it was something like this :-

1st Will Bohne 171lb ( a lot of F1's shallow at 11mtr, then carp on meat in the margin)
2nd Mark Poppleton 151lb
3rd Mark Brennan 151lb (ounces in it)
4th Missed the name sorry 144lb



So I was 10lb off the frame and the last 45 mins had cost me as expected, I must try and sort out the meat on this place! Despite the terrible wind the venue had fished well again, I would say the opposite side of the lake to me was better for some reason , in fact I was top weight from peg 1 to peg 20 although Mark Poppleton on 21 with no wind caught at 5mtr with paste. Ken Rayner had 66lb a lot of F1's in his peg.

Amazing place really when people weighing in around 100lb get nowhere, so many fish in this lake it amazes me. Shame I cannot fish the next match here.