A new venue for Bela and me today,Todber Manor. So we both
sought information from various sources – mainly in the Avon Angling shop about
the Match Snake lake.
“Thousands of F1’s,
80lb of Roach & stuffed with small Carp”. Where have I heard this
before? However, it’s the first time in memory that it was nearly true.
It was breakfast in Cannards Well where we met Tony Rixon,
The Gimp and Fabio whom we followed to the venue down through Bruton, about
fifty minutes.
Arriving at the venue I was immediately impressed with the
whole set up especially the design, layout and tidiness. It looked almost
pristine and unused. As expected the venue was iced over due to the very heavy
frost. However, it was tappable with the pole pot.
There was a very close kept secret held back from me – there was
no Silvers pool. As it happened it was probably the right decision by organiser
Mark Poppleton.
I didn’t have a clue where the best pegs were. So in to the
container and out comes peg 10. After some probing I was on an average peg with
peg 35, 5 and 7 being favourites.
Arriving at the peg and even though the platform was in
excellent condition with slip proof strips it was a bit high off the water so I
elected to fish to the side on the grass. I was apparent even looking through
the ice that the water was really coloured which was a clear sign of plenty of
feeding/active fish.
The peg was one of the widest on the snake Lake ,
just over 16 metres I guessed. Having broke the ice to just over midway 11.5
metres I set up a 4x 12 Jolly which proved to be spot on in 42 inches of water.
As I had time I set up a 4x10 for the LH margin (this only produced one Ronnie
and a speared Motherless). I took off the 11.5 metres section electing to fish
10 metres. I was glad I didn’t bring no more than 13 metres of pole because I
would have been tempted to fish over to the far bank which looked very fish
with my body regretting it in the morning.
The all in was sounded but noticed Nick Merry on
his phone (pictured right) being called away for 30 minutes on a heating
breakdown.
So first put in with a single dead red on a 20 – 808 over 12
micro pellets I had a 6 oz Skimmer with plenty of indications of fish up in the
water. Next put in I had a F1 (the last and only one, so many thousands unaccounted
for). I then hooked a large Carp circa 8lb (is this a small Carp – don’t think
so! Because I wasn’t ice trained I tried very hard to lose it with the elastic
catching in the ice a number of times. Finally at the net I got my way with the
hook pulling. With only 10 lb winning the match the day before I thought this
would cost me today and as it happened it did. Next put in I hooked and land a
10lb Common Carp. I managed to keep a few Carp coming by fishing on the drop.
However, the wind picked up slightly, but enough to blow Nicks remaining ice
into my swim and even though I managed to push it slightly out of my swim I
still had to do a bit of tapping to break it up a bit. This didn’t help the
fishing as it took forty or so minutes to get the fish back. From then on I
caught steady to the end netting 20 or so Carp.
My fished weighed in at 74lb 15oz for fifth overall and a
section pick up by default.
I can’t express enough how much I was impressed with the
venue the weights were close and spectacular considering recent weather
conditions. I can’t wait to get back there as it does suit my style of fishing.
The match was won by Phil Harding (pictured right) with 98lb
7oz from peg 37. Phil caught across (narrow part of the Snake) catching on red
maggot over micro.
Runner up was Steve Nadin (pictured right with some of his
catch) with 92lb 2oz from peg 3. Steve caught ob red maggot over a mix of
maggot and micro.
Full Result:
- Phil Harding 98-07-0 peg 37
- Steve Nadin 94-02-0 peg 3
- Tony Rixon 81-05-0 peg 35
- Nick Merry 80-10-0 peg 11
- Mike Nicholls 74-15-0 peg 10
- Fred Roberts 69-13-0 peg 34
Weigh Sheets:
1 comment:
Nearly right 38 being the flyer with 5 and 7 being opposite at the end of the island
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