Silverfox Match Angling: Sunday 29/12/2013 - Todber Manor Open

Sunday 29 December 2013

Sunday 29/12/2013 - Todber Manor Open - Match Snake Lake

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: