Sunday 07/08/2022 - Tony Rixon's Short Pole - Final Round - Todber Manor - Ash and Homeground

After a three month lay-off from fishing I felt I could try again providing I had a short walk. As there were some walks on Homeground Tony agreed I could fish Ash. Until I have seen my surgeon in ten days time I am avoiding heavy lifting. I thought I could fish for silvers and try to avoid the carp - might be a challenge at Todber.

PS: Guy Manton: I know a 73 year old that thinks there are too many carp in Todber match lakes.

I drew peg 71, for company I had matey Vince and Bullseye on 70 and Ginge Dark on 72. Tony warned me that the carp feed close in on Ash. Warning headed. Thanks to Glenn got set up on the listing platform albeit I was a tad rusty, forgetting where my stuff was. The plan was to feed the margin heavy all match to keep the carp occupied and fish the long Ronnie rig out in front with single LR's over lightly feeding the same.

The upshot was I had a Ronnie or a tiny Skimmer one a bung (although a good few wriggled off). I was fascinated by large carp munching on the GB and anything else I wanted to feed - sneaky fish. By four hours in I had managed to avoid the carp and thought I might get a record for the first angler not to catch a carp at Todber fishing a match. Alas I ended up with three, No way I could have fished for them all day, just lifting the three was a challenge!!

My three carp weighed 9 lb 9 oz and my silvers 24 lb 8 oz for the silvers win. A little stiff at the end but better than I thought.

The match was won by Ryan Shipp (pictured with the silvers winner) with 309 lb 11 oz from Homeground peg 80. Ryan started shallow with banded pellet over pellet and soon switched to his margin again with pellet over pellet. Ryan was one of the few anglers that sorted catching from his margin as many had plenty of fish in their margin but couldn't catch.

Ryan also won the knockout and runner up in the over all league with Martin Rayet taking the league and Vince Shipp coming third. All pictured right - looks like Martin is holding in a mighty fart!!

Apologies to Glenn for leaving him out of the picture as I thought Tony only paid three however, Glenn picked up fourth beating Tony on weight count back. Glenn also picked up a default section so happy double bubble van.

Result on the day:

1. Ryan Shipp 309-11-0 peg 80

2. Martin Rayett 261-08-0 peg 88

3. Joe McMahon 256-11-0 peg 83

4. Willy Willmott 215-09-0 peg 89

5. Matt Sheppard 187-03-0 peg 67

6 Glenn Bailey 186-08-0 peg 78 

Silvers:

1. Mike Nicholls 24-08-0npeg 71

2. Matt Dark 10-15-0 peg 64

Weigh Sheets:

Overall Final League Result: