09/11/14 - Todber - Park Lake

Weight - 58lb 14oz
Catch - 14 Carp, 13 Roach, 3 Skimmers, 2 F1s, 1 Perch
Weather - Bright and sunny
Match - Todber Series rd 2 - 7th out of 24, 2nd in section.

The 2^nd round of the Todber series and after my 2^nd in section during the first round I was really hoping for a decent draw today to keep me in contention. Prior to the draw a 2 minutes silence was impeccably observed for Remembrance Day.

It was section D, peg 31-38 for me and ideally I wanted to avoid pegs 31 & 32 and for Tucks and Roly not to draw 37 & 38, however I did draw p32, Tucks was on p37 and Roly p38. I was really disappointed and felt I was fishing for 3^rd in section.

For company Bob Wheeler was to my left on p31 and Adrian Jeffries, subbing for Clint on p34. Following the colder weather this week, loads of heavy rain yesterday and this morning was cold with 1c showing on the drive down. The prospects were for a difficult day for what were now bright, flat conditions.

Only 3 rigs for today
- HB Frostie > .12 > 18 B911 (soft pellet/maggot across)
- SM Slim > .12 > 18 B911 (hair rigged pellet across)
- Ackoo Carbon Carrat 0.2g > 0.12 > (maggot/soft pellet down the middle)

As I was plumbing up I bumped into a fish across so this is where I decided to start after cupping in some micros/4s/maggot at 6 sections to my right and 13m.

Bob was first to hook a fish, which was foul hooked and I soon hooked a foul hooker in the tail, which I lost at the net. By toss potting a small amount of micros/pellet and 4mm expander on the hook I caught 5 carp and an F1, plus losing a few foul hookers. If I fed maggot or put maggot on the hook I would just get bitted out my tiny roach.

After an hour & 45mins the far line had died completely. The middle part of the match was very quiet. I had hoped to catch at 13m, but only had 2 carp, an F1, a 1lb skimmer and more roach.

I could see Roly catching, so knew that was the section gone, although Tucks didn’t seem to be as busy.

Since the far line wasn’t producing I starting pining 4s across in the hope of pulling in some carp for later, which was just as well, because my short line failed to produce anything other than silvers and my margins fed with dead maggot/caster didn’t produce anything.

In the last 90mins a switch to the far line fishing hair rigged 6mm pellet, produced a further 7 carp, so at least I consolidated 3^rd in section or so I thought. Roly was first to weigh and as expected won the match. Tucks was only admitting to 30lb, so I wasn’t surprised when he put 56lb on the scales. I thought I had 50lb, so I was really happy when I ended up with 58lb and a surprise 2^nd in section. This meant I am 6^th in the league, however there are 5 of us all on 4pts and I just happen to have the lowest aggregate weight.

As I said really happy with the result and hopefully a good sign after a number of recent near misses.

1^st 118-10 – Roland Lucas – p38
2^nd 82-12 – Ash Tomkins – p14
3^rd 81- 9 – Nick Merry – p9
4^th 77- 7 – Chris Fox – p17
5^th 73- 1 – Tim Clarke – p7
6^th 64- 4 – Tom Ince – p11