28/11/21 - Todber Manor - Homeground

Weight - 137lb 6oz

Catch - 40 Carp, 1 Roach

Weather - Bright & sunny. Cold NW breeze.

Match - Wiltshire Angling Open (7 fished)

With the upcoming Christmas match in 2 weeks and the teams of 4 Winter League in the new year this was my first chance to see how Todber was fishing in the colder weather.

Following Storm Arwen yesterday, today’s weather was much calmer although still very cold, which is probably why we only had 7 anglers today and all on Homeground. 

I drew p88, and with Mark Poppleton on p90 I thought we were all fishing for 2^nd. Fortunately, the NW breeze was blowing off my right shoulder and the trees behind meant I wasn’t feeling the cold too much unlike the anglers on the opposite bank. 

Starting on the straight lead with bread or corn, didn’t result in any bites, although I was getting liners so there were a few fish in the area. A switch to the maggot feeder produced a carp and then nothing. 

Fishing the pole at 13m only produced a single carp and a roach. So, after an hour I had 2 carp and was already behind Mark, although other than a few silvers no one else had caught. 

So, I decided to focus on the maggot feeder and keep plopping into the same spot in the deeper water off the island, feeding a few FA1 RTG’s with the maggot, with double maggot soaked in BMG boost on the hook. 3 hrs later I was up to c.32 carp, all caught on the maggot feeder. 

A brief look on the pole line and another swim off to my left where I had been pinging pellet & corn didn’t produce, so I stayed on the maggot feeder until the end of the match to finish 2^nd overall behind Mark. 

I got lucky with the draw today, as most of the fish caught were down this end of the lake, but it was still amazing to catch over a ton on a freezing day. 

1.    219- 0 – Mark Poppleton – p90

2.    137- 6 – Ken Rayner – p88

3.      65- 0 – Tim Martin – p76