Monday, 3 May 2021

01/05/2021 - Todber - Hillview

Weight - 142lb 7oz
Catch - 43 Carp
Weather - Frosty start, sunny, showers later. cold northerly breeze.
Match - Open - 6th out of 42, 2nd in section

So, the blog is back! After nearly 4yrs since my last entry. There were a number of reasons for stopping following some major changes in my life and during lockdown I enjoyed reminiscing when reading through some of my old blogs.

Today’s match was at Todber with 42 anglers over Ash, Hillview and Homeground, and was pleased to draw p49 on the right side of the spit. This was my first match at Todber since last year and John had decided to reduce the match times from 6hrs to 5hrs, which will save time for the weigh ins and the number of required keepnets!

On the all in decided to start on 6mm pellet, dampened with So Simple new Blue Ice boost juice, which I was trialling for Andy. Despite its name the liquid was clear rather than blue and smelt really sweet. Fishing at 9m, I initially thought I had made a mistake as most of those around me who started shorter, started better, whilst it took me 15mins to get my first fish. However, by regularly toss potting pellet I kept going for 90mins, pulling ahead of those that started short. It was steady, rather than hectic and when the swim started to die a switch to corn produced a couple more fish, before pushing out to 11m feeding pellet & corn and fishing corn that I had another run of fish.

By the half way stage my swim completely died, but it felt colder under the increased cloud cover and northerly breeze. I had started feeding meat short, which didn’t produce and the left hand margin, where I fed blue ice flavoured micros and corn only produced 1 fish. Mind you it did weigh 19lb 9oz, which beat my PB by 1oz.

During this mid match period, I was thinking I need to chuck the feeder, but resisted fully expecting the short lines to come to life. Eventually, I got the rod out of the holdall and promptly caught 7 carp on yellow 6mm so simple gofters and micros. Just feel I made this decision a bit too late and probably cost me 5th or maybe 4th in the match.

With just under 2hrs to go my margin line started to come to life, toss potting corn and micros fishing double corn, occasionally switching to the short meat line when the margin needed a rest. I know I pulled ahead of Ash Tomkins (p52) and Roy Worth (p55) during those last hours, however Simon Stacey (p60) won the section with 164-11, which was 3rd overall giving me the section money.


1-      179-  0 – Ash Blunt – p88 (HG)
2-      172-  0 – Joe McMahon – p70 (Ash)
3-      164-12 – Simon Stacey – p60 (HV)
4-      162-  0 – Dave Willmott – p89 (HG)
5-      156-  8 – Callum Dicks – p43 (HV)
6-      142-  7 – Ken Rayner – p49 (HV)

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