Monday, 31 January 2022

30/01/22 - Todber - Hillview

Weight - 49lb 13oz (12lb silvers)
Catch - 9 Carp, 8 Skimmers, 1 Tench
Weather - Frosty start and bright. Became breezy later.
Match - Wiltshire Angling Open (11 fished)

Originally this match was supposed to be on the top lake of Whiteposts, however when we arrived the water level was down nearly 2ft and the general feeling was that with 11 anglers fishing, it would be hard, particularly as we had another frost last night. So, it was decided to move the match to one half of Hillview, with all the good pegs in, well most of the good pegs.

I couldn’t believe it when I drew p46, which was the last peg to be included as we couldn’t put everyone on to fish. I wasn’t happy and I am in urgent need of a new drawing arm.

As I was setting up, Abi called me to say Poppy (my blue staffie) had caught a fish from the local brook whilst on their walk. When I asked how big, Abi cheekily responded ‘bigger than your last catch’! Not quite the reply I was expecting, but fair. The fish was in fact a little 3oz chub.

I started off looking for carp by the island and after 20mins I had no indications whilst everyone else was catching. A switch to the 14.5m line where I fed BMG boosted micros and a couple of bits of corn, fishing a BMG 4mm expander, I started to catch a few skimmers and a couple of small carp.

Hardly hectic, but at least I was catching, although I was falling behind virtually everyone. It was just a shame there wasn’t a silverfish pool, as I caught a 2lb tench on the pole, plus a near 3lb bream on the straight lead and corn to go with my skimmers.

My original swim was slowing so I set up a new swim off to my left at 16m, feeding micros and I found a few more carp, although with 90mins remaining the wind picked up, which also coincided with a carp snapping my rig above the hooklength as it rolled around in the landing net.

I tried by the island again without success so spent most of the last hour fishing down the left margin fishing meat as I felt it represented my best option to try and catch up. Unfortunately, I only had 2 carp to finish with just shy of 50lb and 7th overall.

My next match will be the Winter League on Sunday and I am really hoping for a decent draw.

1st 110- 0 – Pete Neate – p51
2nd  92- 8 – Ian Willetts – p52
3rd  82- 8 – Mark Poppleton – p47
4th  75- 0 – Banger – p54

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