Tony Rixon's days out: Todber manor silver,s league, final round.

Saturday, 6 January 2018

Todber manor silver,s league, final round.

I never fished this series due to clashes earlier on, but I managed to get into this match as Bob gullick couldn't make it, and as he wasn't doing to well anyway, it was a case of just fishing for myself then, (no change there). I travelled on my own as Jason couldn't get in and we never had a dog sitter so Judith stated home,
I found myself listening to radio 2 with Tony Blackburn doing his sounds of the sixties, and I was singing along, Christ I must be getting old I New the words to most of the songs, aaaargh.
I was parked outside poppins cafe in Gillingham just before the 8am opening, shame it never opened till 8.30, so that's a big zero on the score today, very disappointing, so I was ripped off in waitrose for a bacon roll instead.
Got to the fishery about 10 minutes before the draw so plenty of time, John candy was in charge of the draw bucket , and I got in quite early, and out came 68 on ash lake , fairly happy with it, only trouble is there seems to be less roach in here , so it was to be primarily a skimmer day, for company I had Dave Roper on 66 and local boy Ben dukes on 70. Good company then. The wind was blowing right to left. And it was freezing, so I put the Brolly up as a windbreak, and I'm glad I did .
Only two rigs today, a .5g as4 for the short line, 2+2 and a .6g drennan wire stem pattern (can't remember the pattern) for 9 mtrs, due to the wind that was as far as I intended going, ready with plenty of time.

Pete neate shouted the all in, and I cupped in two balls of groundbait on both lines , and began on the short line, it took a while to get a bite and that was a plippy roach, I gave it 40mins but with only another missed bite I picked up the heavier rig and went into the 9 mtr line, I couldn't see Ben but Dave had already had three skimmers to my left, but I soon had a couple, and I was getting indications most put ins, I was catching a few but was always behind Dave at this stage, I persevered with the slightly heavier rig, but it didn't seem right, so I shipped out the short line rig, knowing I was going to be just about touching bottom, and I had two 1lb skimmers in as many out ins, I spent the rest of the match using this rig, didn't change the hook depth or anything, just topping up after every few fish, or if small roach became a nuisance, I kept feeding caster on the short line, where I did get 4 6oz skimmers, but most of the action was at 9mtrs, I honestly thought Dave had beaten me at the end as I reckoned he had 16 to 17lb and I had about 13. Dave weighed first and out 17.2 on the scales , then I went and plopped 18.12 on the weigh net, sorry dave,

It's been hard today as my weight was good enough for second, I was beaten by Chris albiston on peg 40 homeground, well done to him as the wind was straight in his face, very chilly I suspect.