Todber Manor, The Report......

[Greenheart]

Well as the river was a bit out of sorts, Warmit (Steve) & I decided we would give Todber Manor, near Sturminster Newton a go. Neither of us had fished here before, but had heard some good reports from Twiddler & Mithrandir.
Arrived at the fishery at about 10am & went to the shop to buy our day tickets. The Tackle shop was excellent, well stocked & the staff were very helpful. Todber Manor consists of five lakes. A Match lake, a Speciemen lake that contains carp that average between 10lb - 30lb & Catfish to about 20lb, & three general lakes that contain most species including Barbel & Pike. We decided to take Mithandirs advice & fish Wadmill lake, that contains a good head of mixed species.
The lake looked perfect, not a breath of wind & nice & mild.

Steve set up a feeder rod & ledgered maggot over a small quantity of black groundbait.
I was eager to try out my new Okuma Interceptor Baitrunner reels (Don't tell the Wife...)

& set them up with 2.75lb TC Carp rods. One set up with a pineapple flavour pop-up boilie for Carp & the other with a ledgered Lamphry section for Pike.
Steve had a bite almost immediately & was smashed up by a good Carp.
He then started getting bites from nuisance fish & landed a small roach. We did'nt take a photo of this for the species hunt as we expected to get a lot more & hoped for a larger fish. Sadly this did not happen, as it started to rain & got very windy & cold.
Steve did get one more fish.

It looked very strange & was possibly a Crucian / Common Carp Hybrid. Not the usual golden bronze colour of a normal Crucian, but almost black with large irregular scales. Anyone got any ideas?

I was getting a few line bites, but very little else & the wind was getting stronger & stronger. I could'nt help smiling as I watched Steve struggle to hold his brolly down, but Steve was to have the last laugh.

Then right in the middle of a particularily gusty storm of rain, one of my bite alarms went off
I assumed it was due to the now gale force wind, but picked it up & struck anyway. The rod bent over & I was into a nice Common Carp of about 6lb - 7lb.

I Managed to get a good soaking as I tried to land it in the pouring rain & photograph it for my species hunt points.
I was glad to get back to the relative comfort of my brolly, but sadly this did not last for long. The wind suddenly changed direction. I held on as best I could, but the wind won

This was the sign we needed to call it a day as we were both soaked & freezing cold. However we had both achieved our objective of getting our first species hunt points of the year. Definately looking forward to summer though.........
P.S. Anyone got a spare Brolly they don't need anymore???

[mithrandir]

Nice report, shame you had the bad weather, we must meet up on a better day because I like the place.

looks like your first points this year cost you a new brolly!!

And that is one fancy looking Carp, is a "heinz" on the species hunt list??

Mike

[kiwimarty]

Nice report.

Kiwi.

[MRG2000]

Nice day out in the elements,cracking carp.......time for a new brolly me thinks....

[baitmaster]

well done ian nice report and a nice looking carp and well done warmits on your crucian
looks like you had a bit of wind trouble there

tightlines
kevin

[pingu]

nice report there guys, looked interesting conditions

[wellyfish]

nice report

[Norfolkboy]

Nice one Ian, looks an interesting day to say the least.

Lovely carp there, looks in great condition

[Rob M]

Nice report Ian, you two were brave today, it was horrendous! Well done on the carp

Rob

[fishypaul]

full marks on an entertaining read ian
well done both of you for putting up with the conditions, many wouldn't