With nothing else on, I booked into the open at Summerhayes, I had to pick Scotty up in the morning as he had a heavy night! The match today was on Longs pond and there are more silvers than Sellicks so I was looking forward to a good day. There were around 20 anglers booked in and I managed to pull out peg 39!, the same peg I had the only other time I’ve fished Longs. I had around 26lb then and was hoping to do better today, the trouble is, it either does very well or crap.
I had quite a bit of room with nobody on my right and the peg is in a bit of a corner with a walkway/bridge to the left. The level was down quite a bit and I was hoping this would help my plan to fish down the track. I set up a Carpa 2 for fishing down the track at 10 metres, a Drennan Carp for fishing towards the walkway and a Trabucco dibber for fishing towards the island (although I was hoping I wouldn’t need this rig!). For bait I just had a few pints of soaked micros, corn and 4 and 6mm Bait Tech expanders.
The whistle went and I cupped in half a pot plus some corn on all three lines before starting down the track with a 4mm expander on the hook. I didn’t have to wait long for a bite and my first fish was a lovely little crucian. I then started catching decent skimmers, small carp, a nice tench plus a couple of rudd and roach. In the first hour I had 16 fish for the best part of 10lb and it was all going to plan, I’d only lost one skimmer and missed a couple of bites. I was ahead of the anglers around me, including Alvin who was two pegs along on my left (and had placed the usual £1 side bet).
The start of hour two was ok, with a couple more skimmers and a small carp but the swim was slowing. I cupped in some more feed by the walkway in readiness for trying it shortly. By the end of the second hour I’d only added seven more fish and some of them had been small roach, it was now really hot and the anglers around me were struggling like I was, it was time to try swim number two (by the walkway). I fully expected to catch straight away but couldn’t buy a bite here either! I briefly tried by the island but this was a waste of time too.
For the next three hours all I could get was the odd small roach, Alvin was getting some carp and I was sure he’d overtaken me (bye bye £1). Then out the blue I had a small carp from by the walkway, had they arrived? – nope! Back out at 10 metres I had another small carp and a small skimmer but it was hard going. I did manage two more carp (one foulhooked) from by the walkway to end with 32 fish. I knew it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough today, I wasn’t even sure I had 10lb!. Pete walked by with the scales and said they’d been bagging down the other end – great!.
I was last to weigh so started loading my gear in my car, quite a few people up our end didn’t bother weighing. Alvin had 19lb+ and I knew he’d won a £1 back with that. I caught up with the scales with five or six people left to weigh, 44lb was top and there was a 31lb and a couple of high 20’s. The only reason I was going to weigh was that Pete was paying two in the silvers pool today. There was a 10lb silvers weight and then Scotty had 15lb+ and I knew that was that. My silvers went a level 8lb and my carp weighed 6lb 1oz to give me a total of 14lb 1oz and I was well down with that.
Quite a disappointing day, the only good point was Scotty won the silvers yet again. Hopefully I’ll be able to fish the Thursday evening match so lets see if my luck changes then.
