To finish off the long weekend we were back at Summerhayes and back on Sellicks which is my favourite lake. Nick very kindly provided the bacon sarnies in the morning and wouldn’t accept any payment so we bunged a few more quid in the charity pot.
Eighteen fishing today, the golden peg was number 12 and when my name was called out, I pulled out the bonus ball. For company I had Karl on my left and Martin A was on 11, elsewhere Zooner was on 9 and Nick was down on 21.
On the whistle I fed two lines at 10 metres straight out and 11.5 angled to the right with groundbait and as per usual began feeding a few maggots across to the island. I didn’t get off to a very good start, awful in fact, with a carp first chuck and then next put in, foul hooked another which went berserk! In the blink of an eye it had gone under my pallet and I had elastic everywhere, I could see my keepnet moving before it just went solid. I had to move my side trays and grab the elastic. The float was stuck in the mesh of my net and the tip had snapped – great! The fish was long gone and there was a scale on the hook.
After that pantomime and while I was setting up a replacement rig, Jess landed several nice skimmers. When I got myself sorted for the second time, I started getting the odd decent skimmer from the 10 metre line but the right hand swim was a bit of a flop. I had been toss potting in a little groundbait on both lines but decided to just loose feed maggots as I was catching most of my fish either on the drop or as the rig settled.
Despite making some inroads into Zooner’s early lead, he was still catching well and always seemed to be several fish ahead. Martin was getting some rather lumpy carp and Mark Leahy on 10 was also landing fish on a regular basis. With around 2.5 hours to go, I’ve had my first look across but it was a bit of an anti-climax, I was getting bites but only from small roach and a solitary 4oz skimbob.
From doing alright, I was now struggling and with both Jess and Nick still getting skimmers, I needed to try something else so came back on the shorter lines. By swapping between the two, I’ve had a good spell catching some big skimbobs but with around twenty minutes to go, I hooked two carp on the trot at 11.5 metres and then another two at 10 metres so that was enough of that.
Back across to the island, a nice roach first chuck was encouraging and then things got even better when next put in I’ve had a 2lb skimmer. It wasn’t third time lucky though when I’ve hooked a carp that tore off and snagged me solid. I had to pull for a break and the rig came back in a right mess, with just a couple of minutes left, I chucked that top kit up the bank and quickly shipped across with the other rig which was well over depth, the float buried and on the strike a decent skimmer flew out the water.
I carefully shipped back and netted it after the whistle to finish with 54 fish but I wasn’t sure it would be enough to frame as Jess and Nick had both done well and I didn’t how they’d done further down the lake.
The scales started with Jacko on peg 2 and he said they’d struggled for silvers, he weighed 46lb 7oz of carp and 7lb 8oz of skimmers, Rob B on 3 had 6lb 9oz of silvers, Ian ‘Hollywood’ Williams weighed 87lb 9oz of carp on peg 5 to go into the lead and Toby Burrell next door had 79lb 6oz.
Jacko weighed 53lb 15oz on peg 2
Ian ‘Hollywood’ Williams had 87lb 9oz on peg 5
Toby weighed 79lb 12oz on peg 6
Dean on peg 7 weighed 22lb 3oz and then Jess had a brilliant net of quality skimmers and roach for 18lb 1oz and I thought I’d be just short of that. Mark Leahy went to front of the pack with an excellent 108lb 15oz but his lead didn’t last long as Martin weighed 124lb 2oz which included a fish of 10-12lb. Then it was my turn and Pete called it at 21lb 7oz so those late fish had been crucial but it still might not be enough for a bumper payday with Nick on 21 and Glynn on 23 left to weigh.
Jess had a cracking net of silvers for 18lb 1oz
Mark weighed 108lb 15oz on peg 10
Martin went into the lead with 124lb 2oz
I weighed 21lb 7oz of silvers but would it be enough?
Karl had 26lb 4oz, Pete E on 14 weighed 75lb 7oz, then Bob, Bill, Pete S and Lee didn’t weigh. Nick was next and had a nice net of silvers for 16lb 7oz, Kev went into third spot 95lb 4oz and Glynn had chucked back.
Pete weighed 75lb 7oz on peg 14
Nick had 16lb 7oz of silvers on peg 21
Kev took third place with 95lb 4oz
1 – Martin Addicott (Summerhayes) – 124lb 2oz
2 – Mark Leahy (U-ZIT Bait Innovations) – 108lb 15oz
3 – Kev Osborne (Summerhayes) – 95lb 4oz
Silvers
1 – Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish) – 21lb 7oz
2 – Jess Jordan (Summerhayes) – 18lb 1oz
3 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 16lb 7oz
Back at the results I picked up £56 for winning the silvers plus £150 from the golden peg, what a lovely end to the weekend! The Nugget-O-Meter went up by £11 (pounds from Nick and me plus £4 each for breakfast and a squid from Zooner), the total is now £228 and climbing nicely.
There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling
Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here
And if you could spare five minutes to leave a nice review on Amazon, it would be very much appreciated.
Next up – Summerhayes
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
Check Out – My last match
