The weekend arrived and with it, finally some decent weather, after a nice breakfast the day got off to a great start when Pete handed me £30 for having the best silvers weight of the year in 2023 with 45lb 7oz. Only 9 of us fishing today so plenty of room, I said to Zooner before the start I wanted to be down one of the arms (pegs 3-11 and 16-22) so of course sod’s law dictated I drew peg 12 at the top end! To be fair, I still fancied it as I’ve done well from there in the past and on Xmas Eve, Alex was second in the silvers with 9lb and I thought that would be a good weight today.
I set up a 4 x 12 Preston F1 Maggot for two lines at 10 metres plus a 0.2 gram Bobbie to fish at 13 and 14.5 metres to the island and also up the edge at 10 metres to my right where it was the same depth. The side tray for today contained maggots, disco pinkies and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark.
Pete got us underway and I fed all my lines before starting at 10 metres straight out, after around ten minutes, I had a lovely positive bite and struck into what felt like a decent skimmer. Shipping back it woke up a bit but still didn’t feel like a carp and a perch of a pound was a lovely fish to open my account.
Although not particularly frenetic, I added a couple of nice roach and felt I was doing okay as I hadn’t seen Nick on 19, Glynn on 16 or Alex on 10 to my right catch any silvers yet! I switched to my other 10 metre swim in the open water which I’d fed a little more positively but never had an indication there. Back out in front, the rest had done it some good as I’ve caught two skimmers to put me on 3lb+ after an hour and a half.
Glynn said McKenzie was getting a few and I’d seen Nick swinging in the odd roach but it looked like it was fishing quite hard. After resting my negative line again, I did have a bite but it turned out to be a small carp hooked under the chin so I fed both the 10 metre swims again and had a look up the edge. The float buried but after a lengthy scrap, a 7-8lb carp was returned to go and annoy someone else.
When the next bite resulted in another carp tearing off, that was enough of that, no indications at 10 metres and after a great start, I was now really struggling. It wasn’t just me either, Glynn was still blanking and Alex had only caught a couple of roach. I’d been feeding maggots across for three hours so added some sections and had my first look at 13 metres. The float settled and went straight under only for me to miss it but hopefully there were some fish there.
Famous last words! I then couldn’t get a bite there or at 14.5 metres, back to 10 metres met with the same result. I kept swapping round all my lines and an hour from the end, I’ve had a roach up the edge but then the next bite was a carp. Glynn finally got off the mark with a skimmer and had three more in quick succession. Nick was still catching roach and the odd skimmer fishing to the island so with thirty minutes left I’ve gone back across.
After a few minutes the float buried but another carp was the unwanted result, the next bite resulted in a better fish but it came off and on closer inspection, the maggot had gone over the point of the hook. I’m sure it was a decent roach or skimmer although it wouldn’t have helped much and I still had time to miss a bite and catch a roach but it was very much a case of too little, too late.
Zooner on peg 3 was first to weigh and had some decent skimmers for 5lb 2oz so I paid him my nugget, young McKenzie weighed 6lb 10oz to go into the lead and had done brilliantly wielding 16 metres for much of the match. Tom R had 6lb 5oz on peg 7 and the weights were very close (until to you got our end!), Alex weighed 3lb 1oz and then my 7 fish (1 perch, 2 skimmers and 4 roach) went 3lb 9oz.
Zooner on peg 3 had some decent skimmers for 5lb 2oz
McKenzie did well fishing long to finish second with 6lb 10oz on peg 5
Glynn’s skimmers weighed 2lb 15oz and then Nick had done well catching roach and skimmers for 7lb 10oz and last to weigh was Dan T on 24 who had 2lb 9oz.
Nick caught well on peg 19 to win with 7lb 12oz of skimmers and roach
1 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 7lb 12oz
2 – McKenzie Wickham (Summerhayes) – 6lb 10oz
3 – Tom Rattenbury (Summerhayes) – 6lb 5oz
Nick and me both stuck £2 in the pot for today and tomorrow as the Nugget-O-Meter reaches £40.
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
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Next up – Summerhayes
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
Check Out – My last match
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