The following day we were back at Summerhayes with the match on Longs again and another great turnout of 24 (including Karl Aplin who I haven’t seen for ages). I was third on the list this week and delved into the bucket hoping to pull out pegs 12, 13 or 19 and came close with number 11 which I was fairly happy with. Nick drew 32 which has been really good for silvers in recent matches and ‘The Pellet Master’ (Toby) was on 13 and would be hard to beat from there. Unusually, I didn’t have Glynn next to me this week, instead I’d have to suffer the dulcet tones of Summerhayes Scouse Sensation, Craig Lyttle, all match – great!
I set up my usual 0.2 gram Bobbies to fish two lines at 11.5 metres and across to the island at 14.5 metres. The side tray for today contained red maggots, disco pinkies, micros, 4mm expanders and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark.
On the whistle I fed two lines with some micros and pinged a few maggots across, although a rather tricky wind blowing straight at me made my catapulting a bit haphazard. I started on the left hand 11.5 metre line with a soft pellet and after a few minutes bumped a fish before foul hooking a carp that thankfully came off shortly after.
My next bite saw me get off the mark with a decent skimmer followed by a little 2oz version and I also lost what felt like a better fish which I don’t think was hooked in the mouth. After an hour I had three better skimbobs and a few smaller ones but was already a long way behind Toby who had six. Trying double maggot over the micros resulted in a nice skimmer first chuck but then I lost a leaper next put in.
I managed a couple more skimmers on maggot but could see Nick catching quite well fishing long and I was itching to go across to the island where I’d been pinging maggots for nearly three hours. It was quite slow going and with the wind getting worse I was really struggling to feed with the catapult and basically spraying maggots all over the place!
I was getting the odd nice roach but it seemed like every time I looked behind me, Toby was netting a skimmer! To be honest I was fishing like a right clampit, I pulled out of two decent fish where one of the maggots has gone over the point of the hook, continued to try and feed using the catty when a little toss pot would have been so much better and then the catapult elastic snapped!
I did have a spare but the elastic wasn’t man enough to get the maggots anywhere near so had to spend 10 minutes repairing the original (when I should have just stuck that toss pot on!). Despite all that, I actually started to catch quite well including the odd skimmer. I’d been feeding (or trying to!) two areas across and the last half an hour was brilliant, I had a decent hybrid followed by a leaper and then moved to the left and had two nice skimmers in as many chucks. I also foulhooked a fish just before the whistle that I thought wasn’t a carp but it woke up and the hook pulled out anyway, much to Craig’s delight.
Toby was admitting to 15lb (so probably more) and I knew my 47 fish wouldn’t go anywhere near that. As always the scales began at the top end and Rog C on 37 weighed 10lb 13oz, Karl had 15lb 14oz and then ‘Cyanide Straight’ lived up to it’s name with only a couple of people bothering the scales.
Craig couldn’t repeat his heroics from last week and had to settle for 12lb 7oz and then I weighed 12lb 13oz of silvers and chucked back a couple of carp. Shane Lee on my left was the early overall leader with 51lb 3oz before Toby once again had a cracking net of skimmers for 20lb 3oz. Alan J on 14 did well with 31lb 14oz of carp, Dave Romain weighed 34lb 3oz, Oscar on 18 had 13lb 11oz, Jim J weighed 7lb 11oz and then Hollywood had an enjoyable day on 21 catching 44lb 13oz of carp.
Despite fishing like a clampit I still had a nice day to weigh 12lb 13oz of skimmers and roach
Shane had 51lb 3oz which included some lumps
Toby once again proved he’s the man to beat with another winning net of silvers, this time weighing 20lb 3oz
Hollywood had 44lb 13oz and looked gorgeous in the photo with the daffodils bringing out the sparkle in his eyes!
Big Bad Bob had 17lb 8oz, Glynn weighed 8lb 5oz of silvers which included two tench, Craig M on 27 weighed 3lb 3oz of silvers, Nigel Bartlett had 4lb 11oz and then Steve Collins actually managed to stay in the UK long enough to go into the lead with 57lb 7oz. Nick had a level 10lb of silvers, Martin A didn’t weigh on 33, Scott Thomas came close with 56lb 6oz and then last but not least was Bill ‘The Paste’ who completed a very tight frame with 55lb 8oz and less than 2lb had separated the top three!
Steve ‘Judith Chalmers’ Collins stayed in the country long enough to win with 57lb 7oz
Nick was third in the silvers (and nearly smiled) with 10lb from peg 32
1 – Steve Collins (Summerhayes) – 57lb 7oz
2 – Scott Thomas (Summerhayes) – 56lb 6oz
3 – Bill Hopping (Summerhayes) – 55lb 8oz
4 – Shane Lee (Summerhayes) – 51lb 3oz
Silvers
1 – Toby Burrell (Team Army) – 20lb 3oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish) – 12lb 13oz
3 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 10lb
Another really close match with some decent weights given that it’s still only February and the weather is very unsettled. I picked up £39 for second but had made a right mess of it today as I’d pulled out of 5 or 6 decent skimmers but then again others lost fish as well.
Nick and me added £2 each (for yesterday and today) to the charity pot which now stands at £88.
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 – Acorn
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
Check Out – My last match
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