On Sunday it was back to Summerhayes with the match on Longs this week. Although it had been a few degrees warmer overnight, I still thought it might be quite tricky today with around 8lb a good silvers weight. Another decent turnout of 18 anglers and the bonus ball was peg 11 today, when it was my turn, I pulled out 32 on the track, it’s a great silvers peg but you are looking over your shoulder for cars all day! Nick was also along the track on 26 and Parker ‘The Pole’ was down on 21.
I set up my usual 0.2 gram Bobbies to fish two lines at 11.5 metres, a top two line and then across at 14.5 metres. The side tray for today contained red maggots, disco pinkies and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark.
On the whistle I fed all my lines before having a quick go short but with no indications, I didn’t stay on it long. Out to 11.5 metres and I had a bite from a little 2oz skimbob first chuck, a decent roach followed and then I hooked a 5lb carp that thankfully behaved itself. Then on the next put in I had a 10oz skimmer and was off to a good start.
I could see Hainsey over on peg 4 catching lots of small fish and Bill ‘The Soft Pellet’ Hopping on the bonus peg (11) netting some decent skimmers, so already it looked like it was fishing better than I thought it was going to. Although I was getting fairly regular bites on double pinkie by swapping between the 11.5 metre lines, I was catching mainly 1-2oz roach so tried a dead maggot and a pinkie which resulted in a nice skimmer straight away but then the next fish was carp number two!
As we approached the halfway point, Glynn who was on peg 9, came for a wander and said Bill was catching some decent skimmers on pellet, I was still getting quite a few small fish but not many that required the net so decided to have my first look across where I’d been pinging maggots since the start.
Typically, after being nice and calm at the beginning, the wind was now howling up the straight so I went over at 14.5 metres to see if I could control the pole. First drop in, the float buried and I was into a 6oz hybrid, next chuck I had a small roach and was getting lots of bites. Tiny fish were being a bit of a pain so I tried double maggot and it worked a treat. I started catching some chunky roach that I was netting to be sure along with the odd skimmer, hybrid and even a nice rudd.
It was just getting better and better although I did pull out of two or three skimmers where one of the maggots has gone over the point of the hook and I really should have stepped up from a size 20 F1 Pellet to an 18 or even a 16. As far as I could tell, Bill had slowed up but Toby down on 19 looked to be catching well.
I normally use a clicker to keep a count of the better fish I catch but today I was getting a lot of small fish which I don’t click plus a fair few 2-4oz roach and I ended up not really using it today. With an hour to go I decided to click everything to give me an idea of my catch rate, I had 11 fish in thirty minutes which included three cracking roach that probably went 1.5lb between them plus a 12oz skimmer and a 6oz hybrid. The last half an hour was similar and just before the all out I hooked a better fish which turned out to be a pound plus hybrid! In that last sixty minutes, I had 23 fish for around 6lb, just lovely fishing.
I packed up and went to watch the weigh in, Nick Veale had 24lb 3oz on 38, Dan T on peg 1 weighed 22lb 8oz and then Hainsey had 7lb 10oz of silvers from peg 4. Roger C had 8lb 1oz on 7 and then Glynn chucked back before Bill on 11 went into the silvers lead with some decent skimmers for 11lb 1oz and Craig L had 45lb 15oz of carp despite thinking the match finished half and hour earlier than it did!
Bill ‘The Pellet’ had 11lb 1oz of silvers
Craig ‘Who needs six hours anyway’ Lyttle had 45lb 15oz
Roy Hughes on 14 had done well with 13lb of silvers on the waggler, Martin A weighed 32lb of carp and then Toby B on 19 had a brilliant 30lb 10oz of skimmers on soft pellet. Steve P didn’t weigh, Hollywood on 24 went into the overall lead with 52lb 11oz, Nick weighed 6lb 13oz of silvers, McKenzie had 6lb 10oz on 28 and Kev O on the next peg weighed 24lb 2oz.
Roy had a nice net of silvers for 13lb on the waggler
Toby had a fantastic 30lb 10oz of skimmers (and got a kiss for his efforts!)
Ian ‘Hollywood’ Williams had the top weight on the day with 52lb 11oz
Then it was me and I had 17lb 13oz of silvers plus three carp I chucked back, Alan J weighed 4lb 10oz of silvers and then last but definitely not least was Big Bad Bob A on 36 who had 36lb 12oz which was third on the day.
I had a lovely days fishing to weigh 17lb 13oz
1 – Ian Williams (Tiverton) – 52lb 11oz
2 – Craig Lyttle (Summerhayes) – 45lb 15oz
3 – Bob Ayres (Summerhayes) – 36lb 12oz
Silvers
1 – Toby Burrell (Team Army) – 30lb 10oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish) – 17lb 13oz
3 – Roy Hughes (Summerhayes) – 13lb
I picked up £28 for second in the silvers and really enjoyed that, I had loads of bites and probably should have had nearer to 25lb but would still have been miles off Toby’s excellent weight which is hopefully a good sign for the future.
Rob Cox joined us at breakfast and kindly donated £3, Craig Lyttle also added a pound (cheers mate) and a squid from Parker ‘The Pole’ saw the Nugget-O-Meter climb to £72.
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
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