After yesterday, I was hoping for better things on Longs today but first a cracking breakfast at the bowling club set us up for the day ahead. A decent turnout as always with 21 fishing today and after a coffee it was time for the draw, I was top of the list so first in the bucket and hoping to pull out 12, 13, 19 or failing that, near where I was last Sunday (well 31 as 32 wasn’t in). I stuck my hand in and pulled out……..36, which wasn’t in the script, it’s a peg I really don’t like although it can be a really good carp peg – great!
Glynn was my neighbour yet again and at this rate, people will start talking! He had Toby to his right on 33 and it would be really interesting to see how he did after his brilliant 30lb of skimmers from peg 19 the week before. If I’m honest, I thought it might just have been a real red letter day rather than the new norm so I’d be sticking with my maggot approach for now.
Looking down the lake from peg 36
I set up my usual 0.2 gram Bobbies to fish two lines at 10 metres, a top two line and then across at 13 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 wasting five minutes on the top kit line as per usual, out at 10 metres I began getting some little skimbobs and roach. Roy over on peg 9 got off to a good start netting several fish and I’d seen Nick on 5 land a couple of better skimmers. After two early carp, Toby started catching some nice skimmers and was carrying on from where he left off last week!
I was getting regular bites from blades and small roach but I just couldn’t catch any quality and it was the same for Glynn. Two hours in, I was really struggling and already thinking about going across, it wasn’t just me either and apart from Toby nobody I could see was catching much in the way of silvers (or carp for that matter!).
I’ve gone across to the island at 13 metres and while it wasn’t particularly frenetic, I was putting odd fish in the net including my first decent skimmer. Even at this relatively early stage, not only was it obvious Toby was going to win the silvers by a country mile, there was a very good chance he’d win the match outright as well! As there’s no double bubble at Summerhayes, I started to think if Toby did win then it wouldn’t take an awful lot to sneak into the silvers frame as Roy had slowed up after catching well early and as far as I could tell, nobody else was getting silvers regularly.
I was catching small roach interspersed with the odd slightly better one and also landed a couple of the inevitable carp including one little 8oz specimen that I thought was going to be big roach or hybrid! Jim Jenner on 38 had switched to fishing for silvers after struggling to catch carp and was getting some better skimmers and doing well. I had my second skimmer and was also getting the odd quality roach but could only seem to catch in spells (and hooking several carp didn’t help matters either).
Toby was still bagging and even landed a big skimmer/bream that was 4-5lb! Young McKenzie on peg 31 was catching carp well and would be there or thereabouts. At the all out, my clicker was reading 53 fish which averaging 1-2oz would go 5-6lb.
The scales started with Jim who weighed 8lb 3oz of silvers, Terry ‘The Toast’ on peg 1 had 21lb 10oz, Ben B on 3 weighed 7lb 8oz and then Nick P had 6lb 9oz of silvers. Roger C on 7 weighed 16lb 14oz and then Roy went into the second silvers spot with 6lb 14oz. Kev O on 11 weighed 3lb 6oz of skimmers, Alan J had 9lb 7oz and Martin A on 13 was the top weight so far with 32lb 4oz.
Martin A had 32lb 4oz on peg 13
Parker ‘The Pole’ on 15 had 4lb 7oz of silvers, Dan T next door weighed 3lb 3oz and then Ant K on 19 had 20lb 12oz (including 5lb 12oz of silvers). Bill ‘The Paste’ weighed 24lb 2oz on peg 21, Chris H on 23 chucked back and Hollywood on the next peg had 31lb 4oz before Oscar on 27 just pipped him with 31lb 7oz.
Big Bad Bob weighed 21lb 1oz and then McKenzie on 31 went into the lead with an excellent 51lb 2oz. Toby was next and his carp went 33lb 1oz before he added another fantastic bag of quality silvers weighing 27lb for a total of 60lb 1oz. Glynn had thrown back which just left me and I was sure I was going to fall short but my fish went 7lb 2oz which was actually second behind Jim who won the silvers by default.
McKenzie did well finishing second with 51lb 2oz of mainly carp
Toby won the match with 60lb 1oz which also included the top silvers weight of 27lb
I finished second in the silvers by default (and was only 20lb behind Toby!)
1 – Toby Burrell (Team Army) – 60lb 1oz
2 – McKenzie Wickham (Summerhayes) – 51lb 2oz
3 – Martin Addicott (Summerhayes) – 32lb 4oz
Silvers
1 – Jim Jenner (Summerhayes) – 8lb 3oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish) – 7lb 2oz
3 – Roy Hughes (Summerhayes) – 6lb 14oz
I picked up £35 for second in the silvers but was a long way off Toby’s brilliant weight, his last two nets of skimmers have been a bit of an eye opener and I’m sure there’ll be plenty of micros and expanders on side trays this coming weekend!
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 – Todber Manor
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
Check Out – My last match
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