Thankfully no oversleeping dramas on Sunday morning and I was able to enjoy a nice leisurely breakfast at the bowling club. A few more fishing today with 23 anglers booked in and among the myriad of stars present was none other than one of Torquay’s finest, Geoff ‘The Garlic King’ Young. It’s a little known fact that he was Michael Caine’s stunt double in Zulu although he wasn’t having the best of starts when he’d charged up the wrong battery for his electric barrow and then one of the wheels fell off!
The legend that is Geoff ‘Stop throwing those bloody spears at me’ Young
Pete got the draw underway and the golden peg was number 8 (not one I’d have particularly fancied for silvers). Nick was second on the list and pulled out 35, the same peg he had yesterday and then it was my turn and to continue the theme of drawing the same pegs, I got number 13 where I was last Sunday! One of the best silvers pegs on the lake and I certainly didn’t do it justice the previous week. Roy got the golden peg and on a rich vein of form, there was a good chance he’d be taking home a bumper payday but Toby ‘I’ll be back’ Burrell would be doing his best to stop him and was on the better peg in the shape of 33.
It was a gorgeous day
Shane Lee was on 14 and I had Nick Chedzoy to my right with Geoff next to him but thankfully he didn’t have any of his infamous stinky pellets with him this time. Something else he hadn’t brought with him, which he didn’t realise until he opened his holdall, was his pole! Nick came to the rescue and let him borrow his spare pole although I did try to warn him he might get it back in more sections than he started with!
Rigs and bait all had a very familiar feel to them (see previous Summerhayes posts for details!) and on the whistle I fed the usual lines in the same way (micros on two 11.5 metre lines and maggots across to the island).
On the left micros line with a 4mm expander, I started catching skimmers from 2-8oz and had a decent first hour with nine for around 2lb. I hadn’t seen Toby or Nick P catch much at this early stage and Nigel Bartlett who was on Cyanide Straight peg 4, even came for a walk and said he was only getting some little blades.
Going into the second hour, my bites started to fade so I tried a 2mm soft pellet and had a run of little skimbobs but no decent ones and with Toby starting to catch well I was already thinking of going across. I couldn’t really tell how Roy was doing but whenever I looked behind me to ship back, he seemed to be netting a fish! To make matters worse, Chedz was fishing long to the island with hard pellet for carp and caught several nice skimmers.
A further half an hour passed with my catch rate going in the wrong direction and when I couldn’t get a bite on maggots over the micros, I couldn’t resist it any longer and added the 14.5 metre section to go across. To be honest, apart from a few roach, it’s not really happened and I was beginning to get that deja vu feeling of cocking up a brilliant silvers peg!
Sticking the dolly butt on resulted in a few more roach but still no skimmers although as far as I could tell, apart from Toby, nobody was bagging on silvers. Shane provided the mid match entertainment when he hooked a big 2lb+ eel and it took him a while to persuade it to reverse into his landing net!
I even got the 16 metre section out again but it was hard work for little reward with just more roach. Terminator Toby was already out of sight and on his way to yet another win but most of the silvers anglers looked to be struggling so I decided to get my head down and just keep putting something in the net. I came back to a more comfortable 14.5 metres and was letting them have some maggots. It was nice steady fishing really and I began getting the odd better roach along with some 4oz hybrids and even had a decent skimmer. Surprisingly, I’ve only hooked one carp all day (I wasn’t complaining though!).
On the whistle, I’d clicked 70 fish plus some tiny roach and motherless minnows but hadn’t really got a clue what weight I had (nothing new there then!), Chedz reckoned I had 15lb but I knew I didn’t have that, maybe just scraping double figures perhaps. As I took some of my kit back to the car, Roy said he’d had a few but Nigel B had done better than him.
The scales started with Jim J on 37 who set the pace with 60lb 10oz, Scott T weighed 36lb 8oz on 39 and Dan T had 6lb 6oz of silvers which included a near 5lb bream! Nigel was next and weighed a brilliant 13lb 13oz caught mainly on expanders. Big Bad Bob had 24lb 10oz on peg 6 and then Roy did well on 8 with 11lb 15oz but wouldn’t be taking home the bonus pot for once.
Jim weighed 60lb 10oz on peg 37
Nigel did well on Cyanide Straight with 13lb 13oz of skimmers and roach
Rob B had shot off to watch the footy and his silvers net went 7lb 14oz, Jeff ‘You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off’ weighed 42lb 9oz and managed to return Nick’s pole with the same number of sections it started off with. Chedz had 48lb 11oz which included 6lb 3oz of silvers and then my fish went 12lb 9oz which put me second for now but with Glynn and Nick P admitting to 10lb and Toby saying he had 20lb, I didn’t think I’d be framing today.
I had lots of bites for 12lb 9oz
Shane had 51lb 10oz which included that big eel and a roach getting on for a pound, Martin A on 17 had 4lb 8oz of silvers and then his carp net went over so was knocked back to 80lb but still put him in the lead for now. Mark L didn’t weigh on 19 and then Glynn had done well on 21 with 11lb 4oz of skimmers.
Martin Addicott weighed 84lb 8oz on peg 17
Chris W weighed 44lb 1oz on 24, Bill ‘The Paste’ had 43lb 3oz, Roger C on 30 weighed 22lb 4oz and then Heardy had 3lb of silvers before he also struggled to lift his carp net out and he too exceeded the limit and was knocked back which meant he was second with 83lb. Toby ‘The Pellet Master’ had another lovely net of skimmers for 22lb and he’d struggled in the first and last hours! Nick was next and weighed 9lb 10oz of silvers and Chris M on 36 had chucked back.
Heardy was second on the day with 83lb
Toby did it again, this time with 22lb of pellet caught skimmers
1 – Martin Addicott (Summerhayes) – 84lb 8oz
2 – Martin Heard (Tiverton) – 83lb
3 – Jim Jenner (Summerhayes) – 60lb 10oz
Silvers
1 – Toby Burrell (Team Army) – 22lb
2 – Nigel Bartlett (Summerhayes) – 13lb 13oz
3 – Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish) – 12lb 9oz
I sneaked into third place and picked up £25 to round of a nice weekend but once again was miles off the winning weight, perhaps I should just take micros and expanders to force myself to fish them all match! It’s still nice fishing though with lots of bites and after Toby’s 22lb, there were five really close silvers weights with only a couple of skimmers between them.
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
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