The next day it was Sellicks at Summerhayes which I always look forward to although the forecast for the afternoon made grim reading with strong winds and heavy rain! Twelve fishing today including Toby ‘The Terminator’ Burrell who has been sent back in time by Skynet to dominate the silvers fishing at Summerhayes. On a blistering run of form, he’s completed his mission four times out of a possible five, could anyone stop the machine achieving his objective this week?
The golden peg was number 14 at the top end, not my favourite area for silvers at this time of year and I was hoping to draw on the far side, pegs 16-22 or failing that 4-11 would do. We were quite near the bottom of the list this week, Nick drew 6 which is a good area and then it was me and I only went and pulled out the bonus ball! Normally the pegs at the top end are pretty sheltered but of course, the wind was blowing down that way today!
To be honest, I still half fancied it when I got there although it was a long way over to the island and because of the fence behind me, I had to ship back parallel to it and break down twice, which would be a pain.
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 one 11.5 metre line with a nugget of groundbait and pinkies, the other with some micros and then flicked a few maggots across. Kicking off on the gb line, I thought it might be a very slow start and I wasn’t wrong! After half an hour I was still waiting for my first bite and from what I could see nobody was catching much, Nick over on peg 6 and Toby next to him had swung in a couple of roach but that was about it.
I finally had a bite after 40 minutes but of course missed it and then proceeded to strike into thin air on the next two as well! Switching to the micros line with double disco pinkie on the hook, a positive bite resulted in some elastic coming out and I would have sworn blind it was going to be a decent roach or maybe a perch but when I got down to the top kit, it somehow turned into a 3lb carp!
I was getting the very odd indication but after two hours, the sum total of my efforts was just two roach and that carp. The wind was getting worse and with Toby and Nick still catching quite well including a couple of skimmers, I felt I had to have a look across earlier than I would have liked. It wasn’t great to be honest, I missed a couple of bites before catching a nice roach but it was really hard work and once again I was struggling to feed with the catty.
Then just to add to the fun, it began lashing it down and combined with the increasing wind I was getting it right in the chops! Bites were very sporadic and although I was getting the odd nice roach, the lack of skimmers was worrying. Having to unship twice was doing my head in but then I started having problems with my sections getting stuck together and all in all, I wasn’t enjoying myself very much!
The weather was absolutely brutal and my hands were so cold, I even got a hook in my finger and didn’t notice (no sense, no feeling some might say!). I did manage one skimmer and another carp but even adding the dolly butt and going further across didn’t make any difference. With around an hour and a half to go, a couple of people decided enough was enough and headed for the warm and dry. Nick was now hooking and landing quite a few carp and I started to think if he framed, second in the silvers (behind the Terminator of course) was still up for grabs.
I tried adding a little toss pot and feeding a few maggots and a smidge of groundbait but that was a flop, starting a new line at top two plus two was equally unsuccessful and with the wind blowing the rig at me, it just felt all wrong. Back across I had one more roach just before the end but the scores on the doors for me (9 roach, 1 skimmer and 2 carp) didn’t make for pretty reading!
It took me longer than it should to pack up due to not being able to use my hands, I chucked some of my sodden kit in the car before going to watch the weigh in. Bill on peg 2 had gone, Steve Collins (who was probably wishing he was back in warmer climes) weighed 34lb 6oz on peg 4 and then Nick had done really well with 5lb 2oz of silvers plus 42lb 14oz of carp.
Nick turned to the ‘Dark Side’ and weighed 48lb
Toby ‘The Silvers Cyborg’ had some decent skimmers and was looking good to continue his winning run with 7lb 13oz. Big Bad Bob on 9 weighed 3lb 14oz, Kev O next door had an early bath, Oscar weighed 8lb 2oz and then my silvers went a massive 2lb 8oz and I chucked back my two accidentals.
Toby ‘The Unstoppable Silvers Machine’ Burrell won again, this time with 7lb 13oz
Chris M went into second place with 41lb 4oz from peg 16, Hollywood weighed 20lb 8oz, Lee S had 23lb 6oz (which included 3lb 10oz of silvers), Craig L on 21 weighed 10lb 6oz, Roger C had 5lb 12oz and then Dan T weighed 3lb 6oz of silvers on peg 24.
1 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 48lb
2 – Chris Morris (Summerhayes) – 41lb 4oz
Silvers
1 – Toby Burrell (Team Army) – 7lb 13oz
2 – Lee Smart (Summerhayes) – 3lb 10oz
Everything was that wet, the weigh sheet was soggy and the pen stopped working!
That was horrendous and whereas last Sunday, I fished like a clampit, I don’t actually feel like I did a lot wrong this week, I missed a few bites but landed everything I hooked. Just to sum up how things are going for me at the moment, after the results, Lee’s van was stuck on the grass so I went to help (hopefully earn some good karma and all that). Along with Steve C we pushed the van off the grass only for me to get mud sprayed all up the front of my jeans! To be honest I’d gone past caring by this point and it just added muddy to wet, cold and miserable!
Nick and me added £2 each (for yesterday and today) to the Nugget-O-Meter which now stands at £92.
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 – Summerhayes
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
Check Out – My last match
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Hi Jamie, do me a favour please and say Hi to Toby from Pat Kiely, we know each other from Germany. Many thanks 🙂
Will do Pat, should see him tomorrow