Every year there’s a memorial match held at Summerhayes to remember some of the anglers we’ve sadly lost including Clive Cunningham, Charlie Barnes, Ray Wickham, John Proctor, Jeff Sparkes and Roger Russell who only passed away recently. It’s silvers only and always well attended and today there were 20 anglers on Sellicks including Zooner who presented me with a dinosaur baseball cap but it was rather a snug fit so either it was kiddies size or my head is too big!
Roy welcomed everyone and gave a nice little speech before it was time for the draw, as always I fancied the pegs on the far side with my favourite number 16, top of my wish list. When my name was called out, it was still in the bucket and when I looked at my ping pong ball, there was a 6 on it but unfortunately not a 1 in front! Still I was happy enough as it’s a decent area and for company I had the legend that is Parker ‘The Pole’ next door on peg 5 and the film star looks of Ian ‘Hollywood’ Williams the other side.
Rigs for today were a Preston Innovations F1 Maggot to fish two lines at 10 metres down the middle plus a couple of little 0.2 gram floats for the far side at 14.5 metres. The side tray was nice and simple with lots of maggots and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark groundbait.
Pete got us underway and I fed groundbait on the two 10 metre lines and pinged a few maggots across to the island. Before I’d even finished feeding Alex Kerr down on peg 4 had two big leaping skimmers to get off to a flying (pun intended) start.
It was rather more sedate for the rest of us and it took 25 minutes before I had my first bite from a roach. Swapping between the two 10 metre lines, I had two more roach and a decent skimmer during the remainder of the first hour and then adding a section and fishing past the feed resulted in a few more skimmers and roach.
It was fishing really hard on our side and from what I could see there were only odd skimmers being caught. As we reached the two hour mark, it was time to have my first look across, there was a bit of a naughty wind and although I could hold the pole steady, it was making my loose feeding a bit haphazard! I started catching a few fish, roach, skimmers and a 4oz perch but had to keep trying different areas along the far bank to get bites.
Thankfully I wasn’t having too many carp problems although the same couldn’t be said for Hollywood who was having a torrid time of it and even resorted to fishing for them as there were medals for the top three carp weights on the day. At one point I went to move the rig and there was a fish on! From the way it was fighting it felt like an eel and they’re normally a decent size here so I was taking my time with it, I was half expecting a small foulhooked carp but it was an eel around 1.5lb hooked in the side, a very welcome bonus!
Bank walkers reported it was fishing hard apart from Adie Bishop and Stu White on 14 and 16 who were both catching well and saying the other was doing better. I continued getting the odd fish and even added further variety to the net with a 2oz rudd although I did pull out of a few and missed several bites.
The last hour I didn’t put much in the net while Alex had three more decent skimmers and on the whistle I’d finished up with 30 fish which I hoped might just get into double figures. As I was packing up, Nick came past, he’d been carped out and only had a couple of roach. The wind continued to be a pain and blew one of Parker ‘The Pole’s’ sections in the pond but thankfully he managed to retrieve it.
First to weigh was Bill ‘The Paste’ who had 3lb 10oz on peg 1, Pete next door had four decent skimmers which went 5lb 7oz, Charles Halliday on 3 was fishing his first match on a commercial and although he struggled a bit on the silvers front, he did have a nice crucian of 1lb 7oz and 28lb 13oz of carp.
Bill ‘The Paste’ had 3lb 10oz on peg 1
Pete weighed 5lb 7oz
Charles enjoyed his first match on a commercial catching 28lb 13oz of carp
Alex had caught some big skimmers for 8lb 11oz, Parker ‘The Pole’ weighed 2lb 11oz of silvers and 6lb 6oz of carp and then my fish went 11lb 12oz. Hollywood had 3lb of skimmers and 27lb 14oz of carp and then Zooner on peg 10 weighed 6lb 13oz which included a nice perch. Nick P had chucked back and then Tom R on 12 weighed 4lb 8oz.
Alex on peg 4 weighed 8lb 11oz
Parker ‘The Pole’ had 2lb 11oz of skimmers and roach
I caught skimmers, roach, a perch, a rudd and an eel for 11lb 12oz
Zooner had 6lb 13oz which included a nice perch
Mark S didn’t weigh on 13 and then Adie went into the lead with 15lb 4oz of skimmers, Stu was next and when he pulled his net out, it was going to be very close and he’d just done enough with 16lb 1oz. Dave Phillips on 17 had 34lb 6oz of carp and a tench of 1lb 3oz which would earn him the bonus £30 for the biggest tinca. Roger C had 16lb 3oz of carp and 2lb of silvers and then Roy weighed 7lb 9oz of skimmers on peg 19.
Adie had a nice net of skimmers for 15lb 4oz
Stu White had the top weight on the day with 16lb 1oz
Dave P had the best tench of the day
Roger C had 16lb 3oz of carp and 2lb of silvers on peg 18
Roy had 7lb 9oz of skimmers and roach
Alan J had 11lb 11oz of carp and 4oz of roach, Big Bad Bob on 22 weighed 24lb 7oz of carp and with just two pegs left to weigh I was still hanging onto third spot but Toby was next and admitting to 10lb so I knew he’d have more than that and he did but 11lb 9oz put him in fourth place, last to weigh was Dan T on 24 who had 5lb 13oz.
Alan J had 11lb 11oz of carp
Bob A weighed 24lb 7oz of carp on peg 22
The ever consistent Toby did well again, finishing fourth with 11lb 9oz of silvers
Dan T on 24 weighed 5lb 13oz of skimmers
Then all the anglers enjoyed a lovely BBQ provided by Pete and Sally who also donated all the match fees to the junior fishing club. Roger Cunningham always buys medals in honour of his brother Clive and these are presented to the top three silvers and carp weights plus a bonus heaviest fish (this year tench). I was proud to called up in third place to receive my bronze medal (to go with my winners medal from two years ago) and I also picked up £45. Photo courtesy of Roy Hughes*
Sally doing the honours with the medal*
My dinosaur hat and bronze medal
Framers and medal winners (from left to right), Charles Halliday, Toby Burrell, Alex Kerr, me, Stu White, Dave Phillips and Adie Bishop
1 – Stu White (Summerhayes) – 16lb 1oz
2 – Adie Bishop (Summerhayes) – 15lb 4oz
3 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 11lb 12oz
4 – Toby Burrell (Team Army) – 11lb 9oz
5 – Alex Kerr (Summerhayes) – 8lb 11oz
Top three carp weights
1 – Dave Phillips (Taunton) – 34lb 6oz
2 – Charles Halliday (Summerhayes) – 28lb 13oz
3 – Ian Williams (Summerhayes) – 27lb 4oz
Biggest tench
Dave Phillips (Taunton) – 1lb 3oz
A lovely day and despite it being quite hard going for many, it’s always a pleasure to fish to remember those no longer with us, one of my favourite matches of the year.
£2 each from Nick P and me plus nuggets from Parker ‘The Pole’ and Zooner (and there’s one still to come from Hollywood) saw the Nugget-O-Meter reach a new total of £330.
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 – River Parrett
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
#sponsoredpost #affiliatelinks
