My Sunday got off to a rubbish start when I somehow managed to ignore two alarms and woke up at 7:30 when I should have been eating my lovely breakfast at the bowling club at 7:00!!! After phoning Nick and apologising to Charlotte, I then phoned Pete and asked him to draw a peg for me if I wasn’t there in time.
Lots of rushing around then ensued and I arrived at Summerhayes only a few minutes late. It was on Longs today which has been fishing quite hard and although 18lb won the silvers last Sunday, 8-10lb has been enough to frame in recent weeks.
The draw got underway and quite a few of the pegs I fancied went early, then it was Nick’s turn and I jokingly said he’d be on peg 2 on ‘Suicide Straight’. He pulled out number 10 which can be okay and you can probably guess what’s coming next?! My name was called, I delved into the bucket and my ping pong ball had the number 2 on it, never really in doubt was it?
I had plenty of room with two empty pallets to my right and Roy Hughes was the next angler to my left on peg 5 and suggested we have a nugget on it. Although I didn’t really fancy my chances too much, ‘Cyanide’ can produce some decent silvers weights. I decided to just fish pinkies for bites and get my head down to see if I could do 8-9lb of small fish.
Rigs for today were a 0.1 gram Colmic Elsa for two lines at top four plus 11.5 metres angled towards the point of the island on the right and a 0.2 gram rig for across to the island at 13 metres. Lots of maggots, disco pinkies plus some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark groundbait on the side tray.
Pete got us up and running and I fed three lines with a little loose groundbait and a few pinkies before pinging a few maggots across. Starting short with a single pinkie, I had a bite first drop in from a tiny fish, next chuck I had a chunky roach followed by a lovely little 6oz crucian. Swapping between the two short lines and feeding a smidge of groundbait after every three or four fish, it was a bite every put in from 3-4oz skimmers, roach and a couple more crucians.
I could see Roy was catching really well and both Glynn on 8 and Nick were regularly netting fish. The second hour was very similar with several more skimmers, crucians and even a little 2oz tench added to the net. Bites slowed up on the short lines so I had my first look at 11.5 metres which resulted in another nice little run of skimbobs including a decent one.
It was really enjoyable fishing and it took over three hours before I hooked my first carp. I also tried across at 11.5 metres where I’d been pinging maggots and had a better 10-12oz skimmer but then pulled out of one next chuck. Of course it had to happen and carp started to become more of a nuisance. I kept swapping lines to try and avoid them but now couldn’t get a bite short so decided to start a new line 11.5 metres down the middle on my left.
After leaving it to settle for a bit, I hooked what felt like a decent skimmer but it came off as I shipped back. A couple of smaller samples followed before yet another carp tore off, snapping the hooklength in the process. With two hours to go I had my first look at 13 metres by the island and had a nice hybrid and some roach. For the remainder of the match, I swapped between the three longer lines, trying to avoid the carp and put the odd silver fish in the net.
With only five minutes left, I lost another carp that snapped me so chucked that top kit up the bank and went across with the 0.2 gram rig and had a nice roach followed by a 6oz hybrid to finish with a flourish. I ended up with 72 fish which at an average of 3oz apiece would hopefully give me somewhere around 12-13lb. Roy had slowed up towards the end but I still thought he’d done me.
The scales started with Dave Phillips on 39 who had a couple of carp for 7lb 1oz and then it was me, my fish went 14lb which was a lovely days fishing but I’d pulled out a few better ones which I thought might cost me today. Roy was next and when he pulled his net out, it looked like it was going to be close and it was, when the digital scales settled, Pete called it at 13lb 15oz!
A scary selfie I found on my phone!
I had a really enjoyable day with plenty of bites to weigh 14lb
Glynn had also done well with 9lb 14oz, Nick didn’t weigh and Mark Leahy on 12 had 43lb 2oz. Tom Thick went into the overall lead with 70lb 15oz on peg 27 and then Toby Burrell had 50lb 4oz which included a nice net of silvers weighing 11lb 12oz. Last to weigh was Rob C on 36 and he had two nets of carp for 84lb 12oz which was the top weight on the day.
Tom was second with 70lb 15oz from peg 27
Toby was third overall with 50lb 4oz which included 11lb 12oz of silvers
Rob C had the top weight on the day with 84lb 12oz
1 – Rob C (Summerhayes) – 84lb 12oz
2 – Tom Thick (Tom Thick Baits) – 70lb 15oz
3 – Toby Burrell (Team Army) – 50lb 4oz
Silvers
1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 14lb
2 – Roy Hughes (Summerhayes) – 13lb 15oz
2 – Glynn Wickham (Summerhayes) – 9lb 14oz
I had a nice pick up of £60 for winning the silvers and after just missing out by a few ounces on several occasions recently, it was nice for one to finally go my way. A really enjoyable match with plenty of bites which I wasn’t expecting when I drew this morning. Days like this are why I love my fishing so much, even after nearly 45 years of being on the bank, it continues to surprise me on a regular basis.
Thanks to £1’s from Roy Hughes, Tom Thick, Toby Burrell and Steve Collins the Nugget-O-Meter had a good week climbing to £445.
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 – Ash Ponds
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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