Ivy House – Fish South Silvers Qualifier – 26th October 2024

I really enjoyed fishing a few qualifiers for the various silvers events last year and was looking forward to having another go, starting with a trip up to Ivy House along with Nick and Norts. We arrived in good time and had a lovely breakfast in the on-site cafe before collecting some bait. As we waited for the draw, the car park began to fill up with a formidable array of top silvers anglers including the winner of this competition last year, Mikey Williams, Paul Holland (who qualified from this match last year), Callum Dicks, Rich Reynolds, Andy Cranston, Tommy Hillier, Dave Willmott, Stu White and Chris Telling, to name a few!

The last two qualifiers I fished here, roach weights won from Willow but with the lakes quite coloured, some of the regulars were saying that Old Match Lake was the place to be with skimmer weights expected to win. I pulled out number 8 on OML which was the end peg on the bank in front of the cafe/shop. It looked really nice with an aerator to my left and a bit of a bowl to the right, there were some silvers topping along with the odd carp mooching about. Chris Telling was on my left and Paul Holland was opposite on peg 11.

Plumbing up there was nice depth around 4ft and I set up four rigs, top kit to hand, four sections, 11.5 and 13 metres. Maggots, casters, disco pinkies, worms and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark on the side tray today.

On the whistle I fed all my lines and then started on the top kit with single maggot and had a little 2oz skimbob first chuck to get me up and running. I was getting the odd little roach but also missing a few bites and as I’d seen Chris and Paul net a couple of better fish, I had a look on the top four line. More roach followed and I began catching the odd little skimmer along with two better ones around 8-10oz although rather annoyingly, I also pulled out of two as well.

I then foul hooked a 3lb carp on the drop which charged about ruining the short lines so I refed them and went long. To be honest after leaving it to settle for over an hour I was expecting it to be good but it was hard going. I was having to wait for bites but could only catch little roach or skimmers and despite trying double maggot, caster and worm it didn’t improve the stamp.

As Paul was right in my line of sight, I could see he was still catching well and on for a good weight. I probably spent around an hour on the longer line for not very much and I obviously haven’t got that right. Back on the top four, I’ve had a really good spell with more roach and five better skimmers although I did have a leaper come off. A couple of times, it’s gone quiet and I should have known what was coming next before a carp spoilt the party and one tore off snapping the elastic in the process. I had another identical rig but as is often the case, it’s never quite the same.

Despite trying 11.5 and 13 metres several times, by far my best line was the top four. A little strung out 0.1 gram shallow rig resulted in some chunky roach and a 4oz hybrid before I spent the the last 15 mins on the depth rig and had three decent skimmers to finish strongly.

I ended up with 96 fish and had really enjoyed it, I thought it might be close between Chris and me although I knew I was a long way behind Paul. The scales started on our side and as they worked their way along the bank 23lb 7oz was leading and I knew I didn’t have that. Chris weighed 14lb 2oz and then my fish went 17lb 12oz, the lad on peg 10 had 10lb 14oz and then Paul weighed a brilliant 27lb 8oz.

There were several close weights, Callum had 15lb 4oz, Mikey just pipped him with 15lb 5oz and then Nick had done well on 17 with 13lb 3oz. Back at the results and the top weight on Willow was Jason Crump with 17lb 15oz which meant Paul had qualified for the final again to top off a great week where he’d also won the two day festival at Redhill.

I was well chuffed to pick up £60 for third on my lake but I definitely didn’t get it right today, especially the longer lines although I don’t think I could have caught on the top four all day as it felt like it needed resting. It’s really nice fishing and I’ll try and get a ticket for another qualifier here.

Old Match Lake
1 – Paul Holland (Match Focus) – 27lb 8oz
2 – Adam Lee (Ivy House) – 23lb 7oz
3 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 17lb 12oz

Willow
1 – Jason Crump (Ivy House) – 17lb 15oz
2 – Dave Willmott (Ivy House) – 15lb 13oz
3 – Rob Williams (Ivy House) – 15lb 11oz

Norts donated a very generous £10 to the Nugget-O-Meter which jumped up to £464.

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