On Saturday we headed to Summerhayes for a silvers match on Sellicks, it’s probably my favourite lake although the fishing has been rather tricky in recent weeks. Only eight of us fishing but it meant we’d have plenty of room. I really fancied peg 16 which was also the bonus ball but my drawing arm continues to misbehave although I pulled out number 6 which is still a decent area.
The pond was flat calm but despite it still being nice and mild there were no silvers topping which was a bit worrying. Toby was on peg 4 to my right and the obligatory pound side bet was agreed. I set up a 4×12 rig for two lines at 10 metres and a little 0.1 gram Colmic Elsa for across to the island at 14.5 metres. On the side tray were lots of maggots and disco pinkies plus some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark groundbait.
On the whistle I fed a little groundbait with a few pinkies on the two 10 metre lines and began flicking a few maggots over to the island. It was a really slow start and Toby was first to get off the mark with a small perch after ten minutes or so. My float finally went under after quarter of an hour and I carefully shipped back before swinging in a carp of less than half ounce!
I started getting a few bites and had four small perch and another couple of those tiny carp which went straight back. From what I could see it was fishing really hard, Toby only had the one perch and Tom R on peg 2 hadn’t caught yet. I then landed a decent skimmer which wasn’t hooked in the mouth and not long after Toby pulled out of a foul hooker so hopefully they were beginning to wake up a bit.
Swapping between the two 10 metre lines I added a roach but was also hooking a few carp, Toby had a nice skimmer and then Tom landed a couple in quick succession. I had my first look across as we reached the two hour mark and hooked a fish that didn’t feel like a carp but it came off shipping back. Next chuck I had a nice perch around a pound but then had a spell of hooking (and losing) carp.
I needed to answer the call of nature so after nipping to the loo, I went to see how the others were doing, Alex on 24 and Craig weren’t off the mark yet, Nick P had one skimmer, Fieldy on 16 hadn’t had a silver and Roy on 12 was probably doing the best with several skimmers and a decent perch.
With nobody bagging, it wouldn’t take much to win this today so I got back to my peg hoping the rest had done it some good but the next fish I hooked was a carp and the writing was pretty much on the wall. For the rest of the match I only managed one more skimmer while Tom had a run of decent fish and I could see Nick catching the odd skimmer as well.
At the final whistle, it had been a real struggle for most of us, the scales began with Tom who weighed 7lb 7oz, Toby had chucked back (and conceded his nugget), my fish went 3lb 1oz and then Roy came close with 6lb 8oz but was cursing a leaper that had come off just before the all out. Photo credit – Summerhayes*
Tom had the top weight with 7lb 7oz from peg 2*
Roy on peg 12 was second with 6lb 8oz
Fieldy didn’t weigh, Nick had 5lb 9oz, Craig recorded a DNW and then Alex had found a few late fish for 5lb 5oz.
1 – Tom Rattenbury (Summerhayes) – 7lb 7oz
2 – Roy Hughes (Summerhayes) – 6lb 8oz
Thanks to donations from Nick Payne (£3.50), me (£2.50) and Craig (£1) plus one from Toby, the Nugget-O-Meter reached £483.
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 – Ilminster v Stoke
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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