Not a great start to the day when I woke up at 6:50 and was supposed to be having breakfast at the bowling club at 7:00! In full headless chicken mode, I rushed to Ilminster, had my food and then headed back home to get all my kit before heading to Bridgwater. I did phone Pete to say if I wasn’t there in time for the draw, I’d just have last choice as I thought it was going to be a rover on all lakes. In the end I actually got there just a few minutes late but was disappointed when somebody said we’d be on Sellicks again, especially after it had fished so hard the previous day.
To be fair, it was originally going to be on Sellicks and only a rover if it was going to be really windy and although the forecast was still pretty grim with lots of rain, it wasn’t supposed to be too blustery so Sellicks it was! Todays golden peg was 14 and I managed to do the hat trick and draw the bonus ball for the third match running! I think the draw gods are doing it on purpose to allow the pot to build up as I’m doing a fantastic job of not winning when I draw them!
If I’m honest, it wouldn’t have been my first choice and I’d much rather have been down the arms of the lake ( pegs 4-8 or 16-22 would have done me). For company I had regular neighbour Zooner on my right and Mark V the other side on 15.
I set up a couple of 0.2 gram Elsa’s for two lines at 11.5 metres plus 14.5 metres towards the island. On the whistle I fed some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark groundbait and pinkies on the shorter lines and began pinging maggots across. Mark had a carp dobbing by the island within a few minutes which was hopefully a good sign we’d get a few bites today.
Swapping between the two 11.5 metre swims, the first hour passed without a bite and my early optimism was waning! I normally like to leave the longer lines as long as possible before going across but with no signs of life down the middle, just getting a bite was the name of the game. A further fifteen minutes ticked by and I was starting to think a blank was on the cards but just as I was contemplating going for a coffee (I didn’t have time to do a flask!), the float went under and a 3oz roach was carefully netted.
Shipping back over with renewed vigor, I thought I might start getting a few but no more bites and although the odd carp was being landed, I hadn’t seen any other silvers caught yet. My next bite came out of the blue an hour later and I missed it! When Zooner landed a decent skimmer, I needed to find another fish but couldn’t see where it was coming from!
It was a further hour and twenty minutes before my next indication and then I missed three bites in fairly quick succession! Steve Collins over on 8 had been catching carp well and I’d seen Parker ‘The Rod’ land a few on the bomb and bread. By all accounts it was fishing really hard for silvers with Roy Hughes on 11 probably winning with three or four skimmers.
To be honest I was just going through the motions somewhat, Nick on peg 1 packed up with around an hour to go and there were a few people walking about. Then with just 15 minutes remaining, I had an unmissable bite which I somehow missed and I thought I’d just blown my chance. Laying the rig in again, the floats gone and this time a fair bit of elastic came out on the strike, I initially thought it was a carp but shipping back I could see it was a decent skimmer around 1.5lb.
Back out again and after a couple of minutes, a tentative indication resulted in another skimmer, this one around 8-10oz and despite a little dink just before the all out, it was a case of too little, too late. After packing up I went to watch the weigh in, Nick and Bill hadn’t had a bite, Big Bad Bob’s single carp was 5lb 8oz and then Craig Lyttle on 5 had caught well to weigh 42lb 3oz which included a nice golden koi type carp.
‘Beauty and the Beast’, I’ll let you decide which one’s which!
Roger C had a carp of 6lb 3oz before Steve C went into the lead with 55lb 15oz, Dan on 10 didn’t weigh and then Roy had seven decent skimmers for 7lb plus 16lb 9oz of carp. Zooner’s skimmer was 1lb 1oz and he also had a carp of 6lb 8oz, my three fish went 2lb 6oz which was actually second in the silvers so far!
Steve C had caught steadily to win with 55lb 15oz.
Roy won the silvers comfortably with 7lb from peg 11
Two very late skimmers made staying to the end worthwhile
Mark had 18lb 10oz, Oscar on 17 hadn’t caught but lost a decent skimmer late on, Steve P weighed 26lb of carp to go into third place and that was it as nobody else from peg 20 to 24 weighed in!
Parker ‘The Rod’ was third with 26lb of carp
1 – Steve Collins (Summerhayes) – 55lb 15oz
2 – Craig Lyttle (Summerhayes) – 42lb 3oz
3 – Steve Parker (Ilton) – 26lb
Silvers
1 – Roy Hughes (Summerhayes) – 7lb
2 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 2lb 6oz
Although not the bumper envelope I was hoping for, I’d happily have settled for second after four and a half hours, so £29 was more than welcome. Pounds from Dan, Zooner and Craig took the Nugget-O-Meter to £84.
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 – Viaduct
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
#sponsoredpost #affiliatelinks
