Another Summerhayes Sunday and it was on Longs again, which is normally good for a decent days silvers fishing with plenty of bites. I met Nick and the Grand Wiz (who was fishing the Chard winter league) at the bowling club for breakfast and we were well looked after by Drew this week – cheers mate.
Although still cold, it was dry and when we got to the venue, the lake was flat calm. 13 of us fishing today and when it was time for the draw I was second on the list behind Toby, he pulled out number 3 on ‘Cyanide Straight’ and would be fishing micros and expanders for the bigger skimmers, my drawing arm behaved for once and I drew 32 which is a brilliant area. Nick ended up on 36 again so another day on the carp and between us was Big Bad Bob on 34.
For company I had Steve ‘Bruce Forsyth’ Collins on peg 30, it was also the golden peg but would he ‘Play His Cards Right’ today (see what I did there?!).
I had Brucie next door!
I set up the usual rigs, a little 0.1 gram Colmic Elsa for two lines at top kit plus three and and a 0.2 gram Bobbie for 13 and 14.5 metres across to the island. Lots of maggots, disco pinkies and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark groundbait on the side tray today (for a change!).
On the whistle I fed small amounts of groundbait and pinkies on the two shorter lines and 13 metres before pinging a few maggots across. Starting on the right hand top five swim, a bite quite quickly resulted in a small roach, it took a little while for my next fish which was a 3oz skimbob but then I was getting regular bites from lots of 1-2oz ide and roach along with odd skimmers and tench. In recent matches the fish have averaged around 1.5oz so my target was 20 fish an hour which should give me 9-10lb and that is normally there or thereabouts.
Steve C next door flew out the blocks dobbing bread across and had five or six carp in the first half an hour and even at this early stage I couldn’t see anyone getting near him and a nice ‘Brucie Bonus’ looked inevitable!
As the first sixty minutes came to a close I had 18 fish on the clicker and was getting a bite a chuck swapping between the two short lines, toss potting maggots on the right and loose feeding to the left. Motherless minnows were a bit of a pain so I tried maggot on the hook which helped to a certain degree. I was keeping an eye on Toby and although he wasn’t catching loads of fish, they were a decent stamp.
The second hour was even better and I added 26 fish to go ahead of my target, I was still getting loads of ide plus another couple of tench and some lovely roach. Another 22 fish in the third hour and I was really enjoying myself, especially as I hadn’t hooked a carp yet (I think they were all in Steve’s swim!). It was starting to get cold again and as far as I could tell, it was fishing quite hard with nobody (apart from Brucie next door) catching carp. On the silvers front Toby and Bill on 14 were still getting odd decent skimmers although Glynn on 8 looked to be struggling.
I was still feeding maggots across but hadn’t tried it yet as I was getting enough indications on the shorter lines to keep me interested. Towards the end of the fourth hour bites began to slow and I probably spent too long short as I struggled up to 80 fish. With ninety minutes remaining I’ve had a look at 13 metres and first chuck, a positive bite resulted in a nice 4oz rudd. A skimmer and some more roach followed but I was having to wait for bites so added the 14.5 metre section and went further over.
It was steady with some nice roach, a couple of ide and another little tench, then I hooked something that felt a bit different and turned out to be a 4oz brown goldfish (which count as silvers). I did hook and land my first carp around 3lb but it didn’t give me too many problems. When Pete blew the final whistle I was playing another little tench which put me on 104 fish and it had been a thoroughly enjoyable day. At 1.5oz each I’d have between 9-10lb but I was hoping it might be a little more.
The scales started with Hollywood who was on 39 again and was the early pace setter with 17lb 5oz, Toby was admitting to 7lb and even when he pulled his net out, said he wasn’t sure he even had that but he had some big skimmers and actually weighed 12lb 4oz!!! Glynn had 3lb 10oz, Roger C on 10 had 2lb 2oz and then Kev ‘O went into the lead with five carp for 18lb 3oz.
Toby had a lovely net of skimmers for 12lb 4oz
Bill was next and also had a cracking net of decent skimmers for 10lb, Oscar on 19 weighed 2lb 13oz and Craig got a cheque book and pen on 25. McKenzie on 28 didn’t weigh and then we got to Steve C and we all knew he’d won, he’d clicked 81lb and weighed 82lb so very accurate estimating (take note Toby!). I was next, my single carp went 2lb 15oz and then when I pulled my silvers net it was going to be very close but ultimately not quite enough as Pete called it at 11lb 15oz.
Bill had 10lb of skimmers on peg 14
Steve ‘Brucie’ Collins took home a big fat envelope with 82lb of carp.
I had an awesome day catching 104 fish (roach, rudd, skimmers, ide, perch, tench, chub and a brown goldfish) for 11lb 15oz and second in the silvers
Big Bad Bob had 4lb 10oz and last to weigh was Nick, he’d actually headed off home and left his nets in as he was freezing cold and I don’t think he thought he’d done very well, his silvers went 4lb 14oz and his carp added 16lb which was enough for second overall.
1 – Steve Collins (Summerhayes) – 82lb
2 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 20lb 14oz
Silvers
1 – Toby Burrell (Team Army) – 12lb 4oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 11lb 15oz
I picked up £25 for second in the silvers and had loved every minute of that although I should have gone across earlier which has probably cost me today. It was really interesting to see quite a few big skimmers in Toby and Bill’s nets and as things warm up, the fishing could be brilliant for silvers.
A very generous £10 from the Grand Wiz at breakfast, £2 from Craig Lyttle (one from last week I forget to mention, sorry mate!), £2 each from Nick P and me plus a pound from Rob ‘Oscar’ Wylde saw the Nugget-O-Meter soar to a new total of £145.
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 – Acorn
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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