On Sunday we headed to Summerhayes and I was hoping we’d be on Longs but when we arrived, the car park was rammed as there was a club match booked on there which meant we’d be on Sellicks. We’d had a few nights of frosts and with most pegs in, I had a feeling it might be a tough one today.
Pete announced the draw and I was around halfway down the list, as always I was hoping to avoid the top end but pulled 14 out the bag, not my favourite peg! For company I had Kev ‘O on 12, Alan J to my left and Dan T was on 17 and wanted a nugget on it.
Not where I wanted to be!
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. As expected it was a very slow start and after an hour and a quarter I hadn’t had an indication of any sort and both my neighbours were in the same boat. Dan had a couple of decent skimmers and I was already checking my pockets to make sure I had a pound coin ready.
I normally like to leave the long lines for at least two hours before trying them but decided to have an early look just to see if I could get a bite. After a few minutes, the float buried and I was into what felt like a big skimmer, I shipped back carefully but it came off, much to Dan’s delight! Things didn’t get any better when I bumped the next one which wasn’t ideal on what could be a tough day. No more bites so I dropped back in on the 11.5 metre lines and hooked another, only for that to come off as well!
Three hours into the match I was blanking and 5-0 down to Dan, things were looking bleak! Glynn phoned me from peg 20 and said nobody was catching around him although on the opposite bank Toby on peg 2, Nick on 5 and Steve C on 7 were all catching carp. Apart from Dan, the only person with silvers was Big Bad Bob on 9 who had two decent skimmers.
No more bites on any of my lines so I got the 16 metre section out and went further across to the island, a positive bite after a few minutes resulted in a decent fish on and I shipped back carefully and finally got off the mark with a 12oz skimmer. It was far from fast and furious but by trying different spots along the far bank I was getting odd fish and at one stage pulled the score back to 7-5 in Dan’s favour but just couldn’t close the gap any further. At the all out, I had 6 skimmers (plus two small fish) and two carp while Dan had 8 including some better ones.
It had fished quite hard and there weren’t that many left to weigh in, Toby on peg 2 had caught really well early on and set the pace with 44lb 3oz of carp, then Nick went into the lead with 56lb 1oz from peg 5. Steve Collins on 7 came close with 53lb 6oz despite having to use a borrowed pole after leaving his at home!
Toby had 44lb 3oz on peg 2
Another visit to the dark side and another win for Nick, this time with 56lb 1oz
Steve finished second with 53lb 6oz and is thinking about leaving his kit at home more often!
Triple B (Big Bad Bob) had 11lb 10oz which included 4lb 2oz of silvers and then I was next to weigh, my carp went 9lb 13oz and my silvers weighed 5lb 6oz. Dan had a carp of 6lb 15oz and 9lb of skimmers, Mark L on 18 weighed 35lb 1oz of carp and then Rog C was the only other angler left on our side and had a 4lb carp.
I was second in the silvers with 5lb 6oz
Dan won the silvers and took a nugget off me with 9lb of skimmers
1 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 56lb 1oz
2 – Steve Collins (Summerhayes) – 53lb 6oz
Silvers
1 – Dan Taggert (Summerhayes) – 9lb
2 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 5lb 6oz
I picked up £30 for second in the silvers which was more than welcome after a disastrous first half of the match!
Craig L very kindly gave me £1 which took the Nugget-O-Meter to £157.
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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