It was back on Longs Sunday which I was looking forward to and after a lovely brekkie at the bowling club (thanks Charlotte) we headed to Bridgwater. A decent turnout of 18 today and I was hoping for a peg along the track (28-34) or my favourite number 13. I was quite near the top of the list but by the time my name was called 29 (Adie) and 13 (Hollywood) had already gone. The golden peg was 32 and still in the bucket so I grabbed a ball and was praying I’d reveal those very numbers but when I opened my hand, no such luck and 8 was staring back at me! To be fair it’s been a pretty good silvers peg over the winter so still a chance of a decent day.
For company I had Toby on peg 5 who wanted a pound on it and Chris W was to my left on 10. Dan T was over on 33 so this could be an expensive day on the nugget front while Scouse Superstar (legend in his own lunchbox), Craig Lyttle was on the bonus peg.
I set up the usual 0.2 gram Bobbie for across to the island plus a 0.1 gram Elsa for top two plus three straight out and to the right by the lilies although they’d died off and I couldn’t see the pads! At the all in I fed some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark groundbait and pinkies on both the shorter lines and began pinging maggots across.
It was a slow start and I never had a bite straight out on the short line so after quarter of an hour I tried to the right, the float sailed away and a tiny roach flew out of the water on the strike! The next fish was a little 3oz skimbob but I was already behind Toby who’d had several skimmers on soft pellet and it looked like both Hollywood and Nick on 13 and 14 were catching silvers quite well.
I did start getting a few fish swapping between the two short lines including a couple of little tench but my catch rate would need to improve drastically if I was going to do any good today. After two hours I had a look across at 13 and then 14.5 metres which resulted in a few fish but not the quality I was hoping for. Dan T was catching regularly and apparently Bill ‘The Paste’ on 30 had been getting some big skimmers too. I did have a few roach and a skimmer fishing shallow by the lilies but it had been a struggle and I only finished up with 46 fish which I thought would weigh between 4-5lb.
The scales started with Alex on 37 who had loads of fish for 12lb 12oz, a brilliant weight from that peg, Harry had 5lb 15oz on 39 and Big Bad Bob weighed 7lb 10oz on peg 2. Toby was very close to his estimate with 6lb 7oz, I had two accidental carp for 8lb 6oz and then my silvers went 6lb 14oz to just pip Toby for the nugget.
Alex had loads of fish for 12lb 12oz on 37
I had 6lb 14oz
Chris chucked back, Hollywood had a trip to the ‘Light side’ and weighed 7lb 11oz of mainly skimmers, Nick had 7lb 5oz and then Dave Romain on 19 went into the lead with 41lb 11oz. Glynn didn’t weigh on 24, Rog C had 2lb 13oz of silvers, Adie weighed 5lb 8oz and then Bill had a nice net of decent skimmers for 11lb 4oz.
Dave R had 41lb 11oz on peg 19
Bill ‘The Paste’ weighed 11lb 4oz of skimmers
Craig was next and his 45lb 9oz put him in line for a bumper payday and then Dan T next door on 33 had a lovely net of little tench and skimmers for 18lb 7oz (and took a nugget off me). Mark L had gone and last to weigh was Tom R on 36, his carp went 32lb 7oz and then he added 9lb 2oz of silvers to finish just 2oz shy of second place.
Craig had the Securicor van on standby with 45lb 9oz
Dan T had a lovely net of quality silvers for 18lb 7oz
1 – Craig Lyttle (Summerhayes) – 45lb 9oz
2 – Dave Romain (Colmic) – 41lb 11oz
3 – Tom Rattenbury (Summerhayes) – 41lb 9oz
Silvers
1 – Dan Taggert (Summerhayes) – 18lb 7oz
2 – Alex Kerr (Summerhayes) – 12lb 12oz
3 – Bill Hopping (Summerhayes) – 11lb 4oz
£2 from Nick P, Craig and me plus the nugget from Toby took the Nugget-O-Meter to £165 but then Craig very generously gave me another £10 from his winnings and the new total is £175 – cheers mate!
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 – Todber Manor
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
#sponsoredpost #affiliatelinks
