I woke up still feeling a tad sore from the previous days double next peg spanking (where’s the Torquay Tart and his tube of Savlon when you need him?) and was hoping for better things today. 20 anglers booked in, so another good turnout, Pete announced the draw starting with the golden peg which was 25, not one I’d fancy. I was around halfway down the list and hoping for a nice silvers peg like number 13 or along the track in the 30’s. When my name was called I pulled out 19 on the bottom bank next to where I was last time and although disappointed then, I actually had a nice day with plenty of bites.
As I took my kit to the peg, I was greeted by the decomposing remains of a dead rat on the pallet, an omen for the day ahead perhaps! After laying rotting ‘Roland’s’ remains to rest and saying a little prayer for the deceased rodent, I began setting my kit up. My neighbours for the day were Tom R on 17 and Adie to my left who wasn’t happy as there was loads of scum and floating debris in his peg which was going nowhere due to the wind blowing down the straight and also coming from our right.
The bottom bank with Adie’s peg in the foreground, then mine and Tom’s.
I set up a 0.1 gram Elsa for three lines at top two plus two and a 0.2 gram Bobbie for across to the island at 13 metres. On the whistle I fed my short lines with groundbait and pinkies before pinging some maggots across. It took a little while to get my first bite and I started catching roach, small skimmers, ide, a couple of little tench and a perch. I could see Nick and Roy over on 27 and 28 and they’d both got off to a good start catching silvers and Glynn up on 31 had landed a couple of decent skimmers.
By swapping lines after every couple of fish, I’ve caught fairly steadily for three hours and only hooked one small carp which I landed although I did pull out of a nice crucian at the net. As we passed the halfway point, bites slowed up and not just for me as nobody was now catching much in the way of silvers or carp. Tom hooked and did well to land a big eel and then Big Bad Bob on 15 wrestled an even bigger snake into the net. Not long after my float sunk from view and I briefly hooked a better fish that came off and one of the maggots had gone over the point of the hook.
I was gutted as it felt like that could have been a big bonus on a tough day, then when I hit the next bite, loads of bubbles came up and I felt sure I’d hooked an eel and really wanted to make this one count only for everything to go slack and the hook had pulled! No more bites short so went across for the first time and had a nice little run of decent roach before hooking a rather lumpy carp that gave me the runaround before I landed a fish around 7-8lb.
Another next chuck wasn’t ideal so I came back in on the short line but it was that time of day and the only fish I added in the remaining time were two more carp. I finished up with 73 fish which at an average of 2oz apiece would go 8-9lb.
As the scales headed along ‘Cyanide Straight’, Kev ‘O had 19lb 12oz on peg 2, Craig L weighed 23lb 4oz, Alex had been carped out on peg 8, Rich S chucked back and then Zooner on 12 and Bill ‘The Paste’ next door both weighed 5lb 15oz of silvers.
Craig had 23lb 4oz on peg 5
Bob on the helipad had 17lb 2oz, Tom weighed 6lb 14oz of silvers and then I had 23lb 10oz of carp and my silvers went 10lb 1oz. Adie had 6lb 15oz of silvers, McKenzie weighed 23lb 6oz and then Nick P went into the overall lead with 34lb 11oz on 27. Roy had 7lb 5oz of silvers, Rob B on 30 weighed 6lb 5oz and Glynn had 7lb 4oz on 31 as once again there were lots of close silvers weights.
I had an enjoyable match catching 10lb 1oz of silvers (and 23lb 10oz of carp)
Roy was second in the silvers with 7lb 5oz
Rog C weighed 9lb 15oz of carp and silvers, Dave P had chucked back, Hollywood weighed 26lb 4oz on 35 and last but definitely not least was Paul Homewood who had an excellent 62lb 13oz for a comfortable win.
Paul H won from peg 36 with 62lb 13oz of mainly carp
1 – Paul Homewood (Summerhayes) – 62lb 13oz
2 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 34lb 11oz
3 – Ian Williams (Tiverton) – 26lb 4oz
Silvers
1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 10lb 1oz
2 – Roy Hughes (Summerhayes) – 7lb 5oz
3 – Glynn Wickham (Summerhayes) – 7lb 4oz
I had a nice pick up of £65 for winning the silvers and it’s really nice fishing with lots of bites. As always it’s a close frame and after Paul there was only a fish or two between the next five weights and in the silvers a pound separated second and sixth place.
Pound donations from Paul Homewood and Craig Lyttle along with Zooner’s nugget saw the charity total climb to £208.
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 – Summerhayes
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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