Summerhayes – Silvers Open – 27th March 2024

When I phoned to book in for this one, Pete said there were only four other names on the list and I was in two minds whether to fish, especially as the weather was going to be rubbish again. Waking up and looking out the window at the wind and rain, I nearly got back into bed but decided to go as I’d already done my micros and expanders.

When I arrived, there were a couple of new faces in the shop but despite trying to strike up a conversation, they weren’t very chatty!

Pete said we could go wherever we wanted and it was decided to use the near end of Sellicks and I drew 22 which I was really happy with. Rog Kimberley was on 24 and on the opposite bank Bill ‘The Paste’ had drawn golden peg 2 with Alex on 4 and Tom was on 6.

I set up a rigs to fish two lines at 11.5 metres, one with micros and the other with groundbait, plus another for across to the island at 14.5 metres. On the whistle, I fed my lines before starting over the micros with a 4mm expander. A lovely bite resulted in solid resistance and a rather lumpy 8lb carp was very well behaved, probably because it was hooked in the barbel! The next put in, the float sailed away and this time it was the intended species, a nice skimmer around 2lb.

Typically, after being flat calm at the start, the wind was beginning to get stronger and be a right pain in the bum. I had two skimmers on maggot from the groundbait line but then lost a decent fish which killed it. Rog had a couple of fish but it looked like it was fishing hard and with two hours gone I was already thinking about going across but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to control the pole!

I decided to ship across and test the water, it was as bad as I suspected. Despite having to drop the pole on the water at times, the annoying thing was, when I could present for a minute or so, I was getting bites. I managed a couple of nice skimmers and also pulled out of two but with the wind getting worse by the minute, I was getting swivelled round on my box!

Roger went for a walk to get a coffee and see how the others were doing, oh his return he said Alex was bagging per usual and getting big skimmers every put in. I couldn’t get a bite now on either of my 11.5 metres and when Rog sat back down on his box and had several skimmers in quick succession from his shorter line, I had to try something else.

Plumbing up at top two plus two, I cupped in a little nugget of groundbait and went straight over it, after a few minutes, the float sunk from view but a carp wasn’t the result I hoped for and two more in as many chucks and that was enough of that!

Another look at 11.5 metres was equally as fruitless so for the remaining hour I’ve gone back to battling the wind across by the island. I managed a couple more decent fish, including a 1.5lb skimbob just before the all out. There were obviously a lot of fish across and the poxy weather had ruined what could have been a brilliant day.

I finished up with 14 fish and Roger said he had 10 so hopefully I’d done enough to win the nugget. After packing up, I went round to watch the weigh in, Bill had 7lb 3oz and then Alex weighed a fantastic 27lb 11oz which included some big 3lb+ skimmers, a tench and a roach over a pound. Tom had 10lb 14oz, Rog had some big skimmers for 10lb 2oz and then my fish went 12lb 6oz.

1 – Alex Kerr (Summerhayes) – 27lb 11oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish) – 12lb 6oz

I picked up £25 for second and a pound off Roger was added to the Nugget-O-Meter which now stands at £107.

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

#sponsoredpost #affiliatelinks