As I haven’t been to Revels for a little while and was beginning to suffer from withdrawal symptoms, I booked a day off work to fish the Tuesday open. After a quick stop for breakfast in Yeovil, I got there in good time as the car park fills up quickly with turnouts of 20 and upwards most weeks.
Draw time arrived and thankfully Trendles wasn’t in today, now I just needed to avoid the carpy pegs on the other lakes, a nice silvers swim on Woodlanders would be ideal (don’t want much do I?). When my name was called, Dean delved in and pulled out peg 12 behind the island on Main, my least favourite peg and he’s definitely not getting a Xmas card now!
I have won the silvers from there before on a really low weight day and as 10-11lb has been framing, I thought that might be possible but I must admit I wasn’t exactly skipping with joy as I headed to my peg!
Rigs today were a 0.3 gram F1 Carbon Slim for top kit to hand either side plus 0.1 and 0.2 gram rigs to fish two lines at 10 metres and a further two lines at 11.5 metres towards the open water on my left. The side tray contained lots of maggots, disco pinkies and some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark.
On the whistle I fed all the lines before starting on the top kit down the edge to my left. It took a few minutes to get a bite from a small perch and a few more followed but it wasn’t a fish a chuck. I began feeding another top kit line in front hoping I’d be able to swap between the two, it worked to a certain degree but hooking an early carp wasn’t in the script!
After an hour I had 26 fish for around 1.5lb which wasn’t far off the pace to do my target weight of 11lb but bites were dwindling on the short lines. I had my first look at 10 metres resulting in a nice run of little skimbobs and roach but it wasn’t long before carp began muscling in.
As we reached the halfway point, I’d struggled up to 42 fish but was now way off the pace and things would need to improve drastically if I was going to do any good today. I’d been keeping the two 11.5 metre lines topped up and first put in, I missed a good bite before bumping a fish and then had two decent skimmers and a roach in as many chucks. I toss potted in a little loose groundbait and moved to the other line, the float sailed away and I had another skimmer.
It felt like there were a few fish there but then the carp moved in and I didn’t know what to do next. Rotating round my lines again just added the very occasional silver along with the inevitable carp as my hooklength boxes took a battering. Heading into the final hour, I tried going across to the island while not feeding anything and managed a few small fish. I did hook one fish that was pulling plenty of elastic out but didn’t feel like a carp and a mint roach of 10oz popped up but it was too little, too late.
At the all out, I’d finished up with 67 fish which would probably go 6lb plus four carp. When the scales reached me, Rich Chave was winning the silvers with an excellent 13lb 4oz from peg 41 followed by Neil Mcphillimy with 11lb 15oz from 74. I knew I had nowhere near that and my carp went 15lb 5oz before my silvers went 6lb 6oz. Dave S on my right had 18lb 10oz (including 4lb 5oz of silvers) and even Duffers on 16 could only muster 4lb 11oz of silvers although he did have 31lb 7oz of carp.
Neil Saxby chucked back on 20 and then Nicky Collins went into second place in the silvers with 12lb 8oz from peg 21. Back at the results and as always both the top three overall and silvers were really close. Photos courtesy of Revels*
Rich Butler is on a great run of form and had the top weight with 93lb 13oz from peg 7 on Main*
Mark Sheppard was second with 80lb*
Steve Crowford was close behind in third with 78lb 4oz from peg 10*
Rich Chave was the top silvers weight with 13lb 4oz from peg 41 on Dead Tree*
Nicky Collins was second with 12lb 8oz from peg 21 on Main*
Neil Mcphillimy completed a very close silvers frame with 11lb 15oz from 74 on Woodlanders*
1 – Rich Butler (Revels) – 93lb 13oz
2 – Mark Sheppard (Revels) – 80lb
3 – Steve Crowford (Revels) – 78lb 4oz
Silvers
1 – Richard Chave (Colmic) – 13lb 4oz
2 – Nicky Collins (Revels) – 12lb 8oz
3 – Neil Mcphillimy (Revels) – 11lb 15oz
I must admit I drove home a little deflated, I love Revels but after drawing loads of great silvers pegs last year, I reckon I’ve used up all my luck as it’s been a very different story in 2024. In eleven matches, I’ve been on Trendles four times and when I’m not there I can’t seem to get away from the island on Main (three times). Maybe I need to break the dinosaur out of retirement!
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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