The forecast was equally unattractive the following day and another battering by the elements was on the cards. When I arrived I was quite surprised to see the car park was fairly busy which confirmed my suspicions that the majority of anglers are bonkers! Most people favoured another rover style match so people could try and find sheltered pegs, I pulled out choice number 11 (out of 15) which wasn’t ideal.
Zooner had choice 1 and went for 38 and a few more chose their pegs when Pete realised Big Bad Bob was sat outside and his name wasn’t on the list so a redraw was called. Understandably, Zooner wasn’t too impressed but then only went and pulled out choice 1 again! This time around I got choice 6 (out of 16 now!) and picked 33 again after doing well off it the last time it was windy.
Photo from last time!
I only set up a couple of 0.2 gram rigs for top two plus two and the side tray contained lots of maggots, disco pinkies plus some Bait-Tech Special G F1 Dark groundbait. The wind was horrendous and this wasn’t going to be much fun! Pete got us underway and I fed two lines with a little nugget of gb and some pinkies. My first bite after a few minutes resulted in lots of elastic coming out and a gorgeous 8oz crucian was great fish to start with.
Next chuck I had a 4oz skimbob and was getting regular bites from roach and the odd little skimmer. I was catching quite well and from what I could see conditions were already causing problems for most people, Dan T over on 13 was trying to fish the waggler but couldn’t feed any sense and had to keep getting off his box to retrieve gear that was getting blown around.
With an hour gone I was still getting a bite a chuck and a couple of bank walkers said nobody was catching and my silvers plus a carp were probably winning the match! The wind was getting silly and reaching pole snapping speeds, Dan waved the white flag and packed up and Alex wasn’t far behind him as he’d suffered breakages to two sections so an expensive day for him.
I was trying to feed two lines by hand but maggots were going everywhere and at one stage my rod holdall tried taking off! Despite all this, I was still getting plenty of bites by swapping between the two lines and also dropping in between them which resulted in another lovely crucian.
Glynn had a pole section break and also slipped over and snapped a top kit, his son Jack on peg 11 had a section blow in the pond and it was carnage everywhere! Rob B had chosen Big 8 but when his hat blew off never to be seen again, he decided enough was enough and the car park was emptying fast!
I kept expecting bites to slow or carp to become a pain but I only hooked two all day, in amongst the roach, I had a nice 8oz hybrid and right at the end I hooked my third crucian as the final whistle sounded. 51 fish on the clicker which I thought would go 5-6lb and I knew I’d done alright on Longs but there were several anglers on Sellicks where the skimmers are a bigger stamp if they feed.
The scales started with Zooner in his nice sheltered peg and he weighed 1lb 11oz of silvers, Glynn and McKenzie on 2 and 4 had packed up early and then we got to Hollywood who was on 7 which was also the golden peg, he said he definitely didn’t have 20lb but his 7 carp went 24lb 1oz and despite his protestations, there was a good chance he’d be taking home a fat wedge today.
Hollywood is on a great run at the moment
Jack, Alex and Dan had all gone and the next angler was Craig who was down on the bottom bank and he had 16lb 13oz of carp. My silvers went 7lb 13oz and then Big Bad Bob weighed 8lb 10oz on 36.
The weather was brutal but I had a nice days fishing to weigh 7lb 13oz
We then headed to Sellicks, Adie on 4 had 16lb 5oz of carp, Bill ‘The Paste’ up on 14 weighed 1lb 9oz of silvers and then Roy H on 23 and Oscar on 25 didn’t weigh. Their was only one angler over on Denny’s (or the kiddies pool according to Craig) and Toby had 21lb 7oz of carp for second place.
Toby was second with 21lb 7oz of carp
1 – Ian Williams (Summerhayes) – 24lb 1oz
2 – Toby Burrell (Team Army) – 21lb 7oz
Silvers
1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 7lb 13oz
2 – Jess Jordan (Summerhayes) – 1lb 11oz
I picked up £60 for winning the silvers and Hollywood took the golden peg fund back across the Devon border.
The charity had a fantastic day with Roy Hughes very generously giving me £10, Hollywood donated £10 of his winnings, Zooner gave me £2 and Rob ‘Oscar’ Wylde added a £1 as the Nugget-O-Meter shot up to £59.
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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