Summerhayes – Open – 20th April 2025

Thankfully I managed not to oversleep and was able to enjoy a leisurely breakfast at the bowling club this morning before heading to Summerhayes for my third match in as many days. A decent turnout of 19 anglers for this one and my drawing arm behaved itself putting me on 32, a great silvers peg.

It was a gorgeous day

I got off to a really good start on the top kit plus two lines catching skimmers, roach, ide, tench, a perch and two lovely crucians. Glynn next door was getting a few and I’d seen Adie down on 29 land a decent skimmer. Just before the two hour mark, the short lines just died and as far as I could see, most people were now struggling although Scott Cousins over on 11 (which was also the golden peg) was catching carp well.

Moving out to 13 metres I had a few fish but it was short lived so I went to 14.5 metres expecting another run of fish but it just hasn’t happened. Glynn said McKenzie down on 17 was catching small fish regularly and Adie was landing some skimmers but it was a struggle for most. I was getting odd fish across but also starting to hook a few carp.

Going into the last hour I didn’t think there was much between Glynn and me but then he had two decent skimmers in quick succession which I felt edged him ahead. At the all out, I had 52 fish which I thought would go between 7-8lb and I was sure I was going to just miss out again for the third day on the trot!

Craig on 38 was first to weigh and had 23lb 13oz, Big Bad Bob did well on 39 with 32lb 6oz and then pegs 2, 6 and 8 chucked back. Nick P weighed 7lb 8oz of silvers on 10 and then Scott C had 57lb 2oz and was looking good to take home a big fat envelope.

Scott Cousins had an excellent 57lb 2oz on peg 11

Bruce Hunt on 14 went into second spot with 36lb 3oz, McKenzie was next and had a lovely net of silvers for 11lb 8oz. Adie wasn’t far away with 10lb 14oz, Nigel on 30 had 4lb 3oz and then my fish went 9lb 2oz which was third so far but I was sure Glynn had beaten me. He pulled his net out and it was going to be very close but the digital display settled on 8lb 13oz and I was still hanging in there.

McKenzie did brilliantly to win the silvers with 11lb 8oz

Rob B on 35 weighed 24lb 1oz (including 7lb 5oz of silvers) and then Bill ‘The Paste’ on his favourite peg 36 went into second place with 46lb 1oz.

Bill ‘The Paste’ was second with 46lb 1oz

1 – Scott Cousins (Summerhayes) – 57lb 2oz
2 – Bill Hopping (Summerhayes) – 46lb 1oz
3 – Bruce Hunt (Summerhayes) – 36lb 3oz

Silvers
1 – McKenzie Wickham (Summerhayes) – 11lb 8oz
2 – Adie Bishop (Summerhayes) – 10lb 14oz
3 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 9lb 2oz

So I sneaked third place in the silvers and picked up £20 which was very welcome after just missing out the previous two days. As always it was a really close frame with just a few fish separating the top three overall and silvers.

£2 each from Nick P and me, a pound from Craig Lyttle and a nugget off Zooner saw the charity total hit £228.

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