Clivey Fishery – 16th July 2025 – Against Men and Fish

Another day off on Wednesday for Stokes Golden Oldies match at Clivey for over 60’s members of the club (obviously I’m far too young to qualify but they allow guests if there are any spaces!). I’d had a really enjoyable day there recently in Ruthie’s Cup catching quality silvers and the odd little carp for 38lb+.

Quite a few of us met in ‘Spoons for breakfast before heading to the fishery, draw time arrived and I pulled out 9 which looked lovely with lily pads on the inside to my right and in the middle on the left, I had open water between two islands in front and I really fancied it.

I set up a rig to fish a top kit to hand plus another for chopped worm on two lines at top four. In the last match I’d used a slightly beefier elastic because of the carp and it worked to a certain extent as I hooked seven and landed six but I did lose quite a few silvers so I had a top kit with blue hydro on standby and would swap if I started bumping fish again today.

On the whistle I fed the short pole lines and another at 11.5 metres with a sloppy ball of groundbait containing chopped worm, casters, maggots and micros before starting on the top kit. I was catching small skimmers, rudd, perch and some nice roach with one around 8-10oz. After 45 mins I had a look on the right hand chopped worm line and missed a couple of bites before landing a nice skimmer around 1.5lb, switching to the left I had a small skimbob but it wasn’t fast and furious.

Apart from the two Dave’s (Nash and Pope) to my right, I couldn’t really see anyone else and both were getting odd fish but at this early stage it didn’t sound like anyone was bagging. I did pull out of a decent skimmer so swapped to the blue hydro which was much better and I had a big skimmer along with some smaller samples and a couple of little carp. Swapping between the two worm lines and feeding a little blob of the choppie mix after every couple of fish was working really well.

Dave N was getting some nice skimmers and I didn’t think there was much between us and losing a big leaper didn’t help my cause much either. Thankfully not long after I netted a three pounder which settled my nerves somewhat and I also had a spell of catching small carp really well from the left hand line and must have had five or six in quick succession.

Although I couldn’t see Terry ‘The Toast’ or Chanter on pegs 2 and 4, I could see their elastic coming out and they both caught carp well for the last couple of hours while I was still getting the odd little carp in amongst the silvers and had some more lovely roach and another couple of big skimmers. It was a cracking day and on the whistle I’d finished up with 55 fish (around 20lb of carp and 15lb-ish of silvers) but I wasn’t sure how I’d done as both Terry and Chanter caught well towards the end while Dave N had a nice net of silvers.

The scales started with Terry who had 32lb 15oz of mainly carp and then Chanter admitted to 40lb and then weighed……40lb!!! (fantastic clicking Steve!). Dave P chucked back, Dave N weighed 13lb 15oz of carp and his silvers went 13lb 14oz, then it was me and my carp net weighed 24lb 10oz which was a little more than I thought and this was going to be close, my silvers went 17lb 15oz which put me in the lead for now.

Terry ‘The Toast’ had 32lb 15oz

Chanter weighed 40lb of mainly carp

Dave Nash weighed 13lb 14oz of silvers

I weighed 42lb 9oz (which included 17lb 15oz of silvers)

Dennis on 10 had 9lb 8oz, Roy W weighed 28lb 11oz, Steve H DNW’d, the Grand Wiz had 22lb 1oz, Norts had 21lb 12oz which included some quality silvers and Rob C had chucked back.

The Grand Wiz had 22lb 1oz on peg 14

Norts had 21lb 12oz (which included some quality silvers for 11lb 4oz)

1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 42lb 9oz
2 – Steve Chant (Stoke) – 40lb (Golden Oldies Trophy Winner)
3 – Terry Morgan (Stoke) – 32lb 15oz

Silvers
1 – Dave Nash (Stoke) – 13lb 14oz

So another lovely days fishing and a nice pick up of £75, after the match all the anglers enjoyed sandwiches and crisps laid on by Chris and Helen which went down really well. The club would also like to say a massive thanks to Chris for allowing us to fish his lovely lake and he very kindly waived the day ticket fees which went to the club’s charity and along with some donations, a total of £70 was raised, well done everyone!

Also, a very generous £5 donation from Rob Cox took the Nugget-O-Meter up to £418.

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