Summerhayes – 3rd August 2025 – Against Men and Fish

I was hoping for a change of peg scenery as we headed back to Summerhayes the following day for a Stoke club match. It was well attended with the 20 anglers split into two sections and the payout for the top two and best silvers in each with an optional super pool for overall and silvers.

For once my drawing arm behaved itself and I pulled out peg 30 on the track side with Parker ‘The Pole’ next door and Oscar to my right on 28. After drawing 36 the previous day, Alex said he fancied 34 and proceeded to pull out that very number! I set up little light rigs for top two, four sections and 11.5 metres and the bait tray was very simple with lots of maggots and a little bit of groundbait.

Parker ‘The Pole’ was next door

On the whistle, I kicked off on the top kit for a few roach and some ide before moving out to four sections where I had two big skimmers quite quickly. My good start continued with another couple of leapers plus some smaller skimmers and roach, Stevie P was landing some decent fish too and it was neck and neck between us. After two hours I had another look on the top kit line and had more roach and then a 2lb skimmer edged me ahead of my neighbour. He then went on his longer line and had several more big skimbobs so I went out to 11.5 metres and although not fast and furious I had three more plus a nice tench.

As we headed towards the end of the match, carp began to be problematic for both of us but we were still catching some silvers and then ‘The Pole’ had a big skimmer on the whistle to finish with a flourish and I was sure he’d beaten me. I finished up with 102 fish (including 8 decent skimmers) which I hoped would go 15-18lb.

Nick V had the scales in our section and started with McKenzie on peg 39, he had 54lb 6oz of mainly carp, Chanter weighed 103lb 13oz and then Terry ‘The Toast’ on 35 went into the lead with 112lb 7oz. Alex had a nice net of silvers for 18lb 8oz, Craig weighed 29lb 5oz and Nick Chedzoy on 32 weighed 94lb 13oz. Steve P had some lovely skimmers for 16lb 1oz and then my fish went 21lb 9oz. Oscar weighed 60lb 9oz and then Nick V had 129lb 12oz to win the section.

The lovely Chanter had 103lb 13oz

Terry ‘The Toast’ weighed 112lb 7oz of carp

Alex had 18lb 8oz of silvers

Parker ‘The Pole’ had a lovely net of skimmers for 16lb 1oz

The perils of giving somebody your phone for a catch shot!

I had 21lb 9oz of skimmers, roach, tench and ide

Nick V won our section with 129lb 12oz

Back at the results and Dave Chidzoy had won the other section (and the match) with an impressive 167lb from peg 8, Roy Worth was second with 124lb 9oz and Nick P had the top silvers weight with 11lb 14oz from peg 21.

Section A

1 – Dave Chidzoy (Stoke) – 167lb
2 – Roy Worth (Stoke) – 124lb 9oz

Silvers
Nick Payne (Stoke) – 11lb 14oz

Section B

1 – Nick Veale (Stoke) – 129lb 12oz
2 – Terry Morgan (Stoke) – 112lb 7oz

Silvers
Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 21lb 9oz

I had a nice pick up of £75 with the silvers super pool and it was another great day out with the Stoke crew!

Very generous donations from Norts (£5) and the Grand Wiz (£2) saw the Nugget-O-Meter reach £489.

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