Summerhayes – Memorial Match – 2nd August 2025

Every year Summerhayes holds a memorial match for those anglers we’ve lost and unfortunately (but also inevitably) the list gets longer each time. It’s silvers only and always well attended, Pete and Sally lay on a BBQ afterwards and Roger Cunningham buys medals for the top three silvers anglers and also the top three (accidental) carp weights, there’s also a prize for the biggest chub (every year a different random species is chosen) so just a really nice day to remember those no longer with us.

27 anglers fishing today and as the draw got underway, I was hoping for one of the pegs along the track (28-36), the bottom bank (15-21), my favourite 13 or even ‘Cyanide Straight’ would do, what I didn’t want to see when I pulled out a ping pong ball was the number 39 staring back at me. It’s a corner peg and although I’ve had the odd decent silvers result off it over the years, it’s really not one I’d have fancied although I should still get plenty of bites. The lake’s been fishing really well for silvers and in recent matches, you’ve needed 30lb+ to win but with the level so low and everybody fishing for silvers, I thought 15lb might be enough today.

I set up rigs for a top kit down the edge, two lines at top four and lastly a swim at 11.5 metres towards the empty pallet next door where it was marginally deeper by around 2 inches! On the whistle I fed small amounts of groundbait on all the lines apart from 11.5 metres where I potted in some micros. Normally I’d ping maggots over to the island but couldn’t see the point as it was only 8-10 inches deep!

Starting down the edge I was catching small roach along with the odd ide but even at this early stage I was hooking the odd carp and you could see tails and plumes of silt coming up on all the lines which was a tad disconcerting! Adie down on 5 and Alex on peg 36 were already catching well and I thought they’d be there or thereabouts today. Top four only resulted in a small skimmer and my first look over the micros with an expander on the hook didn’t really see things improve either with just two small skimbobs and a little tench.

I was going nowhere fast so with nothing to lose I began pinging some maggots across to the island and started catching quite well with lots of small roach along with odd ide and a few hand sized skimmers. Apart from Alex and Adie, I couldn’t really see anybody catching much and thought if I got my head down and could reach 100 fish it would give me around 10lb and an outside chance of sneaking a minor frame place.

I started getting some decent fish including three nice crucians and another little tench but was also having a few carp problems and bumped off a couple of better skimmers! A trashed rig didn’t help my catch rate but on the whistle my clicker was reading 117 fish so hopefully I had low double figures.

Rog Cunningham on 38 was first to weigh and 19lb 12oz of accidental carp and 1lb 12oz of silvers, my fish went 12lb 15oz, Tom R on peg 2 had 6lb 2oz, McKenzie weighed 7lb 14oz and then Adie had a brilliant 19lb to give him a great chance of winning. Harry on 6 had chucked back, Bill H weighed 8lb 9oz and then Stu White on 10 went into second place with 14lb 9oz.

Toby didn’t weigh, Shaun W on 12 had 8lb 6oz, Nick P weighed 7lb 12oz and then Big Bad Bob had 28lb 11oz of carp and 8lb of silvers on peg 14. Spud went into second place with a nice net of fish for 15lb 9oz and I was rapidly slipping down the rankings! Glynn had 12lb 5oz on peg 18, Paul W next door weighed 5lb 4oz and then Mark Leahy just pipped me with 13lb.

Jamie C had 5lb 9oz of silvers on 24 and then Dave Bull did well next door with 9lb 14oz, Tony H and Rod both weighed 7lb+, Rob Birch went into second place with a lovely net of quality fish for 17lb 4oz on peg 30 and then Mark Saunders took pole position with 21lb 9oz. Zooner weighed 14lb 15oz taking a nugget off me, Dan ‘Make It Happen’ Taggert had 8lb 11oz of silvers along with 22lb 3oz of accidentals, Alan J weighed 2lb 6oz of silvers and 20lb 7oz of carp and then Alex was last to weigh and had an excellent 19lb 14oz to take the runner up spot.

1 – Mark Saunders (Milo/Ringers) – 21lb 9oz
2 – Alex Kerr (Summerhayes) – 19lb 14oz
3 – Adie Bishop (Summerhayes) – 19lb
4 – Rob Birch (Summerhayes) – 17lb 4oz
5 – Spud (Summerhayes) – 15lb 9oz

Carp Medals
1 – Mark Leahy (Summerhayes) – 31lb 6oz
2 – Bob Aires (Summerhayes) – 28lb 11oz
3 – Dan Taggart (Making It Happen) – 22lb 3oz

Best chub
Alex Kerr – 4oz

The anglers all enjoyed burgers, hot dogs and beverages before the results, Mark Saunders continued his great form at Summerhayes with this win to add to the Champion of Champions Final he won last year, Alex was second and had a great pick up as he won the chub prize as well and Adie was third.

It’s fantastic fishing on Longs with loads of bites and close weights all around the lake with several people (me included) only a couple of fish away from framing.

£2 each from Nick P and me plus a squid from Dan T took the Nugget-O-Meter to £482. 

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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