Summerhayes – Open – 12th October 2025

After a pretty disastrous start to the weekend yesterday, I was hoping for better things at Summerhayes on Sunday. A lovely breakfast at the bowling club set us up for the day (thanks Charlotte) before we headed to Bridgwater. We were on Longs and the level was the lowest I’ve ever seen and we need rain desperately. Pete announced the draw and when my name was called, I pulled out 31 on the track side, normally a brilliant area for silvers. Nick P was on 30 and I had Bill ‘The Paste’ on my left.

Elsewhere, Zooner had drawn my favourite peg 13 and Nige Bartlett was on 15 where he finished second last week and with Dan and McKenzie down on 27 and 25 respectively, there were loads of good silvers anglers on decent pegs. I set up a couple of little 0.1 and 0.2 gram rigs but plumbing up it was pretty much 18 inches all across the swim. On the whistle I fed little nuggets of gb and a few maggots on two lines at top four and also at 11.5 metres straight out and angled to the left.

Starting short it’s taken ten minutes to get a indication but I bumped it and then couldn’t get a bite, it was really hard going and after an hour I only had one skimmer and two roach and from what I could see it was the same for most with the exception on Nigel who was netting a few fish. Moving out to the longer lines, I had a little run of fish including an ide and a decent 1.5lb skimmer but it was a real struggle, Nick and Zooner were both getting odd fish and I didn’t think there was much between us.

I tried going to 13 metres and had a couple of small fish but was also hooking quite a few carp which were tearing off in the shallow water and causing mayhem! Basically the last hour and a half was just a write off with Nick and me hooking carp after carp and on the whistle, the scores on the doors didn’t make for pretty reading with 12 silvers and 6 carp the sum total of my day. I did think there was still a chance a sneaking in the frame until McKenzie said he was admitting to 6-7lb and that Zooner had similar.

The scales started with Glynn on 39 (which was also the golden peg) who had turned to the dark side and when his three nets of carp went 149lb 1oz, he was looking good for a bumper payday. Dave B on 8 had 2lb 10oz of silvers, Nick Chedzoy then went into second place with 85lb 14oz, Roy Hughes chucked back on 12 (which shows just how hard it had fished!) and then Zooner had 6lb 13oz of silvers so I handed over my nugget.

Glynn had 149lb 1oz of carp

Chedz weighed 85lb 14oz on peg 10

Zooner did well on 13 with 6lb 13oz of silvers

Nigel B had some decent skimmers and a couple of tench for 10lb 2oz which would be more than enough to win the silvers today, Geoff Young didn’t weigh on 17 and then Oscar on 19 went into third spot with 39lb 12oz. Lewis J on 23 had 32lb 4oz and then McKenzie weighed 6lb 2oz to put him third in the silvers. Dan had a level 5lb and I thought it was going to be close for the nugget, Big Bad Bob chucked back and then Nick P had 3lb 12oz of silvers and 20lb 3oz of carp. I didn’t bother weighing my carp and my silvers went 5lb 6oz which was only enough to claim Dan’s squid, Bill had 23lb 13oz, Steve Collins weighed 12lb 7oz of carp on 34 and then pegs 35-37 DNW’d.

Nigel won the silvers with 10lb 2oz from peg 15

1 – Glynn Wickham (Summerhayes) – 149lb 1oz
2 – Nick Chedzoy (Summerhayes) – 85lb 14oz
3 – Rob Wylde (Summerhayes) – 39lb 12oz

Silvers
1 – Nigel Bartlett (Summerhayes) – 10lb 2oz
2 – Jess Jordon (Summerhayes) – 6lb 13oz
3 – McKenzie Wickham (Middy) – 6lb 2oz

The Nugget-O-Meter had a fantastic day thanks to an amazing £100 from a donor who wishes to stay anonymous, £2 each from Nick P and me plus a squid off Dan T saw the total shoot up to it’s highest figure yet at £697.

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