Summerhayes – Open – 26th October 2025

I haven’t been to Summerhayes for a few weeks and with the level still way down and it being quite chilly, much like the last match I thought 5-6lb would be a good silvers weight. Pete announced the draw and I was hoping for a nice peg like 13 or 15 which both did well last time. I actually came close when I pulled out 17 although it’s not my favourite as it’s probably one of the widest pegs with the island well out of pole range.

Nick P was on 19 while Nigel Bartlett was over on 27 with Zooner next to him, McKenzie was up in ‘Wickham’s Corner’ (peg 39) and Glynn was on 35 which can be good for silvers or carp although I wasn’t sure what he’d be going for as he’s been turning to the dark side a lot lately!

Plumbing up it was stupidly shallow and when I couldn’t find more than 12 inches anywhere, I thought we were in for a real struggle today. I decided to take it steady with the aim of the game to just get a bite to start with and on the whistle I fed a little thumbnail of groundbait and a few pinkies at top four and 11.5 metres. Kicking off on the short line, as expected it was a slow start and it took ten minutes to get my first indication from a tiny roach. A decent roach was next and then a 4oz skimbob as I began to get a few bites.

Nick had a nice run of fish from his longer line so I had a look at 11.5 metres and started catching some 4-6oz skimmers along with the odd better one. It was really enjoyable fishing and after every two or three fish, I found I had to toss pot in a little loose groundbait and then rest it by swapping to the short line and vice versa. From what I could see it was fishing quite hard for my most and after two hours, people were walking around.

I was still catching steadily and even had a couple of little tench from the longer line, I kept expecting carp to become a problem but only actually hooked two all day, one was foulhooked and came off and I landed a small one around a pound. For the first time ever, my hooklength box remained unopened all day!

It slowed up as we headed into the last period of the match and I tried going half a section past the feed and thought I might be able to nick a few more fish but never had another bite for the remaining 30 mins. I finished up with 47 fish which at an average of 2oz apiece would give me 6lb and I thought with those few better skimmers I might have 8-9lb. My near perfect day was spoiled somewhat when I managed to chuck my clicker in the lake as I was packing up! Although in hindsight, why I didn’t have a trawl around with my landing net in the shallow water is still a mystery to me!

The scales started with McKenzie on 39 who had 17lb and then the next peg was Roger C on 14 who had some decent silvers for 4lb 14oz, my fish went 12lb 8oz and then Nick had 3lb 2oz, Carl on 21 had gone, Derek chucked back, Zooner on 26 weighed 3lb 3oz and then Nigel Bartlett had 4lb 6oz.

I had a lovely day catching skimmers, roach and two little tench for 12lb 8oz

Steve Collins on 28 went into the overall lead with 36lb 8oz, the next few pegs didn’t weigh before Gary Dennis on 32 went into second place with 18lb 10oz and then nobody else between 34 and 37 weighed in, so it had fished really hard for most.

Steve Collins had the top weight with 36lb 8oz

1 – Steve Collins (Summerhayes) – 36lb 8oz
2 – Gary Dennis (So Simple Baits) – 18lb 10oz

Silvers
1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 12lb 8oz
2 – Roger Cunningham (Summerhayes) – 4lb 14oz

I had a nice pick up of £64 for winning the silvers and with it being so shallow, having loads of space and the wider peg was a massive bonus today.

£2 each from Nick P and me plus Zooner’s pound saw The Nugget-O-Meter reach £9.

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