Summerhayes – Champion of Champions Silvers Final – 15th November 2025

I say it every year but this is one of my favourite matches that I’d love to win although my record in it is quite frankly, pants! 19 anglers fishing today and when Pete announced the draw, he called up people in the order they’d qualified, I was only fourth on the list but when it was my turn, two of the pegs on my wish list had already gone (Toby got 13 and Roy on 32). I pulled out 19 on the bottom bank which wasn’t one to get too excited about but there were plenty of other pegs in the bag I fancied less!

For company I had Zooner on my left (peg 21) and Dan ‘Making it Happen’ Taggert to my right with Dan P next to him on 15. I set up little 0.1 and 0.2 gram rigs to fish lines at top four, 10 metres and across to the island, we got underway and I was expecting it to be slow but after only five minutes, I had a little tench which was a brilliant start. Some small roach and skimbobs followed and then a pound skimmer was a nice bonus. I’d seen Andy A on 35 and Roy both net some decent fish but as far as I could see, I was doing okay at this early stage.

Swapping between the top four and 10 metre lines I was getting odd fish without ever setting the world alight although I did pull out of two slightly better skimmers which wasn’t ideal. It looked like it was fishing hard and nobody seemed to be running away with it, even the fancied pegs in the 30’s were only catching occasional fish. As we passed the halfway mark, the shorter lines had died so I tried across to the island where I’d been pinging maggots since the start but it was a resounding flop and I only had three roach and hooked two carp.

Heading into the last hour, young McKenzie on peg 26 had a run of four or five big skimmers and was comfortably winning the match, I thought Roy and Andy would probably frame and apparently Adie on peg 7 was admitting to 5lb earlier on. On the final whistle, I finished up with 36 fish which I thought would go between 4-5lb. I packed up and went to watch the weigh in, Russ on 39 was admitting to 3.5lb but actually weighed nearly twice that (nobody is surprised anymore!) with 6lb 14oz which was a great weight from there and I said he’d be in the money with that.

Russ had a nice net of fish for 6lb 14oz on peg 39

Alex was on Cyanide Straight and I thought he’d do well there with some room but he’d struggled for 3lb 7oz, Adie had 5lb 14oz, Mark L chucked back on 9, Nick P did well on 11 with 5lb 14oz and Toby B had 2lb 10oz on 13. Dan P was next and went into second spot with with 6lb 6oz of mainly little tench, Dan T had 5lb 6oz and then I just pipped him for the pound with 5lb 8oz. Zooner weighed 3lb 8oz so the charity pot was another squid better off.

Dan P had quite a few little tench for 6lb 6oz

Bill ‘The Paste’ on 24 had 1lb 15oz and then Kenz had a lovely net of skimmers for 13lb 13oz which would win the match by some margin, Rob B on 27 had 2lb 5oz and then Glynn weighed 4lb 9oz. Oscar had 1lb 13oz on peg 30 before Roy took second spot with 8lb 8oz, Spud on 33 had 6lb 11oz, Andy A went into third place with 7lb 4oz and last to weigh was Tony on 36 who had 2lb 11oz.

McKenzie had a great net of quality silvers to win comfortably with 13lb 13oz.

Andy Akehurst was third on peg 35 with 7lb 4oz which included a nice tench

1 – McKenzie Wickham (Middy) – 13lb 13oz
2 – Roy Hughes (Summerhayes) – 8lb 8oz
3 – Andy Akehurst (Sensas) – 7lb 4oz
4 – Russ Hilton (Colmic) – 6lb 14oz
5 – Chris Murphy (Summerhayes) – 6lb 11oz

A massive well done to McKenzie for winning with a brilliant weight and to Roy, Andy, Russ and Spud who all took home nice fat envelopes. Although the weights were rather modest, it was actually a pretty close match after the top two with eight anglers weighing between 5lb 6oz and 7lb 4oz.

Thanks to £2 each from Nick P and me plus pounds off Zooner and Dan T, the Nugget-O-Meter total rose to £40.

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

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