Thorney Lakes – Stoke Xmas Fayre – 7th December 2025

On Sunday it was Stokes Xmas Fayre with the 22 anglers spread over two ponds at Ash plus Thorney (it was supposed to be on the Parrett but heavy rain put paid to that!). Originally I put my name down to fish Pond 2 at Ash but when the river anglers were switched to Thorney I asked if I could fish that instead as it was silvers only.

We met at Cartgate for breakfast followed by the draw and I was hoping for a peg on the island and got my wish when I pulled out number 3. When I got there it was actually the same swim I had last time I fished Thorney, for company I had Dave Hilton on my left and Neil Dring (who I haven’t seen since this match last year!) was on 2. There were quite a few small fish topping so hopefully we’d get a few bites.

I set up a couple of little 0.2 rigs to fish by some lilies on the inside to my right plus a two lines at 11.5 metres. On the whistle I fed a little groundbait on the longer lines before starting short, no bites there which surprised me as I thought I might get some small roach. Out on the longer lines, a positive bite resulted in yellow hydro streaming out as I hooked something rather lumpy, after a lengthy scrap I netted a 10lb carp which wasn’t ideal in a silvers match!

Switching to the other 11.5 metre swim, I had a little roach quite quickly to get off the mark and then hooked a lovely big 2.5lb skimmer, a couple of small roach followed and I thought I was going to be in for a nice day. Back on the other long line I had two more roach but then couldn’t get a bite and by the sounds of it, nor could anyone else!

It was like somebody had flicked a switch and for the next couple of hours I just went through the motions, Rob Cox wandered down from peg 7 and said all he’d hooked was carp and it was the same for Chris Deedee next to him who had landed several rather large double figure fish! I stretched my legs and asked Danny B behind us on the other bank how he was getting on, he said it was a similar story there with just odd little roach apart from Fieldy on the end peg who’d caught a decent skimmer.

With about an hour to go, I had a roach out the blue and then another one as all of a sudden a few fish started showing, Dave was catching quite a few roach on a top kit and then with just fifteen minutes remaining, he netted a big skimmer. I was getting a bite a chuck on my long lines and added another dozen small fish before the all out to finish up with 1 decent skimmer and 17 roach.

After packing up we started the weigh in with Rob who also caught well towards the end and had some nice roach for 1lb 12oz, Chris weighed 4oz of roach (and put back 30lb+ of carp) and Jack on peg 5 had 2oz. Dave went into the lead with 3lb 6oz, my fish went 3lb 2oz, Neil DNW’d and Derek G on peg 1 had 5oz. Fieldy had the top weight from pegs 8-12 with 2lb 6oz, Danny had 1lb 8oz, Harv weighed 4oz, Dennis had 2oz and Dave P didn’t weigh.

Rob had some nice roach for 1lb 12oz

Chris had 4oz of roach (and 30lb+ of carp!)

Dave had the top weight on the lake with 3lb 6oz

I had a big skimmer and some roach for 3lb 2oz

Derek weighed 5oz on peg 1

Thorney
1 – Dave Hilton (Tiverton) – 3lb 6oz
2 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 3lb 2oz
2 – Graham Field (Taunton) – 2lb 6oz

Pond 2
1 – Terry Morgan (Stoke) – 156lb 5oz
2 – Rob Wylde (Stoke) – 122lb 14oz
3 – Chris White (Stoke) – 84lb 12oz

Pond 3
1 – Nick Chedzoy (Stoke) – 188lb 11oz
2 – Nick Veale (Milo) – 178lb 1oz
3 – Luke Wheeler (Stoke) – 172lb 4oz

We then headed back to the Bell Inn at Ash for a lovely buffet and the prize giving, there were the usual massive weights at Ash with Nick Chedzoy leading the way with a huge 188lb 11oz from Pond 3 and Terry ‘The Toast’ was top on Pond 2 with 156lb 5oz. The three pond/lake winners all had Xmas hampers and I took home chocolates, biscuits and wine.

The Nugget-O-Meter had a brilliant day thanks to very generous donations from Norts (£10), Rob Cox (£5), the Grand Wiz (£5) and Craig Lyttle (£5) as the total shot up to £102.

Massive thanks to Chris Norton and Cliffy for organizing, getting prizes etc, Ash Ponds and Thorney for allowing us to use their lakes, The Bell Inn and of course all the anglers themselves who make it such an enjoyable match to fish. If I’ve forgotten anyone please forgive me and thank you too!

As I’m still playing catch up with the backlog of posts I’d like to just wish everyone who follows and enjoys the blog, A Very Merry Xmas and I hope you’ve all had a lovely day, stuffed yourselves silly and got loads of fishing gear from Santa!

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