The following day we headed to Summerhayes for a match on Sellicks and when the draw was announced I was hoping for a peg on the far side and got my wish when I pulled out number 22. For company I had Glynn on 24 with Alex to my right and Nick had drawn peg 8 on the opposite side. In recent matches it’s been hard going for the silvers and although the winning weights have been respectable, the back up weights have been poor with 1-2lb enough to frame and I was expecting similar today.
On the whistle I fed two lines at 11.5 metres and pinged a few maggots across to the island, shipping out I was amazed when the float settled and went straight under! I struck into solid resistance but I don’t think it was the intended target and I also suspect it was foul hooked as it came off not long after. Next chuck I had a lovely slow positive bite and this time a much more modest amount of elastic came out before I netted a lovely little 4-6oz tench to get off the mark.
Glynn had a small tench quite quickly and then added another, I pulled out of a fish on my other 11.5 metre line before catching a roach and this was already better than I thought it was going to be! Alex went across and lost a carp before catching a nice 1lb+ chub (his third in as many matches on Sellicks!) along with some roach and Glynn caught a couple more tench while I hadn’t added to my two fish so had my first look on the longer line to the island.
It took a little while to get a bite but then I’ve had four roach in rapid succession but before I could get too excited I pulled out of one where the maggot had gone over the hook point. I did catch one more but lost another decent roach and then couldn’t get a bite across. It was a similar story for Glynn but Alex was now bagging with some lovely roach down the middle and even had a big 1.5lb perch as well.
Apparently Zooner up on 14 was catching some roach and admitting to 2.5lb so although Alex was miles ahead on the silvers front, I didn’t think there was much between Glynn, Zooner and me with second place still up for grabs. I tried the 11.5 metre lines several more times but only had one more bite which I missed while Mr Kerr was catching some big roach and giving me a proper spanking. Fishing across I did manage a few more roach and also landed a single carp.
With Pete away, Adie was in charge of proceedings and by the time I’d packed my kit away, the weigh in was well underway, I caught up with the scales and looking at the board, Nick was winning with 47lb 8oz (which included 3lb 12oz of silvers), Nigel Wickham on peg 2 was second with 34lb 15oz while Ant P on 4 had weighed an excellent 7lb 8oz of silvers. Lee Smart on 12 had 23lb 12oz of mainly carp and then Zooner weighed 3lb 7oz of roach, Craig had chucked back on 16 (thanks for your attendance mate!) and Kev ‘O didn’t weigh on 18.
Alex was next and he had a lovely net of quality roach plus that chub and perch for 11lb, my ten roach and a tench went 3lb 6oz so I paid Zooner my nugget and Glynn had five little tench and two roach for 2lb 3oz.
Alex had a lovely net of quality fish to win the silvers with 11lb
1 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 47lb 8oz
2 – Nigel Wickham (Summerhayes) – 34lb 15oz
Silvers
1 – Alex Kerr (Summerhayes) – 11lb
2 – Ant P (Summerhayes) – 7lb 8oz
Craig Lyttle very generously donated £10 to the Nugget-O-Meter as it climbed to £121.
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 – Revels
Coming soon – Lots more match reports
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