Summerhayes – Open – 22nd February 2026

After a fantastic January, this month has been, to put it bluntly, absolutely pants! If I’m not drawing crap pegs, I’m making a complete hash of good ones and also losing more than my fair share of fish along the way. Twelve of us on Sellicks today and I was near the bottom of the list so when Pete called me up, there were only three balls left in the bucket. I pulled out 16 which is my favourite peg and for company I had Nick P on 18 with Spud to my right.

We got underway and I fed two lines at 11.5 metres with small amounts of groundbait and pinged maggots across to the island. It took about 10 mins to get my first bite and I started catching some quality roach along with a couple of little tench on pinkies and after an hour I had 12 fish for probably 4-5lb. The second sixty minutes was similar and swapping between the two lines, it was just lovely fishing.

With three hours gone I was still getting enough bites to keep me interested but it was slowing up and after another thirty minutes, it was time to have a look on the longer lines. A decent roach first chuck at 13 metres had me thinking I was on for another run of fish but it was a one off. Nick was catching roach quite well and Spud was getting a few including a decent skimmer while I’m still suffering from the dreaded ‘Curse of the Sellicks Skimmers’ and haven’t caught one since they went in!

Adding a section and going to 14.5 metres, I began getting some big roach, it wasn’t hectic fishing but by feeding and swapping between two areas it was steady and I’ve had one roach that was pushing 1.5lb, lovely fish. Although I didn’t manage any of the big skimmers, I did catch a smaller 6oz sample plus a handy hybrid of half a pound. During the day I only pulled out of one roach and hadn’t really had any carp trouble, hooking and landing just the one (why can’t every match be like that!).

After packing up, I went to give Pete a hand with the weigh in, Zooner on peg 2 had a nice net of silvers for 11lb 7oz, Harry weighed 20lb 3oz of mainly carp and then Tony H on 6 went into the silvers lead with 13lb 14oz. Steve Collins had 60lb 9oz to go into overall pole position but it only lasted until we got to Lewis next door who weighed an excellent 74lb 2oz.

Zooner had 11lb 7oz of silvers on peg 2

Tony H weighed 13lb 14oz of skimmers and roach

Steve Collins on 8 had 60lb 9oz

Top weight on the day went to Lewis with 74lb 2oz

Bill ‘The Paste’ on 12 had some big skimmers for 8lb 5oz, Spud weighed a level 7lb and then my fish went 22lb 12oz, Nick edged past Tony into second with 13lb 15oz and Adie on 20 had 32lb 3oz. Big Bad Bob did well again with 11lb 3oz of silvers and then last but definitely not least was Oscar on 24 who weighed 25lb 13oz.

I won the silvers with 22lb 12oz of mainly roach and loved every minute of that

Nick was second with 13lb 15oz of roach

1 – Lewis Jones (Summerhayes) – 74lb 2oz
2 – Steve Collins (Summerhayes) – 60lb 9oz

Silvers
1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 22lb 12oz
2 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 13lb 15oz

For me, today pretty much summed up why I love fishing so much, after a run of matches where nothing has been going right and at times I’ve felt like chucking my kit in the lake, it can all change in six hours and I’ve loved every minute of that. Who knows what the next match will bring, disaster or delight?, it’s why I find it so addictive and it’s what keeps me coming back every week after 45 years!!!

I had a nice pick up of £48 and it was great to see lots a double figure nets of quality silvers and the leading carp weights weren’t bad either.

Rob Wylde donated a pound and along with a squid off Zooner, the Nugget-O-Meter went up to £214.

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