Summerhayes – Open – 8th February 2026

The following day it was back to Summerhayes but on Longs this time and I was well happy when I drew peg 30 on the track, a brilliant area for silvers and my neighbours for the day were McKenzie on 29 with Big Bad Bob to my left. As per usual I kicked off on the top kit plus two line but no bites after 25 mins and with McKenzie catching odd fish down the middle, I started a new swim at 10 metres. After a few minutes I had a small roach and then next chuck a 10oz skimmer was encouraging, a couple more followed and then I hooked what felt like a nice tench but it came off although on closer inspection, the hooklength had snapped!

From what I could see, it was a struggle for most apart from Steve Collins over on 13 who had caught carp from the off and was putting a big weight together. With two hours gone, I had my first look at 13 metres where I’d been pinging maggots and was expecting an instant response but never had a bite. Adding another section I went further across but still couldn’t catch and didn’t know what to do next.

Back to 13 metres, I had a roach and then hooked a decent skimmer only for it to come off when the maggot folded over the hook point and I also lost a carp as my match continued to go downhill fast. The shorter lines were still a waste of time so I tried a little light rig tight across and started getting a few indications, adding a roach and a nice skimmer. It was really close between McKenzie, me and Bob although I thought he might just have the edge as he’d caught several little tench early on.

With around an hour to go, I got my dolly butt out to go 15 metres across and had a decent skimmer quite quickly but it was still hard going, I managed another with thirty minutes to go but then hooked two carp in quick succession and at the all out, I’d only ended up with 13 silvers.

The scales started with Oscar on 39 who had 24lb 13oz, along ‘Cyanide Straight’ Roy weighed 3lb 3oz of silvers, Adie then had 17lb 15oz which included 5lb 15oz of silvers, Dan ‘Making It Happen’ Taggart on 11 had 5lb before Steve Collins went into the overall lead with an impressive 115lb 6oz. Nick P did well on 15 with 5lb 12oz of silvers, Steve Kedge had 24lb 4oz and then Glynn on 19 had 4lb 14oz of skimmers.

Steve Collins made no mistakes on 13 to win with 115lb 6oz

Zooner on 24 weighed 2lb 10oz, John Dursley went into second place with 27lb 4oz and then McKenzie did well with 5lb 5oz, I had 5lb 2oz and Bob weighed 5lb 4oz so I’d been battered both sides! Rog chucked back, Alex Kerr on 35 won the silvers comfortably with 10lb 12oz and Craig L finished second overall on golden peg 36 with 36lb 5oz.

Alex won the silvers with 10lb 12oz

1 – Steve Collins (Summerhayes) – 115lb 6oz
2 – Craig Lyttle (Summerhayes) – 36lb 5oz
3 – John Dursley (Summerhayes) – 27lb 4oz

Silvers
1 – Alex Kerr (Summerhayes) – 10lb 12oz
2 – Adie Bishop (Summerhayes) – 5lb 15oz

Rob W and Craig L both donated £1’s and nuggets from Dan T and Zooner took the charity total to £190.

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