Summerhayes – Silvers Open – 7th February 2026

For the next silvers match on Sellicks there was a decent turnout of ten, draw time arrived and I was fourth on the list and pulled out 24 which wouldn’t have been my first choice but at least I’d managed to avoid 12 where I’d struggled on my last two visits.

I had Roy next door on 22 while Alex had drawn the much fancied peg 3 and with Dan T on 5, I started shining up my pound in readiness for the handover later! My swim looked nice although I was a little concerned that I had bare bank across on the island as the roach tend to like some cover.

On the whistle I fed three lines at 10 metres and began pinging some maggots across, it took 20 mins to get my first bite from a little tench and I had a nice hour and a half catching 8 roach and 5 small tench. I was beginning to think I could put a decent weight together when my bites just stopped. Equally worrying was the fact that Roy had started across to the island and had only caught a couple of roach.

With two and a half hours gone, I hadn’t added to my tally so shipped over to the island and as I feared, I couldn’t get a bite! The float did eventually go under but a carp wasn’t the result I’d hoped for, Alex was regularly netting fish and the anglers on our side at the top end were getting a few as well. Roy decided on an early bath and despite me thinking he’d made a wise decision, I stuck it out hoping I might have a late run of fish.

I tried starting a new line by the end bank to my left but the only two indications I had there were carp and at the final whistle, I knew my meagre catch wouldn’t be worthy of an envelope today. The scales started with Alex who had two big skimmers and some lovely roach for 15lb, Dan ‘Making It Happen’ Taggart weighed 8lb 3oz and I paid him a very shiny nugget, Nick P had 7lb, Derek P on 10 weighed 3lb 6oz and then Chris M had a lovely net of fish on my least favourite peg for 10lb 6oz and second place.

Alex had a lovely net of quality silvers for 15lb

Chris weighed an excellent 10lb 6oz including a cracking perch and a nice tench

Colin on 15 weighed 6lb 15oz, McKenzie had 6lb 10oz, Glynn on 20 weighed 4lb 6oz, Roy had gone and then my fish went 2lb 12oz for nearly last on the day.

1 – Alex Kerr (Summerhayes) – 15lb
2 – Chris Murphy (Summerhayes) – 10lb 6oz

A really disappointing day after a good start but to be honest I’m not sure what I’d do differently if I could fish that match again.

Nick P gave me £3 and along with my £2 the Nugget-O-Meter climbed to £186.

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