Summerhayes – Open – 12th April 2026

Thankfully I managed not to oversleep the following day and was able to enjoy a nice breakfast before heading to Summerhayes for the match on Longs. 17 fishing today and when I was called up to draw I pulled out 36 which was also the golden ball (although there wasn’t much in the pot after Dave Romain and Mark Leahy had both emptied it recently). I was a little disappointed as it’s probably the best carp peg on the lake but I’d still have a go for silvers.

The aerator to the left is an obvious feature and the deepest part of the peg so in a bid to avoid the carp I decided to fish angled to my right away from it with two lines at top four, another couple at 11.5 metres and across to the island. I got off to a great start with a half decent skimmer after only five mins and began getting regular bites from the short lines. Three nice crucians, skimmers, a tench, roach and ide got me up to around 6lb after two hours and it was going well although I could see Nick over on 13 netting some decent skimmers and Dean G on my right was catching some nice fish too.

Moving out to 11.5 metres I had a great spell with a 1.5lb tench plus more skimmers and roach bumping up my weight. Bites started to fade so with around two hours to go it was time to check out the longer lines where I’d been pinging maggots. I was hoping for another run of fish but it was a bit of an anti-climax with just odd fish and I was hooking lots of carp. The last hour was basically a write off and in between carp I only managed a foul hooked skimmer and a small tench. I finished up with 42 silvers (and 6 carp) which I thought would go around 14-16lb.

Oscar on 39 did well setting the bar high with 67lb 7oz and then McKenize had nice net of silvers for 13lb 4oz, Nigel Bartlett had 10lb and then Zooner on 11 had 6lb 1oz before Nick went into the silvers lead with 15lb 4oz. Bill ‘The Paste’ on 15 went into overall second spot with 65lb 1oz, Rog C had 20lb 10oz and then we got to Alex on 21 and when he pulled his net out it was going to be incredibly close and Pete called it at 15lb 3oz.

Oscar had an excellent 67lb 7oz on peg 39

McKenzie weighed 13lb 4oz of silvers

Nick had 15lb 4oz of tench and skimmers

Vic Romain had 30lb 15oz, Big Bad Bob weighed 16lb 3oz on 26, Glynn chucked back and then Adie on 29 had another good net of silvers and again there was nothing in it as his 15lb 5oz saw him take the lead by an ounce. Dave P weighed 34lb 11oz and then Lee Smart on 32 went into the overall lead with a brilliant 82lb 7oz, Dave Romain had 55lb 9oz, Dean had chucked back and then it was me, my carp weighed 15lb 13oz and then my silvers went 18lb 3oz.

Lee Smart had the top weight on the day with a brilliant 82lb 7oz

I won the silvers (and the golden ball) with 18lb 3oz

1 – Lee Smart (Summerhayes) – 82lb 7oz
2 – Rob Wylde (Summerhayes) – 67lb 7oz
3 – Bill Hopping (Summerhayes) – 65lb 1oz

Silvers
1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 18lb 3oz
2 – Adie Bishop (Summerhayes) – 15lb 5oz

The weights are always really close but it was insanely tight in the silvers today with just 2oz separating second and fourth place! I had a nice pick up of £62 plus a little bonus of £17 from the golden ball fund.

Donations from Nick P (£2), me (£2), Rob Wylde (£1) along with a pound off Zooner helped the Nugget-O-Meter up to £280.

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