Summerhayes – Open – 19th April 2026

If you’ve followed the blog for any length of time you’ll know I fish Summerhayes a lot as I really enjoy the fishing on both the match lakes. Over the years I’ve gone through periods of preferring one over the other and at the moment, Longs is my favourite and I’m struggling to get to grips with Sellicks (particularly catching enough of those pesky skimmers to do any good!).

After meeting Nick for brekkie in Taunton we headed to the fishery and there were 16 fishing today on Longs and it was nice to see Steve Raybould again, he was displaying ‘L’ plates this week after chucking pole sections in the lake on his last two visits! As usual when draw time arrived, I was hoping to pull out a nice silvers peg in the 30’s or failing that, the bottom bank (17-19) or number 13. What I didn’t want to see written on my ping pong ball was the number 6 on ‘Cyanide Straight’. To be fair it can throw up some decent weights but I felt I’d be up against it with some great silvers anglers on the favoured pegs.

Steve and his L plates

The usual little 0.1 and 0.2 gram rigs were assembled to fish top four, 11.5 metres and across to the island. After feeding all my lines it took ten minutes to get a bite short and I began catching small skimbobs, little tench and two nice crucians. Nick over on 34 and Zooner (36) were both catching big skimmers and I was hoping a few would show for me in amongst the smaller samples.

It was a glorious day

I’ve caught well and with 2.5 hours gone, I probably had 6-7lb but bites were fading so it was time to have a look on the longer lines. It was good with lots of skimmers of various sizes although I did pull out of a few, trying the lighter 0.1 gram rig (Colmic Elsa) worked brilliantly and I caught really well with most fish coming just as the rig settled and swapping lines after a fish or two was key.

I thought if I could get to 64 fish it would give me 16lb+ and a chance of framing, going to 13 metres and also fishing to the left and right of the feed resulted in a few more skimmers. On the whistle, the clicker was reading 67 fish (6 tench, 2 crucians, 3 ide, a small chub, skimmers and roach) plus 4 carp. It looked like Nick and Zooner had slowed up a bit for the last ninety minutes so this could be close.

The scales started with McKenzie on 39 who had 34lb 10oz, Oscar was next on peg 2 and had 27lb 8oz (including 12lb 3oz of silvers), my carp went 12lb 9oz and then my silvers net went 22lb 12oz which was a bit more than I thought (honest!). Glynn had 58lb 6oz of mainly carp and then Nick Chedzoy on 10 had an excellent 129lb to go into the overall lead. Steve Raybould weighed 33lb 8oz and managed to not loose feed any pole sections this week and Big Bad Bob on 13 had 37lb 12oz.

Oscar had 27lb 8oz which included 12lb 3oz of silvers

I had a lovely day catching skimmers, tench, crucians, roach, ide and a chub for 22lb 12oz

Chedz weighed 129lb of carp on peg 10

Alan J weighed 15lb 8oz, Craig L on 17 had 37lb, Dan T did 13lb 13oz of skimmers and then Adie on 21 weighed 19lb 6oz of silvers. Steve Collins was next on 26 and his multiple nets added up to a massive 145lb 6oz to take the lead. Mark W weighed 48lb 4oz and Bill ‘The Paste’ on 32 also had triple figures with 105lb 4oz.

Steve Collins had the top weight with a massive 145lb 6oz

Nick P was next and when he pulled his net out I was sure he’d beaten me but thankfully (for me), the weight settled on 21lb 6oz, last to weigh was Zooner who had another fantastic net of silvers for 19lb 7oz.

1 – Steve Collins (Summerhayes) – 145lb 6oz
2 – Nick Chedzoy (Summerhayes) – 129lb

Silvers
1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 22lb 12oz
2 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 21lb 6oz

Brilliant weights again, the top three all had over 100lb and just 3lb separated first and fourth in the silvers with numerous double figure weights as well. I picked up £64 for winning the silvers and thoroughly enjoyed that.

Rob W and Craig L both donated £1 each and along with squids from Dan T and Zooner the Nugget-O-Meter climbed to £290.

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