Summerhayes – Open – 10th May 2026

Day two of my birthday weekend and it was back to Summerhayes but on Longs this time and I was hoping for a belated present in the shape of a silvers bunghole. Draw time arrived and quite a few of the pegs on my wish list went quite early and when my name was called, I pulled out 26 on the road bank, I felt it was slightly too far down but should still have a decent day.

On the whistle, the usual lines were fed before I started short, my first fish was a 4oz carp which obviously wasn’t my target but then I began catching a few small fish along with a 8oz skimbob. To be honest it was quite hard going and after two hours I only had around 3lb in the net. Out to 10 metres and it wasn’t happening there either, I was just about to go longer when I’ve hooked a decent fish which turned out to be a foulhooked 12oz perch.

I then had a brilliant spell catching some big skimmers, a decent hybrid, tench and another perch, Nigel Bartlett down on peg 19 was also doing well and there wasn’t much between us. With around an hour and a quarter to go, I went to 13 metres and had a 12oz tench first chuck and thought I was going to catch well for the remaining time. Swapping lines I managed a couple more fish (and hooked quite a few carp) but my match basically just fizzled out and I finished up with 30 fish although I still thought I had 20lb+ which hopefully wouldn’t be too far away today.

Glynn on 37 was first to weigh and had turned to the dark side once again with 41lb 14oz of mainly carp, Mark Woods had 52lb 5oz and then Alex Kerr on Cyanide Straight plonked a fantastic 24lb 6oz of silvers into the weigh sling. Big Bad Bob on 6 had 22lb 7oz, Dave P weighed 15lb 6oz, Jacko on 10 had 22lb 1oz, Dan T weighed 15lb 7oz and Nick P on 13 had 12lb of silvers.

Alex had a brilliant 24lb 6oz of silvers on peg 3

Steve Collins weighed 60lb 10oz before we got to Nigel and he had another cracking net of skimmers for 21lb 12oz, Kev ‘O chucked back and then Bill ‘The Paste’ on 23 went into the overall lead with 81lb 6oz. I was next and still thought I might be close to Nigel’s weight but my fish went 20lb 1oz which put me third for now but with McKenzie admitting to 20lb+, I was sure for the second day running I was going to just miss out.

Bill ‘The Paste’ was second with 81lb 6oz

Phil Bailey on my right had 69lb 14oz of mainly carp, Zooner on 30 weighed 7lb 4oz of silvers and then Adie went into top spot with 83lb 7oz, McKenzie was next and had a nice net of skimmers, tench and a couple of eels for 21lb and Nigel Jackson on 36 didn’t weigh.

McKenzie did well again, finishing third in the silvers with 21lb

1 – Adie Bishop (Summerhayes) – 83lb 7oz
2 – Bill Hopping (Summerhayes) – 81lb 6oz
3 – Phil Bailey (Summerhayes) – 69lb 14oz

Silvers
1 – Alex Kerr (Summerhayes) – 24lb 6oz
2 – Nigel Bartlett (Summerhayes) – 21lb 12oz
3 – McKenzie Wickham (Summerhayes) – 21lb

So I had a lovely birthday weekend with two nice matches catching silvers (and eating lots of cake) but just missed out, finishing one out of the money both days.

Nick P kindly donated another squid and pounds from Dan T and Zooner helped the Nugget-O-Meter up to £344.

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