Summerhayes – Open – 24th May 2026

Summerhayes on Sunday (and did I mention it was also a Bank Holiday weekend so lots of fishing with four matches!) with a great turnout of 19 anglers. I was top of the list to draw and gutted to see I was on 38 which is one of my least favourite pegs although it has been good in recent matches with Alex weighing a fantastic 35lb a few weeks back.

Dan Squire was on peg 1

On the whistle I fed all my lines before beginning my match on the top kit plus two, I had a good start catching some small fish and a nice 12oz hybrid although I did have a decent perch snap me under my keepnets (schoolboy error!). The first two hours were steady with roach, ide, skimmers and a couple of lovely crucians but then it got stupidly hot and my bites slowed up.

I was hoping for a flurry of fish on the longer lines but it was hard going and hooking lots of carp wasn’t helping either! As far as I could see, nobody was bagging although Dan on my left was getting odd fish and looking good for another result.

By the end, I’d struggled up to 34 fish, the scales were with me first and my carp went 10lb 4oz before the silvers weighed 10lb 11oz which I didn’t think would be any good today. Dan had done well with 71lb 3oz and would be there or thereabouts with that, Big Bad Bob on 3 weighed 8lb 1oz, Kev ‘O had 24lb 3oz and Rich S on 8 weighed 20lb 1oz.

Dan weighed 71lb 3oz on peg 1

Adie had 23lb 11oz, Dan T on 12 weighed 27lb 8oz and then Lee Williams went into second place with an excellent 60lb, Nigel P had 4lb 9oz, Bill H chucked back, Rog C weighed 13lb 1oz on 19 and Zooner had 2lb 10oz. Rob B had 16lb 12oz, Alex weighed 13lb 3oz of silvers on 26, Nick P didn’t weigh on 28 and then Gabe Skarba on 30 had a brilliant 18lb 4oz of skimmers. Paul P had thrown back, Glynn weighed 21lb 13oz and Alan J on 36 had struggled.

Lee Williams was second with 60lb

1 – Dan Squire (Nytro) – 71lb 3oz
2 – Lee Williams (DT Floats/Bait-Tech) – 60lb
3 – Dan Taggart (Summerhayes) – 27lb 8oz

Silvers
1 – Gabriel Skarba (Milo/Ringers) – 18lb 4oz
2 – Alex Kerr (Summerhayes) – 13lb 3oz
3 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 10lb 11oz

I sneaked third in the silvers and picked up £23 which was more than welcome after having a bit of bad run lately.

Nick P gave me £3 and along with my £2 plus pounds from Dan T and Zooner the Nugget-O-Meter reached £377.

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