Summerhayes Open (Longs Lake).

After leaving it to late in the week to try and book in at Viaduct fishery with team mate Don Sutherland I persuaded him to have his first trip to Summerhayes, after the normal hilltops breakfast on route we arrived to see another good turn out of 25 fishing, Greeted with a cold easterly wind I just fancied a swim out of the wind with the option of fishing over towards the island, Into the bucket and it turns out I wasn't in for a change of area as I drew peg 34 next to the swim I had last Saturday" And for company? Don on peg 35! owe well at least he could keep an eye on me should I start bagging"? Starting off with 3 lines today the first over to the island as tight in as I could get to the rushes were I found about 3ft of water so assembled the normal 4x12 chanti on 0.13-0.11 and an 18 wide gape pellet hook, A rig to fish short at 5mts down the track in 5ft of water with the same size float/line and a 16 808 hook and finally a 4x10 chanti on 0.14-0.12 and a 16 63-13 hook to fish down the edge in 4ft of water towards the next pallet on empty peg 33, Having Silver fish basher Glyn Wormhead Wickham on peg 32 I was hoping this would be a bit of a banker line later in the day. I did also set up a rig to fish hard pellets shallow across should there be signs of fish up in the water as the wind had dropped a little as we set up.

At the all-in I fed half a big pot of maggots onto the 5mt open water swim and about a dozen 6mm cubes of meat down the edge. Starting on the deck across with a 4mm expander on the hook feeding a few micros over the top saw my first fish ten minutes later being a 1lb carp, The next 15mins saw me hook 3 more fish but all foul hooked and I lost them all' I switched to feeding some hard 4mm pellet over the top again with the cad pot to try and get the fish on the deck. another 1lb carp followed but more foul hookers were a problem and with Don appearing to have the same problem it was time to get the catty out and switch to the shallow rig. Starting at half depth with a 4mm hard pellet on the hook I had a 2lb fish after 5mins but already the fish seemed keen to avoid my bait and slurp on the ones landing in the reeds" I shallowed right up to about 5inches deep but started having problems getting the rig as close as the fish seemed to be with the reeds over hanging from the disturbance caused by foul hookers. From what I could see apart from Alex Murray on the peg Des won off of last Saturday taking a few early fish not to much had been caught. A quick try on the short line I had been feeding by hand with maggots with a piece of worm on the hook saw no signs of fish so it was time for a re-think.

I decided to try across to the island but further of to my right away from the reeds not feeding and just relying on the sound of the hook pellet drawing the attention of a few fish. within seconds I had a fish of 3lb but soon after hooking another saw me attached to some under-water snag! Great, Rig number one gone". Back out on a new rig and two fish followed in 20mins before another on took me in there and another rig trashed.. It was getting frustrating as I couldn't seem to get any signs further than 2ft from the snag! despite flicking a few pellets further away. by now we were around halfway though and I thought I might have 10lb in the net so things weren't quite going to plan'  It Was then Don happened to mention was I feeding floating pellets as they were Drifting past him, they weren't mine' but as they drifted towards me they began to come right into my inside edge between myself and the empty pallet followed by some hungry mouths! I quickly came back with my rig and with a single cube of meat set about a 1ft deep dropped it in down the edge near the nearside reeds. Seconds later I had a 3lb fish before getting a bigger one close to the net only for it to snap my hook! only me to blame though as when I was in such a rush to get it out my box I noticed the hook had a small rust spot on the bend but didn't bother to change the short hook length..! what carp I did have in my inside soon drifted off with the safe' pellets out of the swim! At this point I decided to try my the line on the deck further towards the pallet where I had been feeding by hand, After a couple of small lifts I thought I was attached but no.. Another Snag and another trashed rig!.

Don was attempting to catch some silvers on his short line but wasn't hooking any carp and was struggling for bites so spent the last two hours switching between the rig set inches deep across on hard pellets and using the same rig to fish around a 1ft deep down my inside edge on meat, The rest of the match was a bit of a disaster to be honest a I could only get the odd fish down the edge and as far as catching across went, We lets just say I had a few more small carp but at the expense of another 4 rigs! I was hardly feeding this line just pinging a few in after each hooked" fish, I was never going to set the world alight to day but at least I managed to put a few fish in the net at the expense of the trashed tackle' At the weigh-in Alex was first and after a last couple of good hours near the end of the match ended the day with 51lb odd, The top weight before we got to peg 12 and last weeks Sunday match winner Jon Martin put 60lb on the scales to take the lead. After another 50lb weight it was around to me finishing the day with a level 30lb which wasn't a total disaster as it was enough to sneak 5th place picking up £18 which will at least pay for some floats... Jon went on to win the match again so well done to him catching at 17mts on 6mm pellets over to the island. Thankful the weather was quite kind to us but a bit of a frustrating day, don't think I made the right decisions from the start which was a bit costly I may of been better off fishing meat on the deck where I started the match but all in hindsight as they say.  

 Winner Again Jon Martin.

 Runner-up Alex Murray.

As far as the silver fish weights went the Wickham's had a total Clean up taking the top 3 places, In form Glyn Came out on top again with a weight of 16lb.

 Silvers Winner Glyn Wormhead Wickham.

 

Full Results -

1st Jon Martin (Summerhayes) peg 12, 60lb 15oz.

2nd Alex Murray (Sign Solutions) peg 37, 54lb 10oz.

3rd Mark Hannon (The Sedges) peg 26, 50lb 8oz.

4th Alvin Jones (Alvin's Car Care) peg 3, 30lb 15oz.

5th Dom Sullivan (Maver) peg 34, 30lb.

6th Jess Jordon (Summerhayes) peg 23, 28lb 11oz.

Silvers -

1st Glyn Wickham (Summerhayes) peg 32, 16lb 13oz.

2nd Ray Wickham (Summerhayes) peg 20, 10lb 7oz.

3rd Nigel Wickham (Summerhayes) peg 5, 6lb 2oz.