Summerhayes Two Day Festival.

Traveling with Nick Harvey for this two day individual festival held over Sellicks & Longs Lake with the first day on Sellicks For all 18 of us booked in, After the usual Hilltops breakfast we made are way to the fishery and glad to see the weather was at least kind to us with near perfect conditions for a change. We weren't sure of the format as far as pay out's went but it turned out the entry fee of £40 would be spread over the top 3 silvers and carp weights over the two days meaning nothing for paid out on the day for individual top weights of either. This is ok if your in contention after day one but could spell disaster if things didn't go according to plan'? Into the draw and I found myself on peg 3 which seemed ok as I had fellow Blogger and silver fish lover Jamie Rich on peg 2 and with peg 4 empty and Jess Jordan on peg 5 so my mind was pretty much made up my to attempt to catch some carp.

I set up a 4x10 chanti on 0.13-0.11 to fish over towards the island were I found a small flat spot about 2ft deep, it was the same depth into the bay against the bank off to my left so I could use this rig to double up on this line.

A 4x12 Chanti to fish in-front of the empty pallet on the same line with an 16 63-13 hook in nearly 4ft of water which I would also use as a silvers rig in the open water about 10mts in-front of me,

And finally a PB1 on a long line to use as a swinging rig to fish into the bay in the open water should I see signs of fish up in the water as well a fishing shallow down my inside edge were I would feed by hand regularly. At the all in I feed a good pot of meat with hemp and a few grains of corn down in-front the pallet some chopped worm and micros on the 10mt line and started the match fishing tight over on the flat spot feeding a few micros via a cad-pot and fishing a 4mm expander on the hook.

 After 15mins I bumped of a small fish the foul hooked two carp so started to feed the odd grain of corn with the micros and fished a single grain on the hook.

Things didn't improve as I still foul hooked two more carp in the next 30mins so time for a change, Onto the swinging rig into the bay where I had been feeding a few hard 4mm with the catty, I fully expected to latch into a few but it just didn't happen' After 2hrs Jamie had put around six 1lb pus skimmers in the net and Jess had caught a coupe of carp into the bay behind the empty peg 4 and Alvin jones was doing well again further down the lake already putting a few carp in the net and as for me I was still to hook anything in the mouth" I had a look on the silvers' line with a small piece of worm but foul hooked an angry carp which took me all the way under the pallet before my rig shot back and smashed in the tree to my left! So it was time to try my banker line down by the pallet starting on a single cube of meat, just one liner saw me try corn on the hook but still nothing, I had been flicking a few cubes of meat just along my inside bank and did notice a fish move under the surface so decided to try my swinging rig set a 1ft deep again with a single cube on the hook. At Last' My first carp all of 2lb but at least I had caught' even thought it had taken me over 3 hours!  No more signs of fish so again it was a case of trying all my swims looking for some bites" The last couple of hours saw the wind pick right up along with a few showers to add to the fun of it but I just couldn't catch, I decided to see if I could get a late run of silvers so added another small pot of worm & micro onto the 10mts line and tried again with small bits of worm on the hook, I lost a skimmer then netted one hooked in the fin" then had a 3lb carp before it died, by now we had 20mins to go and its not often I do it but I threw in the towel! I couldn't take the pain anymore and nothing I decided to do seemed to work today, Jamie did well finishing the day with 14 skimmers taken on expanders over micros and ground-bait to take the top silvers weight of the day with 12lb odd with his full rundown on his blog so well done mate. Top weight on the day came from the opposite bank with Jon Martin taking 50b odd of carp again on soft pellet fished across to the island so well done again. I didn't weigh-in but surely would of been last' So although my pools are paid up for day two on longs tomorrow I wont be going' Simply because even if I went on to break the lake record I would only win, Nowt! lol. I don't like not turning up at events after booking-in but with the pools already paid which means it wont effect the pay-outs there's no harm done and it makes sense for me to try and find another match to fish if possible. Good luck to the rest of the field and Jamie will have the full results on his bog after day 2. One of the worst matches I've had for a long time but nothing I did seemed to work, it didn't help with the wind spoiling things later in the match but I felt I didn't make the right decisions today but its only fishing so lessons learnt and hopefully next time I can approach things differently and put more in the net.