Sunday 24th March Summerhayes Fishery Open

I was in two minds what to do as the week progressed, there was nothing on locally and I didn't really fancy a days pleasure fishing. I had thought about doing a bit of fluff chucking on Barrow Tanks which is part of the Bristol Water Resovoirs complex for some trout but talked myself out of that (its hard work and can be very fustrating). The wife has also gone to Eygpt with her mum as part of a cruise, I did suggest they consider Somalia but the look said it all. I had the whole weekend to myself but gave fishing on Saturday a rest and decided to book into the Sunday Open at Summerhayes Fishery just off junct ion 25 of the M5, I have glanced over at it many times while heading north towards home but never fished it. Pete the owner gave me the heads up when I booked in and was really helpful. The fishery has a website as well but could do with updating. So with the directions written down I was ready to go.
Heading down the M5 it was really nice, off at junct 24, right at BMW Garage, left into Marsh Lane and then it appeared I entered war torn Afganistan, the road (well it was a road at some point in time) was full of holes and the surface all broken up, next I had to go under the railway line and its the smallest tunnel I have ever driven through (had to breathe in), came out the other side and thought it didn't look right. Fortunetly a lady was out doing some gardening and when spoke to assured me I was going the correct way. Sure enough on the right hand side was the fishery, I was surprised how many ponds etc there was.
Quite a few anglers were already there some from Exeter, some faces I had seen before but cannot remember where or when. I did however recognise Jamie Rich whose blog I follow and enjoy, introduced myself and had a chat with him, I also recognised some anglers from the photo's he publishes. Into the Fishery Hut and paid my £18 (smell of bacon was fantastic).
Draw at 09:00 and I pulled peg 38 right in front of the car par and I had 2 empty pallets to my left and one to my right, in fact I was billy no mates which would suggest if the other pegs wer not in its pretty crap this end! Anyway there were a few fish showing. I set up one rig for 10:00 and 14:00 right across on the lower shelf where I had about 3', 4 x 12 Sensas CCX to 0.13 and 0.10 hook length to a 16 Maver MT6 for banded pellet, Another rig similar set up to fish the middle (it was about 4' deep) but for fishing soft pellet and finally the nearside pallet rig, which was 0.15 with a 4 x 12 straight to a Maver MT5 for fishing paste. Wetted micro and 4 mm hard to be the feed, I also had some green swim stim made up for the middle line.
Whistle went at 09:00 and I fed all my lines, it only took about 10 mins to get my first fish on the banded pellet at 14:00, a small stockie about 1lb, I then had a run of crucians then a skimmer about 2lb and so it continued. I was doing OK and keeping up with the anglers I could see. At the end of the 2nd hour the lake just seemed to switch off. Down to the left hand pallet with paste, float buried and a small carp was soon mine, back again and another, then a load of missed bites. I could see Bod Gullick on Peg 1 catching regularly from some sort of timber construction just past a disabled platform, that appeared to be the only place he could get a bite (in the shade).
I was first to weigh and had 7lb odd of silvers and 8lb of carp, total weight 15-09, rubbish I thought, next angler to weigh had 23lb, then a DNW, then 8lb, then a 52lb ish then Tom Thick with 60lb odd then hardly anything. I walked around a bit and it would appear others had definetly struggled as well.
I have to say the guys that fish here are really friendly and make you very welcome. Jamie done well setting out what he wanted to achieve by winning the silvers (must have been the irish handshake that brought him good luck), see his blog (link below) for the full result.

http://againstmenandfish.blogspot.co.uk/

I will definetly return as they have Wed and Sun opens every week. I can still hear the motorway traffic though. No pics this week left camera at home.