11-04-15. Gary Bull/England Disabled Fund Raising Event, Summerhayes Fishery, Bridgwater.

Today wasn't about the fishing (which for some was a bonus), but it was organised and arranged in large by Mark Cox and Norman Sterry. The ambition was to raise a bit of money to help the funding to send Gary Bull and the England Disabled angling team to Portugal for their World Champs.

There were plenty of donations to the raffle from many people and companies, so massive thanks to them (the list will be on the Gary Bull Fundraiser page of Facebook).
Summerhayes Fishery was the chosen venue and Pete (plus he amiable team) were a great help.

I arrived at the lakes around 7:15 and there were still a few people there but I managed to find myself indulged in the sorting of things, mostly helping with the 'admin' side of things, oh and the weigh in!!
There was plenty of banter flying around and we had a few very good anglers fishing as well as a couple of guys who'd never fished a match and a fair few venue regulars.
These guys included Des Shipp, Vince Brown, Alex Murray, Giles Cochrane and plenty of other very capable anglers.

The draw was meant to be 8:45 and fish 10:30 to 16:30, but in the moment of re-jigging the sections/payouts as we had a few no-shows. We began the draw, with raffle tickets being sold at the same time. This went smoothly enough, but by the time 47 of the lads had drawn and mine and Mark's pegs were left, we still had to sort the monies and envelopes etc.....I pulled peg 5 on Sellicks and left Mark with 10 on Longs (although someone else was on there....ooops, but sorted). It left us both with 45 minutes less than everyone else to get ready.

I unloaded my car and rapidly got to my peg, it was windy!! I didn't know if it was good or bad, but a few guys said its ok for both carp and silvers,
I set up a small feeder and 3 top kits for the pole, 1 for silvers at 11m, a deep rig for tight over with carp in mind but could be shallowed as was for banded pellet, a margin rig for top kit+1 to my right with meat and a rig for meat at 13m (no fish caught here).

Summerhayes , Sellicks peg 5.

I sorted my bait out, 6mm meat, dampened 6mm pellets, a few maggots and some damp micros. I also had some groundbait mixed as I planned on 2 silvers lines, one with micro and 2nd with the groundbait.

At the all in I fed the relevant areas and started on the feeder, 20 mins later I switched to the pole and quickly foul hooked a couple carp which came astray. It was hard going it the awkward breeze and the fish didn't seem intent on joining the fun.

The rest of my match was spent rotating all my lines, I managed to snare a 4lb bream on the feeder and a few smaller skimmers over the groundbait, my micros line only gave me 1 bite.
My best line was my right hand margin which gave me 6 of my 8 carp, but they were on the small side.
The silvers never really got going in my peg, but further to my right Ray Wickham was getting a few up to near 6lb, but he'd not entered the silvers pools. Down to my left someone was picking up a few decent skimmers and odd carp.  It was tricky for everyone I could see. The lad on peg 6 also packed up early as he was biteless.

As we headed to the end of the match, rumour came in that Des Shipp on Longs peg 37 was doing really well, he had plenty of room and you don't give 'possibly' the best angler in the room any advantage. Also Vince Brown and Scott Russell on my lake were doing ok. Lilly lake was consistent and Longs was seeing a few people catch some fish late on.

View down Sellicks and you can see Lilly lake in the background

Looking over Longs, note Des Shipp's 'spacious' peg!!

The all out sounded and as I had been nominated for weigh sheet duty, I packed up just my top kits and moved my kit to one side to sort out later on!!
I reckoned I had 20lb of carp and 5lb of silvers but nowhere on the lake or overall.

The weigh in started on Longs and we worked our way through the pegs with 26lb and 24lb (14lb+ silvers) the first couple of weights, then we move around a few more anglers to find Paul Homewood on peg 14 put 30lb on the scales, we soon got to Alex Murray on peg 17. He had 64lb+ from what looked a really wide peg, nice. Jamie Rich down on peg 19 amassed nearly 20lb of silvers that included 4 big bream, a very decent silvers net.
We headed up the road bank to see Giles Cochrane and Dom Sullivan put 49lb+ and 44lb+ on the board respectively. Then Glyn Wickham showed his silvers fishing skills and placed a top silvers net of 25lb 9oz. Last on Longs to weigh was Des Shipp, he had 1lb 1oz of silvers before his 2 weighs of carp went to a limited 80lb (knocked back from 87lb 15oz).

Next up we weighed one side of  Sellicks which saw me weigh 32lb+ and 34lb the only weight better on my side of the lake (section) but Ray Wickham did catch 17lb of silvers from peg 3 and the lad on peg 7 (Steve Rees) had 12lb+ of silvers too.
Lilly gave consistent fishing with a good few nets between 30lb and 42lb, Bob Gullick winning the lake(section). There was a silvers net of 12lb off this lake to Tony Welsby.

We moved back to Sellicks to weigh Paul Preston who was the last angler in my section, then we weighed the far side of the lake.
Vince Brown, a very tidy angler, put a healthy 10lb 3oz of silvers on the board, topping this up with carp moved him to 2nd spot with 69lb+.
Gary Bull himself weighed in 31lb and there wasn't much more until Julian Nurse plopped 29lb of topkit caught fish on the scales. Lastly was Scott Russell on the end peg. He did well to catch 10lb 13oz of silvers and another 40lb+ of carp.

All the weigh sheets!!

 



 



Results, top 15:

1st Des Shipp 81lb 1oz (revised from 89lb) (longs p37)

2nd Vince Brown 69lb 3oz (sellicks p14)

3rd Alex Murray 64lb 12oz (longs p17)

4th Scott Russell 52lb 7oz (sellicks p23)

5th Giles Cochrane 49lb 2oz (longs p29)

6th Dom Sullivan 44lb 9oz (longs p33)

7th Bob Gullick 42lb 7oz (lilly p2)

8th Paul Clayton 38lb 13oz (longs p27)

9th Glynn Wickham 37lb 2oz (longs p35)

10th Gavin Jones 36lb 7oz (lilly p3)

11th  Andy Gard 34lb 7oz (sellicks p8)

12th Simon Hales 32lb 15oz (lilly p8)

13th Lee Williams 32lb 5oz (sellicks p5)

14th Gary Bull 31lb 8oz (sellick p15)

15th Andy Hembrow 30lb 5oz (lilly p11)

Silvers, top 6:

1st Glyn Wickham 25lb 9oz (longs p35)

2nd Jamie Rich 19lb 13oz (longs p19)

3rd Ray Wickham 17lb 1oz (sellicks p3)

4th Geoff Boycott 14lb 13oz (longs p4)

5th= Steve Rees 12lb 11oz (sellick p7)

         Chris Boulton 12lb 11oz (longs p6)

 

So overall I did ok really, 2nd overall in my 10 peg section, 3rd silvers in section (6th lake) and 4th on the lake overall. I did lose a few foul hooked fish and maybe I could have done better if I had been able to fish across better.

 

After the weigh in I sorted the payments out and everyone had a burger given to them courtesy of Summerhayes.

We held a minutes silence in memory of Clive Cunnigham who sadly died this week, he was a part of the furniture at the lakes and will be missed by many.

The presentation was done and as the payment were well spread, there were no less than 17 different anglers picking up today.

After that we held the raffle which was popular as there were plenty of super prizes to win.

 

OVERALL WE RAISED OVER £530 TOWARDS THE COSTS NEEDED BY GARY BULL etc...

 

Des Shipp, today's match winner. (pic pinched off Norm Sterry..!!)

So again a massive well done and thank you to all involved.

 

Next up for me is tomorrow at Sedges in a silvers only match.

 

Until then take care.

Lee