Venue: Bacton noon to 5pm 11th May

The Bacton match was a very warm affair with bright sunshine and the heat to go with it.We all parked within the confines of Castaways caravan park and special thanks to the owners for allowing us the facilities.

 
The majority of angler opted for a walk along the cliffs to the slip road behind the gas terminals, and then as far as the last pipe to the left.Golden balls, Tony “Genesis” Chidwick and Dene “Geordieman” Conway all opted for the bay just after the first pipe with Golden balls claiming prime position.Further along John Neave and Dennis “the whinger” Hunn walked that extra few bays to get near the other pipe with Dennis claiming the prime spot.
With blue skys and blistering heat it was hard not to just kick back and enjoy the weather but with the promise of possible good bass and smoothhound everyone tried hard.
Tony & Dene opted for big baits thruout the match but both blanked .Richard “Golden Bollox” Ives aimed his small baits at the end of the pipe to pick up 8 fish mainly pouting.In the last hour of the match Dennis managed to find two good bass off the end of the far pipe with two pouting giving him a good win with a total weight of 3.10 and 1/3,Russell Barber, Dick Hawes and Ray “Popeye” Ward all managed one fish each and in total 3 of us blanked with others reporting small codling and crab activity.
A nice day out if you forget the fishing aspect of it.

Results

Colwyn Bay Victoria sea angling club,
Summer league match 2,
Greenfield, Sunday 11th May 2008.

18 members fished the second leg at Greenfield. With blistering sunshine and light winds it really felt like summer at last. It wasn`t to last though, we had a thunderstorm and rain for the last half hour of the match, catching a few people out who weren`t dressed for it!

Venue: Kelling 9am to 2pm 4th May
Kelling was host to this weeks match. We were met by glorious sunshine; however the wind put a dampener on the temperature. There was a good turn out for a change (eventually when everyone remembered what time the match actually started!) and the club would like to welcome all new members. Anyway, back to the match report. With summer arriving abruptly I think the sun had gone to our heads. I say this because of the array of different baits on show before we teed off. Garlic, olives and silt, I know what your thinking!!! Fishermen will try anything to catch fish. New comer Ray (Popeye) Ward was responsible for the olives and the silt which managed to catch a good size rockling.

The sea was flat calm and the order of the day was dabs… well so we hoped. The chairman Tony Chidwick and golden b******s were convinced that a long hike towards the block house would produce the goods. A few anglers including myself headed towards the wreck and everyone else filled in the gaps.

At the end of the match many of the anglers had a mixed bag with pout and dabs being the most common fish caught. However congratulations must handed to our tiddler bashing champ Dene Conway who finally caught something to way in! The lucky devil managed to haul in two starry smoothhounds at 57 cm each as well as 5 pouting one of which measured 31cm giving him a winning weight of 4.7 lbs.This just goes to show after weeks of catching next to nothing even the most disheartened anglers can come good.The early showing of smoothhound is a promising sign which will get anglers back onto the beaches and catching good fish again.

One of the reason for Dene’s success was he was using fresh peeler crab. With next weeks match being played at Bacton near the gas site; (a good bass mark) I wonder how many more anglers will be wrapping crabs around hooks and crossing fingers? 

  Dene displaying his first of 2 smoothhound near the wreck at Kelling

Results