Dave Finds The Lancashire Rays

Fleetwood and District Angling Clubs fished an evening match at Rossall Hospital where it was slow apart from the anglers who were in the first two bays. The fishing had been a bit slow for the last few days, but with a bigger tide it was expected to improved a bit.

One of the problems at the moment is a large sandbank which runs parallel to the beach and just happens to be the distance most anglers land at frontage high water mark. There were a few thornbacks caught along with dogs and whiting. One bass was landed together with a smoothhound just at the edge.

Crab and fish baits seemed to do the damage. Congratulations to Ian Hewitt who showed us all how to catch fish this evening, 14 anglers fished.

Results

1^st Ian Hewitt 3 dogs 2 whiting 1 bass 1 thornback for 153 points

2^nd Neil Porter 2 whiting 1 dog 1 thornback for 90 points

3^rd Tim Wrigley 2 whiting 1 thornback for 60 points

4^th Dave Norton 2 whiting 1 thornback for 57 points

5^th Jamie Tyrer 1 whiting 1 thornback for 54 points

6^th Simon Dawber 3 whiting 1 dog for 36 points

7^th Mark Broadhurst 1 whiting 1 dog for 34 points

8^th Hughie Porter 1 whiting 1 dog for 29 points

9th = Andy Denton Frank Towne 1 dog 22 points

10^th Dave Hutchinson 4 whiting for 19 points

The fish worth the most points went to Neil Porter for his 54 cm thornback.

Next Sunday’s match is at the Miners’ Home with fishing from 12 to 3.30 and is a flat and round match.

The club has been lucky enough to borrow for the next few weeks a 14 foot evolution match CT rod. These are a new rod from a Cumbria based company sold as a blank or made up to a high standard by David G Hutchinson. I will bring it along to the club matches and if you want to put your own reels on and give it a whirl you are more than welcome to try it out. We have received glowing reports about this rod.

Dave Brown has recently been trying to catch a ray and he has fished in sleet, gales pouring rain but they have avoided him this year until tonight.

Dave with a thornback ray

Conditions looked good and for once the sea was calm and it was actually warm outside. First cast produced a whiting then second cast saw a lovely slackline bite and his first ray of the year after that he had a few whiting sometimes two a cast then just before high the rays came on.

Dave ended up with nine rays with the best just over 6lb and another at 5lb, the rest were a lot smaller.

Leyland and District Angling Club were out on Sunday at Perch Rock on the Mersey.

1. Fred Howard with 4 rays including the biggest fish at 54cm, 4 dogfish, a dab and a rockling scoring 261 match points.
2. Peter Pilkington with 2 rays, 4 dogfish, 2 dabs and 2 whiting, scoring 155 points.
3. Nigel Thompson with 17 dabs, a whiting and a dogfish, scoring 104 points.
4. Norman Pilkington with a ray and a dogfish, scoring 58 points.
5. Warren Bennett with 3 plaice, 6 flounders and 2 dabs, scoring 54 points.