Thirteen anglers fished the Skegness Pier Angling Club match five, the Gordon Long Cup, on Saturday 18th March at Chapel point. Conditions were pleasant with light winds, an overcast sky and a calm sea with a swell rolling in from the Northeast with well-spaced out waves. The beach at Chapel point has a shallow section with banks to the North leading into a slightly deeper area toward the observatory area to the South where most of the fish were caught. To summarise it was a hard match with a sprinkling of decent fish appearing briefly an hour into the match and a flurry of dogfish on the ebb, the species caught were dabs, dogfish, flounders, thornback rays and whiting.
Adie Cooper
Adie started off slowly in the first hour of the match, using small baits which included black lug, yellowtail, bluey, mackerel and sandeel. Using his standard match rigs, three hook clip downs and B940 size 1s Kamasan hooks he finished the first hour with just a few whiting until a pack of dogfish and rays briefly appeared.
Match winner Adie with the longest round fish a ray of 68cm
Adie was able to pick out two rays and a dogfish by offering a variety of baits at distance, a 68cm ray giving him the longest round fish prize. In the space of a few casts these fish were gone and by high water he had a dogfish, two rays and five whiting. Once the tide flow slackened the bites stopped too, resulting in a long wait for an hour until the fishing slowly picked up again with Adie adding another whiting and two dogfish to finish with 11 fish and winning the match with 413cm.
Karl Nangle
Fishing his first match since January Karl was enjoying a day on the beach with the relaxed, slow paced fishing and the nice conditions. He had a few whiting to start the match and then made the most of the arrival of the dogfish with a double shot of dogs and a whiting in the second hour followed by two more dogfish and several whiting.
Second place Karl Nangle with one of his dogfish
Karl was using three hook clipped down rigs with offset hooks and squid, sandeel and bluey baits, with long casting the key to reaching the fish. Karl finished with ten fish for 402cm for second place.
Matt Perry
An hour into the match Matt saw anglers around him bagging up on rays and dogfish and hastily tied a set of loop rigs on the beach to join the party but by the time he’d cast these out the rays had moved off. He caught a flounder and four whiting on the flood up until HW when the fishing dried up.
Third place Matt Perry with a lively 26cm sole
An hour down the ebb he added a nice sole of 26cm which won him longest fish caught on lugworm. He added three more fish to his card to finish in third place with 221cm.
The rest of the field struggled with only one or two fish each, two blanks were returned on a generally hard day.
I would like to welcome several new faces to our matches; Frank Cribb, Mark Bradbury and Pete Johnson great to meet you and hopefully we’ll see you at more in the future.
Mark Lawson with a whiting which was his only fish, he was not alone with most anglers catching very little on a hard day
A special mention to Mylo for fishing a great match, he came in fourth place on a hard day with seven fish including a dogfish for 201cm. Mylo is a recent member of the club, new to sea fishing. He has really improved his fishing since joining with a combination of practice on the beach, fishing matches and mentoring from our match organiser Russell Parsons. This shows what our friendly club is about, not only winning matches but also helping new anglers improve their fishing through sharing fishing knowledge and experience.
Adie Cooper with a decent dogfish
Many thanks also to travelling anglers Matt Perry and Matty Sabiston for traveling down from the Grimsby area to fish and thanks to Adie Cooper for pegging the match, Russell Parsons for running the match on the day and to Chas for collating all attendance numbers and working out all the statistics for the league.
The next match is on April the 8th at Trunch lane with free parking and we look forward to seeing you all then.
