Sunny warm conditions greeted the thirteen anglers fishing the latest Skegness Pier Match, held at a busy North Shore, on Sunday morning. The fishing was slow in the blazing sun but a cooling easterly breeze had developed making it pleasant but hampering any really long casting. Several smooth hounds made an appearance plus a flounder and a couple of weevers but it was generally very tough. The busy beach also caused a few problems for those pegged in front on the ramp as they where soon surrounded by sun bathers and this made their fishing doubly hard. One angler packed up with an hour to go due to safety concerns casting from his crowded peg.
The beach looking South taken before it got busy and the gaps between pegs where filled with holiday makers
Gary Hutson started off well with two hounds in the first hour which gave him the early lead. Gary’s approach was simply a single small frozen peeler bait on a pennel pulley cast as far as he could into the head wind, a classic smooth-hound technique. This brought him another two hounds later on including a 108cm specimen.
Adie Cooper on the nearby peg was using almost the exact same rig to Gary a single small frozen crab bait hit out a long way, however, Adie remained without a bite for the first twenty five minutes watching Gary wind in the hounds only to find a small weever had taken to his single bait preventing any of the hounds taking it as the pack moved through the beach. The down side of single baits on small hooks in a match!
Adie Cooper with one of seven hounds hooked and six landed, plus a weever for the match win
At the same time Mark Bradbury caught a decent hound fishing relatively close to the shore then the fishing then dropped off with those fishing close in being bait stripped by shrimps and crabs as the water approached high tide. The long distance baits were remaining intact for nearly half an hour which suggesting that there were hounds hanging just offshore somewhere. This was proved true with Aide finding six hounds in the mid part of the match at long distance, including a last cast special which sealed a win for him with 583cm with a weever and six hounds, dropping one hound in the edge. Gary was in second place with 361cm and four hounds whilst Karl Nangle picked up third place with one smoothie and a weever for 110cm. Longest flatfish was won by Chris Allsopp on a very short mis-cast, a flounder of 26cm and longest round fish was went to Gary Hutson for his biggest hound of 108cm.
Karl Nangle landing a hound in the lovely summer conditions
Many thanks to all those travelling from Hull and Grimsby to fish with club again including the return of Sean Bullock. Also Thomas Marlow fished his first match with the club and it great to meet you both at the weigh in and hopefully you’ll be back for another match soon. Thanks to Tracey and Tina for the great pics, to Adie for pegging out the beach and Russell for running the match.
During the weigh in it was discussed and agreed to move the next match to Sandilands pump station as it’s the bank holiday weekend and if the weathers fine it will make Trunch lane too busy to fish comfortably and safely. So match 18 on Sunday August 25th will be at Sandilands pumping station fishing 09:00 to 13:00 hrs and we look forward to seeing you all again then.
