Skegness Pier Club fished their latest match at North Shore Road on Saturday 1st March. Fourteen anglers competed for the Gordon Long Cup in very pleasant mild conditions with little wind and calm sea. A small amount of weed was present in the water due to the large spring tide, but this was manageable and disappeared completely over the high water period. With the recent arrival of dogfish and rays along the coast hopes where high of a decent result and this was the case with the anglers catching plenty of dogfish, dabs, flounders, rays and whiting.
Karl Nangle secured victory with a personal best catch during a Skegness match of eleven dogfish. This added to his catch of dabs and whiting, culminated in a total of twenty-two fish, measuring a total length of 862 cm. Karl had decided before the match to target dogfish after having similar success with the species at the same time last year. He fished baits such as mackerel, sandeel and squid to tempt the small sharks, and had brought just one wrap of worms in his cool box, for the dabs, as a plan B. On his first cast Karl caught two decent whiting and a dab on worm, he tried worm and sandeel on his second cast which resulted in two dogfish and a whiting triple shot. So, he continued to offer fish baits for the rest of the match and was able to load up with dogfish and avoid the shorter dabs, winning with single and double shots of whiting and dogs for 862cm.
Karl won the match fishing mainly fish baits at range catching doggies, dabs and whiting for a total length of 862cm
Paul Denholm had a slow start to the match, watching his travelling partner Ian Nelson on the next peg catching double shots of fish for fun, catching five fish including a ray before Paul even started. He finally began by catching dabs on lugworm close in and tried further out on rag and squid and started to pick up dogfish. Sticking on rag/squid he dropped in close again and continued to pick up dogfish with the rod rattling as soon as the bait went out. By sticking with a shorter cast, he cut down the retrieve time and was able to increase catch rate. Catching doggies at short range plus a small ray he built up a card of 17 fish. This was only one fish ahead of Ian but nearly a meter greater in length at 756cm which put him in second place.
Paul Denholm in second place with one of his dogfish
Ian started the match catching double shots of whiting and dogfish on black lug tipped with fish. Alternating baits to rag and squid resulted in a slow pull down bite which resulted in a very nice 53cm thornback ray and fishing throughout the match with combinations of black lug, squid and fish cast as far as he could produced double shots of dabs, dogfish and whiting resulting in 16 fish for 662cm and third place.
Ian Nelson with a double shot of dogfish
Lee Williams finished in fourth place with 14 fish including eight dogfish dabs and whiting for 653cm only just short of the top three experienced match anglers which is a very respectable result in his first season beach fishing. Lee has spent time on his casting and invested in a new rod greatly increased his casting distances which often helps reach the fish in Lincs coast matches.
Adie Cooper, Dave Shorthouse and Tracey Cooper-Adams had drawn pegs to the North end of the match stretch along with Russ and George Sparkes, here the beach appeared to be slightly shallower with a sand bar forming at around 100m. The numbers of dabs where greater here which reduced the total length recorded compared to catching dogfish. Nevertheless, Dave and Tracey managed 15 fish each. With Tracey catching a cracking 2lb 3oz dogfish and winning the longest flatfish prize for a 27cm dab. Adie and Dave both went flat out for a bigger fish, with a squid and rag bait on their bottom hook cast way over the sand bar and both caught a big ray each at extreme range. Adie’s being 75cm and winning the longest fish prize with Daves at 69cm.
Adie Cooper winning the longest round fish prize with a 75cm Thornback ray, weighing 6lb 13oz
The rest of the field of Mark Bradbury, Arty Arkrill, Chris Allsopp, Russ Parsons, Nev Hardy and Alfie Williams (jnr.) all caught plenty of fish and every angler fishing caught at least one dogfish, with a grand total of 79 being recorded.
Many thanks to Adie for pegging out the beach, to Russ Parsons for running the match and to Chas, Tina and Tracey for the great photos. Thanks to all those travelling to fish with us today from as far as Corby, Lincoln and Grimsby. The next match is on Saturday 15th March at Trunch lane, and we are all looking forward to seeing you then.
