The Yorkshire NFSA AGM took place last weekend at Beverly following a problematic 12 months. Going into the meeting, hope was that the division would strengthen and survive, but the future was uncertain as temporary chairman John Amery was standing down after holding the fort for a year. John is now financial director of the NFSA, and has enough on his plate. Secretary, Gwyn Davies was also standing down.
So it was opened to the floor to see if anyone was prepared to stand and help the division to carry on. The new Chairman is one Tony Burman, and I pledge to take the division forward. The new committee will try and get things moving. We have an excellent secretary in Stuart McPherson. The new treasurer is Cath Breeze, and Phil Arnott doubles as both vice chair and conservation officer. I must thank John and Gwyn for their sterling efforts over the last year. Thanks also to Jean Amery who acted as treasurer.
Divisional initiatives: The famous Top Town Boat Competition returns this year, and will be run off Grimsby, possibly in November. A similar beach match will also be staged at a venue to be announced later. Our coaching programme will be stepped up. To that end, there is a meeting in Hull on Monday, where new ideas and initiatives will be discussed. Hopefully we can start trying to provide proper coaching to those anglers who want to take up sea angling, or those who want to improve their skills.
The Yorkshire Division want to know what you expect from the NFSA? Please give this some thought and feed opinions back to us. As part of National Fishing Week there is a open coaching day taking place at Humberston Creek on Saturday the 26th. Tony Ellis is the lead coach, with assistance from other coaches. Proceedings run from at 10am until 2pm. There are lots of other events happening over the course of NFW.
The NFSA Yorkshire Division summer league kicked off the last Sunday. Detailed results are not yet to hand, but Bob Gascgoine won the event. Fishing was patchy with some areas producing and others clearly not. The match was fully subscribed and this busy trend looks sure to continue throughout the series.
I spent last Friday chasing tope in fabulous conditions aboard Pete Spendlow’s boat. We finally managed a few mackerel for bait off the Donna Nook area, and it wasn’t too long before Peter’s reel screamed to the tune of a tope. A hard fight in the strong tide resulted in a 43lb tope, which was quickly photographed and released. After the fun of me losing a large fish, Peter played and boated a large female fish which pulled the scales round beyond 50lb. We finished the session in the river on the smoothhounds. I managed four, with the biggest into double figures.