The first match of 2025 was fished at Chapel Point on Saturday 11th January with nineteen anglers competing for the Coleman Cup. Conditions where perfect with a three foot swell rolling in from the northeast and little wind on a frosty, still evening. No weed was present in the sea and dabs and whiting made up the bulk of the catches recorded, along with three codling.
Match fishermen Gary Hutson drew peg 1 on the south end of the match stretch just below the North Sea Observatory and was straight away into whiting and dabs. Using his usual three hook clipped down rigs from last week he set to work building up a card of 951cm. Gary won the match in an unhurried display of match fishing, beating his nearest rival by over two meters, landing 31 whiting and dabs.
Match winner Gary Hutson with a treble shot of whiting part of a 31 fish catch for 951cm
Adie Cooper on the far end section towards Chapel Six Marshes had a disastrous start with the first hour of the match producing no fish at all. To catch anything Adie had to cast as far as he could throughout the match using small yellowtail baits, tipped with fish, on streamlined three hook clip rigs. The fish arrived in the second hour of the match when the depth increased and the whiting and dabs finally moved in over the raised sandbar. Adie then started rapidly catching double and treble shots of fish up to high tide, single shots over the top and more doubles on the first hour of the ebb. He was catching up on Gary but, as the water level dropped in the last hour of the match, the bites switched off again and Adie fished in second with 25 fish for 744cm.
Adie Cooper in second place with 25 fish for 744cm
Fishing near Adie, Daz Rose saw the fish were being caught well out beyond his casting range so decided to cut off one of his hook snoods and fish two small baits to gain the necessary extra few yards to reach them. As the numbers of fish where not huge he didn’t need treble shots to keep within touching distance of Adie and with a single fish on almost every cast he put together a respectable catch switching back to three hooks when the fished moved in close at high water picking up a few double shots .and finished in third place with 17 fish for 501cm. Bait today was limited to frozen sticky black lug and small pieces of mackerel for tipping.
Daz Rose in third place with 17 fish for 501cm
In fourth Place with 17 fish was Russ Parsons who fished at long range with frozen sticky lug squid and fish tip to finish with 473cm.
Match organiser Russ Parsons with one of 17 fish haul for 493cm and fourth place
Tony Dunk just missed out on the prizes today despite having a flyer in the early part of the match catching eight good whiting for 2 metres in the first hour. Tony’s secret was using razor fish fishing around 80 yards. Bites slowed towards high water and tailed off completely on the ebb which meant Tony finished with 343cm, 11 fish in fifth place. The rest of the anglers in this (middle) section struggled to find any fish at all throughout the entire match due to the shallow sand bar. The experienced Paul Denholm and Tony Burman finding just seven or eight fish and the less experienced anglers managing only on or two fish for the whole four hours.
Tony Dunk with one of his whiting in 5th place with 343cm
Two juniors fished with us today, Alfie Williams beat Dad Lee with five fish for 123cm and fished very well keeping up with the experienced fishermen around him in the hardest section. Zac Short fished very well to catch an impressive 8 fish for 217cm, and 11th place, fishing his first match with the club. Zac has put in a lot of effort recently into his fishing and learning the ropes with club members Russ Parsons and Jake Clowes’ help and advice.
Nev Hardy with his first codling of 52cm and 3lb 6oz
Another highlight of the match was Nev Hardy’s two cracking codling of 51cm and 52 cm an achievement which hasn’t been done in a Skegness match for a long time. Kev fished into a gulley close in and picked the first codling up and hour before high water and the second an hour down the ebb, bait was a single blow lug tipped with squid and herring. John Spalton also had a smaller codling earlier in the match and Chris Allsopp was very unlucky to lose a decent codling in the breaking wave. This is an encouraging sign for the Lincs coast which seems to have a codling revival happening over the last few days.
Many thanks to Adie for pegging out the match, to Russ for running it on the day, to Chas for the great pics and to all the anglers travelling to fish with the club today. We all look forward to seeing you again at the next one which will be at Trunch lane on the 25th of January.
