Skegness Pier Angling Club fished their latest match at Trunch Lane on Saturday with fifteen anglers competing for the Beachcomber Shield. Conditions were partially overcast with a fresh westerly wind and a healthy 3-4 ft swell rolling in from the northeast. At the start of the match weed was a problem, catching the lines and sweeping them along the beach causing many tangles and making bait presentation difficult. The spring tide also brought plenty of fish into the beach along with the weed and bites were plentiful all round, whiting feeding hard on shrimps close to shore where the dominant species caught along with dabs, a dogfish, haddock, a sole and a bonus codling. Distance casting was not essential tonight with anglers picking up fish from as close as 50 metres.
Adie Cooper fished at long range with black lug tipped with squid or small pieces of fish and sandeel. Using his Zziplex M4GT and Penn Mag reel he was able to cast put three small baits way out over a sandbar in front of his peg and reach the feeding fish beyond. Catching double and treble shots throughout the match with a slight slow down in catch rate over slack water, he put together a catch of 36 fish for 1122cm of mostly whiting to 44cm and a bonus 38cm Haddock to win the match. Adie had made a change of rigs tonight from his usual three hook loop rig to a three hook clipped down. He believed because the strong tidal current meant that any fish on the bottom hook could twist the lead out of the sand and dislodge the rig then drifted off down tide spoiling presentation. By having three hooks above the lead the whiting would not dislodge the lead and the other two baits would stay stationary and fill up with fish as they remained presented correctly.
Karl Nangle predicted that the fish would be close in tonight and in good numbers, so he set out from the start fishing three hook flapper rigs for speed. He was still able to cast these baits a good distance on his AFAW Match Pro MK2 and caught double and treble shots all match, on yellowtails and squid tipped baits. Karl was head to head with Adie for most of the match but the last hour saw fishing around his area of beach slow up significantly, causing him to drop behind and into second place finishing with 29 fish for 839cm.
Mark Bradbury started out fishing as far out as he could cast and was picking up whiting every cast with 24, 28 and 30cm fish on fresh black lug baits he had dug earlier in the day.. However, he soon became fed up with having to pluck weed off the line and so dropped a cast close in to try and avoid it. This was the right decision not only as he found the whiting where in close and continued to catch them quicker, but he also picked up a decent codling of around 3.5lb and 53cm. Mark recorded his best performance in a match tonight, coming in third place with 27 fish for 836cm. To top it off he also picked up the longest round fish prize for his codling.
Most anglers caught over 20 fish each down to ninth place with no blanks recorded, a couple of anglers recording their best match catches to date in one being Chris Allsopp who fishing near Karl but had the fish switch off adding just two in the last hour. Kev Martin won the longest flatfish prize for a cracking 33cm sole.
We would like to welcome Simon Hardy and Alfie Williams who were fishing with the club for the first time. Both fished well, and caught plenty of fish in their first match with the club and we look forward to seeing you both again a more matches in the future.
Many thanks to Adie for pegging out the match and to Russ for running it on the day and Chas working out the results quickly at the end. Thank you, Tracey, Tina and Chas, for the great pictures and to all those anglers travelling to fish with us. The next match is planned for Saturday 30th at North Shore and we look forward to seeing you all then.
