Skegness Pier Angling Club fished their latest match on Saturday at Sandilands with a small turnout of just ten anglers due to clashing with the Teams of Five Final. The fishing was poor due to the very rough conditions which had moved the whiting off into deeper water, the anglers had to fish for anything that remained in the big surf. Most struggled to hold bottom at first with many holding their rods as high as possible to avoid the large waves and weed that was present with anglers fishing single or double hooks simply to gain an extra 15 yards and clear the breakers. As the tide flooded and the weed dropped off 170g leads started holding out ok, but many had problems with their leads becoming buried in the sand resulting in snapped lines and lost rigs.
The match stretch looking North
Surprisingly for mid-November the main species caught where bass and flounders. Mark Bradbury fished three hook flappers casting as far as he could initially, had nothing so dropped closer in to look for a flounder in the breaking waves. This produced a bass so mark kept in the suds at 30-50 yards and continued to pick up bass. Mark caught five fish with the biggest being a cracking fish, especially for the time of year, at 48cm. Mark earned himself his first match win with the club with a total length of 198cm. All fish were on frozen black lug.
The match stretch looking South
In second place was Lee Smith with a bass and a flounder. Lee had tried fishing at long range for whiting and flats but dropped short when he saw Mark catching the bass close in and picked up a nice 47cm fish, adding a flounder in the last hour of the match for a total length of 75cm.
Paul Marshall fished as far as he could in the raging sea cutting off a hook snood to gain extra range with a two hook loop rig. On his first cast holding his rod high he had a good bite, that resulted in a 47cm bass. He held on to second place until Lee caught his flounder right at the end of the match. Paul fished with 47cm total length and third place.
Paul Marshall with his 47cm bass for third place
The rest of the field struggled to hold bottom and had no bites with the fish coming from the first five pegs only , conditions proving too much in the shallow section of beach and seven anglers blanked.
Many thanks to Russ Parsons for running the match and to those anglers braving the terrible conditions and travelling from Hull, Lincoln, Kettering, March and Sleaford to fish with the club today. Many thanks to Lee Williams, Charlie and Scott Emm for the great pictures. The next match is the Dave Burr memorial match, on Sunday 30th November at Trunch lane and we look forward to seeing all of you again then.