Skegness Pier Angling Club fished their latest match at Chapel Point on Saturday 4th October. Eighteen anglers fished for the RG Mitchell Cup in calm seas and a strong offshore wind. There was some rain at times and a bit of weed in the water which hampered fishing on the ebb. The match was pegged either side of the point to avoid the shallow area to the North of the match stretch. Whiting, dabs and dogfish dominated the catches with flounders, an eel and a haddock caught. There appeared to be no set pattern to the distance out or which bait the fish prefered today and the whiting caught seemed to be feeding heavily on shrimps.
The match stretch looking South of the point
Michael Suddaby travelled down from Hull to fish his first match with the club today, he’d brought along sandeels and peelers to purposely target a dogfish along with the standard lug and bluey for whiting and dabs. He started off catching fish every cast including a double shot of dogs on sandeel and a whiting followed by a triple shot of whiting next cast. Once the dog fish disappeared, he went over to lug tipped with Bluey or sandeel to target the whiting and dabs on all three hooks and caught consistently all match with double shots of fish with just one blank cast all match. Despite cracking off once and snapping his main line due to large amounts of weed, he built up a total length of 916cm with 29 fish to win the match.
Match winner Michael Sudderby with one of his triple shots winner today with 914cm and 29 fish
Adie Cooper fishing at the other side of the point started off catching well with double and triple shots of whiting and dabs and by high water he had around 7m of fish and was in a good position to potentially win the match. The bites slowed down over the whole match length, and this was particularly noticeable here on the southern side of the point, this caused Aide to retrieve four consecutive blank casts over high water which potentially cost him over a meter of fish in an unproductive hour. Adding just one meter of fish to his card on the ebb and came in second with 27 fish for 834cm.
Adie Cooper in second place on 834cm with a bonus haddock part of his 27 fish catch
Brett Bartram fished close to the point and started off well catching a couple of dogfish, whiting and dabs a fish a chuck and had 470cm by high tide. However, when the bites tailed off a bit he altered casting distances to keep the fish coming in and finished the match with 24 fish for 761cm and third place. Brett use a standard three hook clipped down rig, 14 inch snoods and size 2 hooks his bait was fresh yellowtails and bluey.
Russ Parsons was into lots of fish at the start of the match with five fish in the first two casts, but the bite seemed to back off around high tide. Russ used fresh black lug and fish tip to continue catching throughout the match and came in fourth place with 25 fish for 720cm.
Karl casting a bait out with his AFAW Match Pro MK 2
Paul Dixon fished the southern most end peg and had a flyer of a start with three fish a cast for the first three casts, but this stopped as the tide slacked with Paul adding one fish a cast but included several decent flounders in the 30cm size. Paul’s bait was good quality frozen black lug, squid or mackerel tip. He came in fifth with 23 fish for 696cm just outside of the money.
Karl Nangle with a couple of decent whiting
Karl Nangle had a good start to the match and was head and head with match winner Michael however he had a couple of casts with single shots of dabs during the time when Michael was landing double dogs and whiting meant Karl fell behind and as the bites slowed down from this point he could not catch up. Things did not improve on the ebb either for Karl, picking up dabs rather than whiting or dogfish and adding just 82cm more to finish with 23 fish for sixth place on 682cm. Karl fished all match launching baits out to max range with blow lug black wraps tipped with sandeel and mackerel.
Zac Short with a double shot of whiting. Zac came in seventh place with 20 fish catch for a total length of 597cm
Junior angler Zac Short fished a three hook clip down rig with 12 inch snoods to a size 2 hooks baited with frozen lug and squid tips all match. As there were plenty of fish showing he timed each cast between 10 and 15 minutes. Zac is continuously improving his fishing and is learning a lot with the club. Today for example he began fishing with a multi for the first time but made the right decision to switch back to his fixed spool set up which allowed him to fish at a consistently faster pace and keep his catch rate up. Zac beat several experienced match anglers today and came in seventh place with a really good performance catching 20 fish including a last cast doggy for 597cm.
The rest of the field all caught fish with over three meters being required down to 14th place with most catching between 5 to 22 fish each. The longest flat prize was won by Chris Allsopp for a 31cm flounder and Mark Sudderby took the longest round prize for a 62cm Dogfish.
Tony Dunk with a decent dab
Many thanks to Aide for pegging out he beach and to Russ Parsons for running the match. Many thanks to those travelling from Hull Grimsby Lincoln and March to fish with the club today. Thank you to Tina Tracey and Chas for the pictures. We look forward to seeing you all again at the next one at Huttoft on the 18th of October.
