Seventeen anglers braved the awful conditions at Salthouse last night for the Rite Gear Monday night league. As we pitched our shelters the wind was whipping up the sea and combined with the start of the match coinciding more or less with high water, it soon became apparent that the first hour or so of the match would be unfishable. Everyone agreed to give it until 8pm to see if the wind would drop and hopefully with an ebbing tide, we would see the sea state calm enough to continue and if no one had caught by that time, we would cancel the rest of the match.
With 10 minutes to go before we could all go home to bed, it was Henry Randell who pulled out a double shot of whiting, and with one being lost in the surf, everyone hoped the one remaining fish would be undersize, however with the fish easily reaching 27cm. We agreed we now had to battle on and finish the match.
As hoped, the sea state continued to flatten off making the rest of the match difficult but fishable, and a spattering of undersized fish began appearing all along the ridge. Jake Cooper found a rockling to save the blank and he hoped it would be enough for 2nd place behind Henry’s whiting. Unbeknown to Jake, Bob O and Charlie Needham both had a sizeable fish and in the dying 30 minutes, Dene Conway managed three double shots, however only two sizeable dabs made the stick. With no other anglers carding it was Henry Randell who took top spot with two fish, second place went to Dene Conway also with two fish, and a joint third place between Charlie Needham and Bob O both with one fish each pushed Jake down into 5th place. After the match, a vote was taken on the venue for the next week’s match and it was decided to change to Weybourne as at Salthouse the seabed seemed to be in poor conditions with several anglers reporting loss of gear.
Six matches now remain and it will be interesting to see if Jake can hang on to his lead.
Well done to all who turned up to probably the second worst match of the series.
1st Henry Randell (30pts)
2nd Dene Conway (29pts)
3rd Bob O. (28pts)
3rd Charlie Needham (28pts)
5th Jake Cooper (27pts)
All others receive 5 points each.
Next match is at Weybourne all are welcome to attend, just ring the shop or pop in to book yourself in.
