Skegness Pier Angling Club fished their latest match at Chapel Point on Saturday. Conditions were fair with a calm sea, minimal weed and a moderate southerly breeze. Thirteen anglers fished the match which is held every year in memory of Roy Parker.
Karl Nangle releasing a big cast on his Anyfish anywhere match pro mk2
On Gary Hutson’s first cast he landed a cracking hound of 95cm, this looked very promising and given the calm conditions and time of year hopes were high of a good match with lots of fish. Sadly, this was not to be, and the promised feast was in fact a famine with everyone struggling to catch even a single fish. Six anglers blanked and the rest had to try and scratch about to find a fish. By halfway only seven anglers had caught just one fish each.
Karl seals his win with a good smoothie of 88cm on peeler crab
Gary’s big hound put him way out in front of the field, but he knew he needed another fish to ensure a win due to the matches being fished to total length and not weight conversion. He alternated between a three hook clipped down rig with a variety of baits and a single hook rig baited with fresh peeler crab casting to maximum distance to try and find ideally another hound or just any other fish. Unfortunately, this was not the case today and he finished in second place on 95cm, the single fish also won him the longest round fish prize.
The match winner Karl Nangle with a 22cm turbot
Karl Nangle fished today with a with an assured display of long distance match fishing, presenting three baits of sandeel, worm and fresh peeler a long way out. He picked up a small turbot early in the match on the fish bait of 22cm but needed a hound to make up the gap to Gary. He was fishing fresh crab all match on the bottom hook of his loop rig to target one and this tactic paid off in the last hour of the match when a nice 88cm smooth hound found his peeler and this fish combined with his turbot gave Karl the win with 108cm.
Ian Nelson in third place with one of his flounders
Ian Nelson caught two flounders, one in the gutter and one at range however he was very unlucky not to frame higher as he lost a suspected nice ray which gave him a slow pull down bite and a heavy ponderous fight until it pinged off halfway in on the retrieve. This would have made a lovely double shot but landed just a flounder on the top hook, but this gave him third place with 55cm.
Tony Dunk caught one flounder but missed a bite and dropped a good sized eel on the last cast. Mark Bradbury catching a whiting and Paul Dixon a small school bass.
Adie Cooper’s match was extremely hard and all he caught was single large flounder on ragworm, fished around 15 yards. This was caught through trying every range and going through all the pristine baits he had prepared the previous week. To illustrate the effort, they put in to get the best bait, he had gone bait digging twice the previous day at 4am then again after work 6pm and on match day he was up at 6am preparing all the bait. The work which all the match anglers who regularly win is impressive, rig tying, preparing tackle, and bait collecting before a match takes around twenty hours per match.
Ade in fourth with a decent flounder caught under the rod tip on king rag, winning longest flatfish prize
The high light of the match came afterwards with Sharon Parker and Wayne Sumner putting on food for all the attendees of the Roy Parker Cup which was held in memory of Sharon’s father, including Lincolnshire sausage hot dogs and delicious cinnamon swirls and apple strudel baked by Wayne himself. We would like to say a special thank you to Sharon, Wayne and Gina (Roy’s widow) for giving us all a real treat in memory of Roy who was a major part of the Skegness club. At the end Chas was also about present the cup and other prizes when the heavens opened and deluged all in a heavy rain shower which at least had held off during the match.
Many thanks to Adie for pegging out the match and to Russ Parsons for running it as he always does. Thanks to all those travelling to fish with the club today from Grimsby and further afield including England International George Smith. Also thank you to Tina and Tracey for the great pictures (Tracey was not able to fish today due to an injury) and to Chas for all the organisation behind the scenes in running the club.
The next match is planned for Sunday 30th June at Trunch lane, and we are all looking forward to seeing you then.
