Skegness Pier Angling Club (SPAC) held their twenty second match of the year earlier today from Vicker’s Point at the seaward end of Anchor Lane. Parking was conveniently along the sea wall, but unfortunately we had another poor turnout of just 10 anglers. High water was at 10am and to avoid too early a start, the match was fished one and a half hours up, then two and a half down over a small 5.7m tide. Conditions were quite reasonable, with a light south westerly wind and a bit of movement in the sea. But there was an ominous amount of the dreaded weed at the high water mark.
Match stretch looking north
I was involved in RNLI business this morning with an exercise launch and didn’t manage to get down the beach until gone 11am. By then I had missed a lot of the early action, but as I arrived at the end peg, Tracy Cooper-Adams pulled in a nice whiting and dab triple shot. Tracy already had almost 3m of fish on her card and was keeping up with her partner Adie, who was having a bit of a struggle to consistently find the fish. As I walked along. most anglers had caught ok, but the fishing was patchy, with a triple shot of whiting on one cast, often being followed by two or three blank casts. The only angler who appeared to be catching consistently was in-form Grimsby ace Ian Nelson, who was pulling in fish on most casts.
Match winner Ian Nelson who fished consistently throughout to finish 3m ahead of the rest of the field
As the tide dropped, the weed started to make it’s presence felt; but fortunately there wasn’t a great deal of tide run and it didn’t appear to put the fish off, although the fishing remained patchy for some. As the cards came in, it was obvious that Ian Nelson had retained his consistency throughout the match, ending up easy winner of the Beachcomber Shield, with 28 whiting measuring 786cm in total. Ian also took the longest round fish prize with a decent 40cm whiting. Unlike many, Ian fished three hooks all clipped above the lead rather than loop rigs. He fished at around 80 yards, using slapped blacks tipped mainly with squid and occasionally small pieces of mackerel.
Grimsby ace Karl Nangle with a nice triple shot of whiting helping him to second place
Fishing north of Ian on pegs 3&4, another top Grimsby angler Karl Nangle and fen dweller John Eelman Spalton had a ding dong battle throughout the match. John had a slight edge up until the very last cast, when Karl pulled in a whiting triple shot to snatch second place with 18 fish for 489cm. Karl also won the longest flatfish prize with a 28cm dab. The Eelman finished just 11cm behind Karl, taking third podium place with 16 fish for 478cm. Special mention goes to Tracy, who fished brilliantly again to come in fourth with 15 fish totalling 400cm.
Third place was taken by the Eelman, John Spalton, who was just pipped at the post by Karl
Full result as follows:
1. Ian Nelson – 786cm – 28 whiting
2. Karl Nangle – 489cm – 13 whiting, 4 dabs, 1 rockling
3. John Spalton – 478cm – 14 whiting, 2 dabs
4. Tracy Cooper-Adams – 400cm – 10 whiting, 4 dabs, 1 rockling
5. Mark Bradbury – 389cm – 12 whiting, 1 rockling, 1 flounder
6. Russ Parsons – 386cm – 12 whiting, 1 rockling, 1 flounder
7. Paul Denholm – 361cm – 13 whiting
8. Adie Cooper – 338cm – 9 whiting, 4 dabs
9. Jake Clowes – 297cm – 9 whiting, 2 rockling, 1 flounder
10. Kev Martin – 188cm – 5 whiting, 1 rockling, 1 flounder
Longest Round – Ian Nelson – 40cm whiting
Longest Flat – Karl Nangle – 28cm dab
So not a bad match in the end, with 125 whiting, 14 dabs, 7 rockling and 4 flounders caught in total. Everyone gave it their best shot and there was a nice atmosphere on the beach, with good humour and plenty of the usual banter! Well done all and I will post the League update as soon as I can get round to it.
Fourth placed Tracy looking happy with her whiting and slug double shot!
Finally, a quick heads up on Match 23, which is our annual Biggest Fish Rover (BFR). Unfortunately the timings on the Match List are incorrect, as the BFR has always been a 6hr match, giving anglers extra time to travel to different hotspots in search of that elusive big fish. So the BFR will take place next Saturday 25th Nov from 12pm till 6pm with the match HQ once again being Lakeside Leisure, PE24 5TU, by kind permission of the Cook family. Paul Coulthurst will be raising the Event on here shortly and further details will follow over the next couple of days.
