Recent big tides brought the mackerel inshore all along the North East shoreline with all of the regions piers and some beach marks producing bags of up to sixty fish. Large sprat shoals are also inshore and early morning and late evening tides have been the most productive when mackerel can be seen “boiling” on the surface chasing the sprat shoals. Shad have also been reported taking small float fished baits as well as lures. The occasional bigger pollack, coalfish and cod have also fallen to lures. With very clear water, bait fishing has been quiet and those who have managed to find some room amongst the mackerel anglers have only reported the odd flatfish, small coalfish and whiting.
The lower Wear is producing some quality flounders with specimens to 2lb reported and the upper Tyne continues to be popular with match anglers where large numbers of flounders, eels, and whiting are present. The rock ledges north of the Tyne are starting to produce some quality cod, wrasse and pollack with the Seahouses area and Eyemouth particularly productive.
The Ryhope Tuesday evening sweepstake in the Wear was a bit disappointing with Lee Brown taking the top two places with flounders of 1lb 11oz and 1lb 4oz, the only fish weighed in. The Ryhope club match in the Tyne on Sunday was a lot better with all twenty-two anglers taking quality flounders. Paul Richardson won zone A with fourteen fish for 396cm, Lee Brown followed with eight for 238cm, best 40cm. In third place was Keith Carter who had six fish for 180cm and Paul Craig was fourth with 170cm. Bob Surtees had a good win in zone B with eighteen fish for 426cm, best 36cm. Micheal Allinson took second spot with thirteen fish for 279cm, Barry Stowells had 244cm and Terry Mann in fourth 198cm.
Hartlepool Pirates had a match at Kirkudbright last week with a good variety of species landed and returned alive. Ritchie Green had an excellent mixed bag of 26lb 14oz to take first, including the heaviest fish with a smoothound of 6½lb. Bill Bradley in second had 14lb 6oz, third was Aaron Dixon with 11lb 12oz. Darren Dixon and Barry Patterson were fourth and fifth with 8lb 13oz and 5lb 5oz respectively.
One angler who has enjoyed the shore fishing is six year old Kane Hills who was taken to fish the River Aln by his grandfather Mickey Burke, Kane fishing for only the second time, landed nine plump flounders and a good sized sea trout, which along with the flounders was returned.
Tynemouth A.C. had two recent matches fishing the rock edge marks around Seahouses and Beadnell for those elusive summer cod and wrasse. In the first match nine out of the sixteen weighed in. Dave Hayley won with three cod, best 4¼lb, for 8lb 6oz from Seahouses while Gary Appleton had three cod and a wrasse for 7lb 3oz from Beadnell and Doug Spivey had five cod for 6lb 12oz. The second match saw half of the six anglers weigh in. Doug Spivey won with two cod and two wrasse for 9lb 8oz taken from Beadnell. Jeff Mole had a wrasse of 2lb 3oz for second and Barry Tweddle had a dogfish of 2lb.
The match in the Whitley Bay Summer League was also fished at Beadnell which produced some nice cod on the day. Steve Williams romped into first place with a bag of five cod for 16lb 6oz, the best weighed in at 6lb 13oz. Paul Moor trailed in second with two for 4lb 5oz and M. Stokoe had a single cod of 4lb 2oz. Steve Williams moves well into the lead in the league with 32lb 4oz and also takes the heaviest fish with his cod. Next match is Weds 2nd Sept, fishing 7-10.30 pm, meet WBAS clubhouse 6pm.
south of the Tees the last Redcar Navy and Gentlemans A.C. match was a thornback ray specimen match, but as none were landed Dave Allinson and Vanessa Barker tied for first place each with coalfish of 34cm, followed by Rob Jackson Snr. with a flounder of 28cm.
The Bob White Memorial boat match out of Amble saw some quality fish landed from the inshore ground where Tony Urwin won with a ling of 15lb 11oz taken on the Natalie Christy. Tommy Wallace had the best cod of 9lb 1oz for second place and Kevin Forsythe was third with a pollack of 7lb 14oz. Top junior was Callum Gray with a wrasse of 1lb 11oz. The seventy-one anglers that fished raised £2000 that will be shared between St. Oswalds Hospice and the R.N.L.I.
Pollack are on the increase everywhere and can now be regarded as a common species from several areas, particularly off Amble. Colin Dawson and Micheal Bould fishing on the Endeavour took forty pollack to 10lb on single lures during a recent pleasure trip.
Jarrow A.C. are holding a sweepstake at Beadnell next Saturday August 29th fishing from 9am till 3pm between Beadnell harbouir and Seahouses harbour. Meet at Pattersons Garage Beadnell no later than 8.30am. Entry is £6 with 100% payout. No artificial lures are allowed.
