We have had some fantastic fishing in Lancashire over the last week or so, although it has been patchy at times but that’s to be expected during the transition of the winter species leaving and the arrival of the summer ones.
Fleetwood and District Angling Club fished their latest match at Five-Bar Gate where it was dull, overcast and with a slight westerly breeze. Ideal conditions for catching a few fish.
Unfortunately the breeze died, the sun came out and the clouds disappeared.
What happened next for the majority of the seventeen anglers fishing is that they spent the time soaking up the sun and watching motionless rods.
John Hodgson got of to a good start having a 45 cm bass first cast on crab, then like most others looked at a rod failed to move.
Ian Hewitt had a flounder first cast, then there minutes before the end of the match had a slackline bite and pulled in a 78cm smoothhound, about 3lb 12oz.
Congratulations to Ian and commiserations to John who was now in second spot
Results
- Ian Hewitt 1 flounder 1 smoothhound for 60 points
- John Hodgson 1 bass for 45 points
- Alex Garden 1 bass for 15 points
- Trevor Barnett 1 flounder for 9 points
- Hughie Porter 1 Turbot for 4 points
The next match is on Saturday 13th May at Marine Beach with fishing from 5pm to 8pm hopefully the fishing will be better.
Rick Thiselton with a huge smoothhound weighing 17lb 2oz caught from the Gynn Wall on a single fresh black worm
Leyland and District Angling Club were out at the Bullnose, Preston for their latest match.
1st Paul Jordan with 4 flounders scoring 29 match points and winner of the “Ted Carter Trophy”
2nd = Peter Pilkington with 2 flounders and Michael Darlington with the biggest flounder at 37cm, both scoring 18 points.
4th = Brian Nixon & Nigel Thompson both with 2 flounders each and scoring 13 points.
The £10 golden peg card was won by Peter and the football card by James Dewhurst.
Thanks also to Martin and Dawn for the hot-dogs and Mrs Dewhurst for the fairy cakes..
Thanks again to all 15 members supporting the match.
Allan Cordwell had his first trip this year on the pier where tides were promising but a full moon, an easterly breeze with a forecast of rain niggled at him that it may not be the fish fest he was hoping for.
Arrangements were in place to meet up with fishy friends Carl Dady, Chris Holden, Stephen Lavelle and Chris to fish the flood and ebb with Allan targeting the rays and hounds.
He managed an early dart from work and picked up fresh bait from Bispham Angling and Springfield Sea Anglers, North Pier and made his way onto the pier at low intending to check out any changes in the channel or if new snags had been recently uncovered.
The south side was already inhabited with other club anglers so the only option was north side which has always been a favoured spot for me personally so unfazed I set up and made up a variety of wraps ready for dark.
Eventually the lads arrived and the tide reached a fishable level and baits were dispatched into the channel. A slow start produced dabs, whiting and Allan’s first few plaice of the year. As the tide deepened Chris was first into the rays which signalled a steady stream of rays, hounds and the odd huss to fish and squid baits to all anglers. The fishing became patchy just before high but picked up on the ebb producing the first hounds of the season for Allan along with more rays and the inevitable dogfish.
We gave it a couple of hours and decided to call it a night. Overall an excellent start to his shore season with seven rays in total which were Allan’s primary target.
