Monday 8 December 2014

Whiting and Match Fishing


Just a quick update of what’s been going on over the last few weeks, no lure fishing but more Chesil bait bashing, which to be honest has had mixed results. I’ve picked up a few more cod but had two trips completely wiped out by Whiting. The latest of which was last Saturday, I’d arrived early with a plan to fish the western end of the beach for a late plaice (they had been a few coming out in the week), and with clearish looking water I was pretty confident. The Whiting had other ideas though, absolutely annihilating my baits within seconds of them being in the water and they did not let up throughout the tide. I counted them, just out of curiosity and had 54, uninterrupted even by pout or poor cod so the plaice did not stand a chance. Still was a fantastic day to be out with non stop sunshine which is not bad for December and made up for the poor fishing.  
What was more successful was my dabble into the match fishing world. 2 weeks ago I fished the Bristol Channel Federation of Sea Anglers (BCFSA) winter open which is a measure and release style match fished between Minehead and Blue Anchor. Match fishing is not my thing at all but there was a team element to the match and a few guys from my club wanted to fish so I went along to make up the numbers.

I opted to fish the Minehead town beach, and started of badly , firstly by returning a 20cm + whiting unrecorded (I underestimated the size and assumed it was under the 20cm minimum size) then by blowing up both my reels, which is something I rarely so wasted about half an hour re-spooling and re-tacking. Despite these set-backs though I still recorded 270cm of dogs and whiting which was enough to give me 7th overall, not too bad out of over 100 anglers and would have been 6th if I had measured that first whiting!

I have to be honest and say I really enjoyed the match, it was tough fishing in cold windy conditions but keeping concentrating for 4 hours and fishing hard was a real challenge. I might have a crack a few more.

I’m definitely getting my mojo back for bait fishing though, so much so I have just picked up a couple of 2nd hand Century rods and matched them up with Penn Fathoms for the Bristol Channel, which I’ve not fished for a few years now but fancy having a few sessions over the winter as there are a few codling around.

Anyway, that’s it for now, not sure I’ll get out again before Christmas so have a good one and I’ll be back in 2015!
 
 

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