This year's Flounder Festival was again well attended with 44 anglers from boat and shore trying to be crowned the EFSA Flounder champion. It was good to see so many juniors attending with 7 on the boats and 1 on the shore. At 8.30 the 8 beach anglers headed off to their marks and the boats started to depart with a few anglers wishing they had not downed that final drink the night before. The weather, well what can you say but****, its a few years since I have been that cold! It rained all day and it was freezing with a northerly wind. Many thanks to the anglers that were not there, texting me on how nice it was in front of the fire watching the footie or tucking into a nice Sunday lunch!!!!!!
The skippers were not hopeful of many flounders being caught due to the dredging of the harbour in the main flounder fishing areas. There were 5 boats in the competition, 4 of them anchored at the mouth of the river - we decided to go up the river to Wareham . We got there just in time as the skipper put the anchor over the side most of it was out the water as it was only 8 inches deep. The tide went out with the water around us virtually disappearing and we fished into the main shipping channel.
Fishing was slow on our boat with the first flounder being caught after 3 ½ hrs by Ash Currier this being a nice fish of 2lb 4 oz. Then, the two juniors on our boat, Mike Ellison and James Lane, caught flounders in quick succession and, with half an hour to go, Michael landed another (under the glare of 5 international anglers who had not even had a bite). The skipper called lines up, and when Ray Barron pulled his line in he found one the size of a postage stamp hanging on (we actually think his Ragworm was trying to eat his flounder).
At the weigh in there were a lot of cold, wet anglers, but all in good spirits with plenty of banter. The full results are below, but all I can say, by the time I got back to Weymouth I had been told by Messrs Ellison and Lane on how easy it is to catch flounders and the song "We are the champions ''is still ringing in my ears.
Our congratulations go to Michael Ellison (Junior) on becoming our new EFSA England Flounder Champion, and I think I am right in saying, the first junior to win any EFSA England event. |
