Chesil Beach 2008
The organisers of this years section shore championships selected the famous Chesil beach as the venue. This beach extends many miles along the South Coast but for our competition this year we were concentrating on the Eastern end at Weymouth. The beach here is steep and unlike much of the rest of the beach has a number of fish holding lumps of wreckage from shipping disasters over the years. This normally provides for good fishing at this time of year when summer and autumn fish species overlap.
The Premiere Travel Lodge was to be the HQ for the competition and the Weymouth Angling Club kindly extended a welcome for our competitors to use their club for registration and booking in and hospitality throughout the weekend. Unfortunately numbers were slightly down with only 16 anglers entering the competition but this was not going to affect the level of competiveness with everyone eager to get over the ridge and get started.
With 2 weeks of Easterly winds already past and a strong Easterly on day 1, the anglers with local knowledge knew it would be a difficult task to find fish. Most feared that the 2 Garfish limit might affect ability to catch but within 20 minutes of the start Budge Booker had caught a nice Trigger fish and rumour of a few Black Bream being caught kept the adrenalin going. The sun was bearing down on anglers and some of us had wished we had given over some space in the box for sun cream. As the day progressed it became apparent that the bright conditions with Easterlies had done for the expected species and that even the obliging Garfish were eluding some rods. Whilst waiting for the next bite anglers amused themselves with studying each others tactics. It was noted that Jim Whippy (believe he does a bit of boat angling from time to time) was using the biggest float on the beach possibly an old mooring buoy. John Campbell decided to get everyone going by catching the biggest fish of the competition with a cod of 5lb 10oz and P’nuts Flack kindly got his feet wet making sure it didn’t get away. At the end of day 1 we had all struggled to find fish but there had been a few surprise fish with a few Triggers, Codling and Black Bream to give us hope for the next day.
The next days fishing was done on the same patch as the previous day and there were high hopes that the wind might change and produce a few extra fish. Sadly the Easterlies remained and the sun was brighter and hotter with 70oC most of the day. Unbelievably the talented Mr B Booker caught another Trigger fish and backed it up with a nice Streaked Gurnard. With the fortunes of many of the anglers reversed from the previous day it was going to be a tight result with the exception of Budge who was well ahead.
The presentation was made at the Premiere Lodge hotel. Once again Weymouth Angling Centre had provided some excellent prizes to make for a good prize giving event. Brian Allum who had organised the competition presented the prizes and championship pins. The results were very close but the overall winner was not in doubt with a 3 rd and 1 st place over the 2 days for Budge Booker.
Brian thanked everyone for supporting the event and particularly to Reg Clough and Dave Lovelock for making the arduous journey over the ridge twice each day to peg out the beach.
Results
1st Budge Booker – Gold Pin
2nd Dave Lovelock – Silver Pin
3rd Brian Flack – Bronze Pin
4th Reg Clough
5th Jim Whippy
5th Brian Allum
5th Jerry Knight
8th Paull Curtice
9th John Hunt
10th Colin Sargent
11th John Campbell
12th Dave Clark
13th Janet Sargent
14th Dean Hilton
15th Richard Cleal
16th Graham Campbell
Another competition in Easterly winds and bright sunshine was never going to produce huge catches but once again the enthusiasm by the anglers and the friendly atmosphere made for an enjoyable weekend. Our thanks must go to Brian, Reg and Dave for organising and running the competition.