EFSA England Shore Championships Borth 12-13 June 2015
Thursday evening saw most of the competing anglers ensconced in the bar of the Marine Hotel Aberystwyth, the HQ hotel, catching up with old friends prior to drawing their zone and peg numbers for the following two days. Hopes were high as locals Mark and Sally had fished similar tides a couple of weeks earlier and had flounder, bass and turbot but a bit of surf would be needed to encourage fish to feed.
Friday morning after a good breakfast at the hotel and provisions for the day purchased we met late morning at the car park towards the far end of Borth beach. We were introduced to Carl who had kindly agreed to act as a non-angling steward. Carl told us that the he thought there would not be a lot of fish caught as the offshore wind was keeping the sea fairly calm and there was no surf. Would he be right?
Bait was handed out together with some goodies from Ultima, many thanks to them for their support. A team photo, then the trudge over the sand to the water’s edge as we were fishing a rising tide and an hour or so over the top. The forecasted late afternoon showers didn’t arrive so it was a pleasant warm day but as Carl had predicted there were not many fish caught. At the end of the day there were four anglers who blanked and Jerry Knight was almost another one but with less than an hour to go he had two double shots of flounder to win Zone B and was top man on the day. Zone A winner was Dave Lovelock. Chris Leonard from my local Braintree club had the longest round fish a bass of 44 cm and Reg Clough the second longest a golden grey mullet. Allan Jones had the longest flatfish and Jan Peach the second longest both were flounders
Saturday dawned with grey skies and rain in the air but good news the wind was now more on shore so hopefully there would be some surf. Another good breakfast and then pack the car in the drizzle. Get to the car park yes “Surfs Up” not worth getting a board out for but Carl was confident there would be a good number of fish caught. He was right. Fishing only the flood this time we were soon into fish and forgetting the fine rain which looked set in for the day. The fishing was patchy with most anglers finding fish in the first couple of hours but then it went quite for some with others continuing to get fish throughout the match. Most of the fish caught were small flounders with a few bass. I even had a turbot but so small it didn’t even cover the palm of my hand but gave a great bite. So day two saw Steve Trish win Zone A and Colin Crocker win Zone B. Jerry Knight and Reg Cloiugh were joint winners of the longest flatfish pool and again there were joint winners for the longest round fish Steve Trish and Tony Porritt.
Overall winner and recipient of the gold pin was Jerry Knight with 3 points. Silver pin winner was Dave Lovelock with 4 points and the bronze pin went to Paul Hart with 5 points.
Drawn Pairs winners were Dave Lovelock and Reg Clough
Drawn three man team winners were Jerry Knight, Dave Lovelock and Barrie Senior
Thanks to Mark Cowell for pegging the beach and arranging the bait. Also to Paull Curtice for organising the event and to anyone else who helped behind the scenes.
Barrie Senior
Overall Results
