English Boat Championship Poole 9/10th June 2012.
After the disappointing cancellation of the Poole species hunt due to the weather, it was good to hear that the wind would subside (albeit only slightly) enough to allow the boats to put to sea. The prediction for the weekend was for a close competition as the wind and rain had added a considerable amount of colour to the inshore waters around Poole, any species that hunt predominantly by sight would be much harder to target so a good scent trail could be the way to produce the numbers of fish if not numbers of species.
The Thistle Hotel was a fine venue to have as an HQ, the view across Poole harbour and it’s close proximity to many local bars, restaurants, shops, takeaways and the harbour made it a perfect choice (if only the rooms were more affordable and the parking free) The bar area is a good size to set up the registration with the bar and restaurant close by affording easy access for food and refreshment.
Day One
After an early alarm call the competitors staying at the Thistle headed to the restaurant for a superb breakfast followed by a short walk to the local express store to stock up on drink and chocolate, and then back to the car park to collect their tackle.
The wind had reduced from Thursday night Friday morning but it was still a good 5 gusting to 7, still at least the land should give us some shelter.
Boats loaded, positions drawn lets go fishing. Five of the six boats headed out of the harbour and turned right to seek shelter from the Swanage shoreline with one heading out to Poole patch. Getting that scent trail going proved a little bit of a challenge as the boats moved around the anchor spreading the trail thinly over a wide area, the dogfish were quick of the mark followed by a few Bream (target species for the longest fish award) rays, pout, whiting, mackerel, ect. The skippers tried their best to locate the fish by moving around to try different areas, I am not quite sure that this was the right tactic in these conditions it may have fished better if the scent trail had more time to work however I can’t fault their efforts.
Simon Norman, Ken Smith and Gary Galbraith secured five valuable points with a fine undulate ray each.
As predicted the top scores on each boat were quite low with Kent’s Mike Smith ending day one as top rod, the two man and four man open looked pretty close between the top 3-4 teams, all to fish for on day two.
Half time round up
1st – Mike Smith (57)
2nd – Mike Patten (55)
3rd – Ash Currier (52)
Day two
The wind direction had changed and decreased just enough to allow the boats to fish the other areas 2 boats headed back towards Swanage with the remaining boats heading to areas slightly further offshore of Poole patch, the weather forecast did not look too promising with strong easterly winds and lots of rain, fortunately the rain held off for most of the day, inland looked worse than offshore !
The water had not cleared by much so it looked like another day of scratching, there were a few different rigs in use ranging from 2 up, 2 down & 1 up 1 down. Young Ryan Casey opted for a two down rig tied with a 15lb hook length, size 2 short shank kamazan aberdeen’s the result of this was a fine 15lb Undulate ray, Ryan showed a great deal of patience over the 15 minutes or so that the ray took to land. Asking around the bar before the presentation it appeared that this was quite a popular rig option which had accounted for a few fine rays, several doggies and bream as well as a nice 2-3lb Turbot. The 2 up option also took fish ranging from bream to doggie’s, Paul Hart added a pirk to this rig to capture 10 Mackerel on top of his dogfish, bream, bull huss, gurnard ect, he had also used the 2 down rig to great success, Paul took the day with a superb 70 points.
Ash Currier was the only angler to manager 2 boat wins and become our 2012 English Boat winner, he now has a gold pin to add to his silver in this event.
A big thanks to all those who supported the raffle, not only by buying the tickets but for donating the prizes, all the monies collected will be added to the Purbec fund in remembrance to the 3 men who lost their lives so tragically a couple of weeks ago
Results
Individuals
1 25) ASHLEY CURRIER 100(52),100(57) 200 ( 109)
2 49) MIKE PATTEN 100(55),93.33(56) 193.33 ( 111)
3 8) MIKE SMITH 100(57),93.1(54) 193.1 ( 111)
Two man open
1 IAN McLEAN – MIKE PATTEN
2 GARY GALBRAITH – MIKE SMITH
3 RAY BARRON – NEIL BRYANT
Four man open
1 GARY GALBRAITH – MIKE SMITH – ASHLEY CURRIER – MARTIN BOBBETT
2 DAVE MANN – CLIFF NEWBOLD – MIKE PATTEN – IAN McLEAN
3 NEIL BRYANT – ANDY SELBY – RAY BARRON – PERRY DACK
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