English Shore Species Festival
Dover 2008
We arrived at the Grand Burstin on Thursday for the registration and to draw our peg numbers, There were lots of concern over the weather forecast for the weekend which gave a 5– 6 locally 7.
We ate breakfast with a good 5–6 blowing but as we had not received any telephone calls from Dover SAA we made our way to the Dumphead Pier to be greeted by Alan Edgington with the good news that we were on! The fishing was manic to say the least I have never caught so many Dogfish and Pouting. The scales masters could not keep up with the amount of fish caught even though we had three sets of scales on the go! We caught mainly Dogs and Pouting but there were Bass, Codling, Dab, Eels, Smooth-hounds, Whiting, Scad and Pollack, with Peanuts taking the day with a monstrous ½ lb Tadpole fish.
Day 2 arrived with a forecast of force 7 and pouring rain but the boatman said that we were in the middle of the storm the sea was as flat as the proverbial pancake so off we went again, The fishing was not as frantic as day 1, but I never had one cast on the outside that was either a double or treble shot if we had been fishing a normal top weight match the winner would have needed 30 lb of fish.
Once again lots of different species were caught, with Gerry Knight having 2 lobsters! John Campbell put the icing on the cake with a wonderful 1lb 7oz Golden Grey Mullet.
I must thank Alan Edgington and his team from the Dover SAA. for their hospitality, advice and help providing us with drop nets for the bigger fish. It was a pleasure to be permitted to fish there. Once again a big thank you to Andy for all the superb prizes and to all the members who acted as weigh masters a big thank you.
Results
1st . John Campbell Golden Grey Mullet 107 %
2nd . Reg Clough Pouting 62 %
3rd . Brian Flack Tadpole fish 60%
4th . Garry Galbraith Most species 6
5th . Dean Hilton Scad 58%
6th . Jerry Knight Lobsters 2
7th . Budge Booker Scad 57%
8th . Peter Campbell Dogfish 56%
9th . Martin Sherwin Dab 49%
10th . John Ryder Smooth hound 45%