EFSA European Shore Championships 2010 – Phwelli North Wales
This year the EFSA European Shore Championships was hosted by EFSA Wales under the watchful eye of Phil Lustig who is also the EFSA Shore Festival officer. The Celtic Royal hotel was once again the Championships HQ and Phil and his team had negotiated favourable rates for competitors and their families.
Registration and welcome ceremony went without a hitch and was less arduous than some previous championships mainly due to the experience of those individuals running the booking in process. The Mayor of Caernarfon gave a gracious welcome speech and invited us all to see the castle for free and wished us a good stay.
A total of 53 entries were received for this competition and 50 actually booked in. There were blind pairs, teams of three and four to keep the interest going and of course the international teams of five. The English section team consisted of Paull Curtice (captain) Reg Clough, Dave Lovelock, John Campbell and Brian (Budge) Booker. Dean Hilton was the other English Section entrant who was attending his first European Championships event.
The weather forecast as is the norm for these events was awful and the organising committee did its best to find a venue to keep the effect of the elements down to a minimum. Day 1s competition was to be held at Llandudno beach from 4 – 9 pm. With a force 7 winds gusting up to an 8 and occasional rain showers fishing was hard going for some and understandably catches were down. The catches that night consisted mainly of Whiting, LSDs and Codling with all being recorded on a measure and return basis. Regardless of the weather, arguably the oldest section anglers did pretty well with Reg coming first in his Zone and 4th overall, Paull and John 3rd in their zones and Dave managing a 4th in zone meant all kept in the top part of the board with the team laying a respectable 2nd place.
Day 2 saw us all travelling southwards to Phwelli Beach which some of us know quite well having fished it many times in previous matches. Zones A to C were likely to produce better quantities due to the better depth of water and those in the shallower waters of zone D and E struggled. The Welsh and Dutch anglers were doing very well from the off and English and Irish anglers struggled to find the fish. John was best English performer on the night with a 2nd place in E zone with Paull and Dave managing 4th places in their zones.
Day 3 and the impact of the previous poor showing was on the notice board! The team had dropped into 4th place and there was no hope barring an absolute miracle of a top 3 finish for an English Section member. Today’s fishing was early in daylight on Aberach beach and was likely to be a little more “peggy” and difficult to find fish. The mainstay of fish was LSDs although some dabs and small species such as dragonets, cuckoo wrasse and scorpion fish were landed. At the end of the day our anglers had not had a good day with only Paull’s 4th and Dave’s 5th place looking reasonable.
The presentation night was held in the Celtic Royal Hotel and an excellent prize table was at the head of the room. The Welsh organisers have very good relationships with Ammo and Daiwa who were the main sponsors but not the only contributors to the competition. There were prizes for individuals to 22nd place and all blind teams of 2, 3 and 4 to 3rd place. John Campbell did well by picking up a prize for 15th overall, 3rd in the 3 man team and 2nd in the 4 man team! Paull was best placed English Section member with 12th place overall and was 3rd in the pairs.
The winners of the pins and championships were:
Kenny Gainfort (Wales) 1st place Gold Pin winner
Haydyn Cole (Wales) 2nd place Silver Pin Winner
Mick Quinn (Ireland) 3rd place Bronze Pin Winner
International Team results:
Wales A 1st
Netherlands B 2nd
Netherlands C 3rd
Ireland A 4th
England 5th
English Section angler’s results:
Paull Curtice 12th
John Campbell 15th
Dave Lovelock 18th
Reg Clough 28th
Dean Hilton 44th
Brian Booker 45th