Results – Funfish Medway 2019

Results – Fun Fish (dabs) 2019

Following the AGM held at the Abbey Hotel the previous day this year’s fun fish took place at a new venue for this event, although the Species competitions have been held here before . The target species was dabs which are usually prevalent in the Medway/Thames estuary at this time of the year.

Twenty-five anglers met at the cold, windy and wet Queenborough harbour for an early start as due to the expected strong NW winds the start had been brought forward to 7 o’clock. This would allow more fishing time on the ebbing tide as the flood might be unfishable. All four boats headed out into the river as the skippers thought the outside would not be fishable. With the tide dying away the dabs were expected to come on the feed but for many of us this did not happen. The skipper decided to take us out to sea to try and get an hour or so’s fishing over slack water before the tide turned and it became unfishable. A few more fish came to the anglers but not in the expected numbers that had been caught from this area on Friday’s practice when 40 or 50 fish had been caught. Back up the estuary for the last couple of hours and one or two more dabs took the bait to save some of us from blanking.

Back on shore it was a similar story for the other boats with Excel III being the top boat having a total of 23 dabs and the top angler, Cliff Williams with 12 of the dabs for a total length of 276cm. In second place was Gary Geoghegan fishing aboard Dentex with 120cm and in third spot was Mark Smith with 119cm who also fished on Excel III. Mark Smith also took the longest fish prize with a 30cm dab. Cliff Williams had a 29cm fish and Neil Cottington one of 28cm to take the 2nd and 3rd prizes respectively. Congratulations to all the winners.

Thanks to Matt Osborne for arranging the bait and liaising with the skippers.

Full Results