Weymouth Species Festival 16-17th November 2013
So here we are some 8 months later than planned, the weather looked a lot better than it did back in march, but the forecast for the fishing was a little less optimistic. A few of the competitors had booked a practice day on-board one of the boats booked for the weekend, they returned with little to show for the day out.
Day 1 Saturday
A slight change to the advertised start had meant many competitors had either missed breakfast or had to make last minute arrangements to change their alarm clocks and awake early enough to eat before rushing to make the 7am assembly for the 7.15 boat departure, although this was delayed following a little confusion with the boats. Once sorted the 5 boats departed for the muscle beds to try to capture a plaice or two whilst the tide was suitable.
After around 1 ½ hours loosing rigs only a few plaice had been caught, as the tide was increasing and the drift quickening the skippers decided it was time to try for a turbot or two. Four of the boats headed for the shambles bank to try for the turbot and brill whilst Meerkat headed to Chesil beach to try for a few dab.
The sport was as slow as anticipated with only a few turbot and the odd brill showing on most of the boats. On Supanova Marcus failed to add any more fish to his fine 51cm plaice caught early on whilst Graham Lewis decided that a large cocktail bait might be the answer, this paid off with a fine turbot. Martin pulled off a real man united moment by bagging a 39cm turbot minutes from lines up Barrie will never know if this was the one that he missed only seconds before!
Lyle tried an old technique of dragging a weight to slow the drift, the brill/turbot failed to respond however it proved to be a good way of catching dogfish. Although flamer missed out on the plaice he made up for it by finding 8 turbot for his anglers with Bill Cann taking top spot with 4 turbot. Meerkats gamble on the dab proved fruitless as none were caught, well you never know the gamble might have paid off. Still the sun shone and the wind stayed slight.
Day 2
As the executive teams were accidently let out of the bag everyone knew who they were fishing with and against, still it would be just as easy to blank today as it was yesterday, as they say it ain’t over till……
Sunday saw a cold overcast start as the 5 boats headed off to the muscle beds to try again for those allusive plaice, not sure how the other boats faired but Al’s spirit found plenty of snags as some of the crew lost 2, 3, 4 + sets of expensive spoons, beads, booms, weights, pirks, etc (I’m sure the local divers could sift through the snags and hold a 2nd hand sale at the quayside)
Off to the shambles to have another go for those turbot and brill, this time all 5 boats fished the same area, joined by a local trawler who steamed up and down between the banks for the whole day, although at one stage I thought someone had called in the navy to move him along as a naval frigate left port.
Have you ever noticed how much effort most of us put into our bait preparation and presentation, cutting mackerel into thin strips, trimming off excess meat, lightly hooking the ½ fillets all in an attempt to make the bait look as natural as possible is the right way to go? Well not if you ask graham lewis it’s not, with half hour to go graham repeated his patent pending turbot bait, a cocktail of mackerel, prawn and worm’s this was snapped up by a turbot almost immediately, not fazed by this he walked around to the other side of the boat, smoked a cigarette, re-baited, walked back to his position, dropped over and caught another one! Half the anglers on board reeled in and tried to replicate grahams bait.
So a big thanks to Supanova, Meerkat, Al’s Spirit, Flamer and Top Kat for trying their upmost for us, as they always do, plus a big thank you to Weymouth angling society & Weymouth angling centre.
Results
OVERALL
1ST Mike Smith 167 (4 fish)
2nd Andy Wells 144 (3 fish)
3rd Billy Cann 143 (4 fish)
2 Man Open
Martin Bobbett & Ash Currier 242pt
4 Man Open
Gary Galbraith, Mike Smith, Ash Currier & Martin Bobbett 483pts
Life Member Mike Smith 167pts
Senior Dave Bennett 81pts
Longest Flatfish Marcus Wuest 51cm
Top Boat Flamer
Report by Martin Bobbett
EFSA ENGLAND SPECIES FESTIVAL (FLATFISH)
WEYMOUTH NOVEMBER 2013
RESULTS
OVERALL
1ST Mike Smith 167 (4 fish)
2nd Andy Wells 144 (3 fish)
3rd Billy Cann 143 (4 fish)
4th Ash Currier 125 (3)
5th Martin Bobbett 117(3)
6th Graham Lewis 115(3)
7TH Geoff Morris 106(3)
8th Marcus Wuest 86(2)
9th Robbie Robertson 83(2)
10th Dave Bennett 81 (2)
11th Matt Osbourne 77(2)
12th Gary Galbraith 74(2)
13th Keith Scaggs 48(1)
14th Steve Batchelor 44(1)
14th Tony Swain 44(1)
16th Pete Bailey 43(1)
16th Rob Quinn 43(1)
18th Kevin Clark 42(1)
19th Paul Hart 41(1)
20th Chris Pucher 40(1)
21st Barrie Senior 39(1)
21st Dave Clark 39(1)
23rd Andy Selby 37(1)
24th Alan Bird 36(1)
All the other anglers failed to record a scoring Fish (38 Entered)
Day One Winner Billy Cann 143 pts Day Two Winner Mike Smith 87pts
4 Man Open Gary Galbraith , Mike Smith , Ash Currier , Martin Bobbett 483pts
2 Man Open Martin Bobbett & Ash Currier 242pt
4 Man Drawn Billy Cann,Mike Smith, Rob Quinn, Barrie Senior 392pts
Life Member Mike Smith 167pts
Senior Dave Bennett 81pts
Longest Flatfish Marcus Wuest 51cm
Top Boat Flamer