Andy 1965
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2020
- Messages
- 376
- Reaction score
- 3,436
- Points
- 93
- Location
- North Wales
- Favourite Fishing
- Lure
After a closely fought contest, our club’s winter and overall leagues both came down to Saturday evening and the final match of the season. The venue chosen was the Yacht club at Penmaenmawr beach and we would be fishing the last 3 and a quarter hours of the flood and the first 45 minutes of the ebb. Personally I wasn’t keen on the venue and couldn’t see us catching anything much other than undersize whiting, with maybe the odd bigger one thrown in, but the majority vote was in favour of Pen, so I just had to go with the flow.
With 11 matches fished, the overall league was led by Glyn on 146 points, Steve A (aka Goldenb***s) was in second place on 141 points, while I was in third place on 135 points. Theoretically, I could still make up the difference, but in reality, barring a miracle it was between Glyn and Steve.
The winter league on the other hand, was a lot closer, with Glyn leading on 65 points, Steve A in second on 62 points and me in third on 60 points. Despite the closeness of the scores though, given the choice of venue and the fact that both Steve & Glyn are both highly skilled whiting bashers, I was resigned to the fact that my reign as club champion was almost over ?.
The rest of the lads were obviously mad keen and when I arrived at the prom at the pre-arranged time, I was surprised to find most of them already there and kitted up. Glyn, our club secretary had also got his times mixed up and so we had arrived half an hour before anyone else! ? Of course this lead to him getting all sorts of grief, and it was even suggested that he might have turned up early in order to bury a bag of groundbait in front of where he intended to fish ?. With the banter in full flow already, it looked like we were in for an entertaining evening.
With 15 minutes left until kick off, we were all set to go and we made our way out onto the sand, once there we all busied ourselves with rigging up, then at 17:30 on the dot, 7 baited rigs were cast out into the darkness, before we sat back to wait for the action to start.
Things began quietly for me, but news soon filtered down the beach that Gwion had got off to a flyer, with a bass on his first cast ?. This certainly gave everyone a boost and we fished on expectantly.
With a decent surf running, coupled with the 30ft tide, we were soon pushed off the sand and onto the pebbles, then almost an hour after we first started fishing, I finally beat the blank with a brace of whiting. Sadly, at 23 & 25cm they were undersize, but at least I knew there were fish about. On the following cast I was in again, just a single fish this time, but at under 20cm, the size was going in the wrong direction! As if that wasn’t bad enough, the tiddler was my last fish for a while and it signalled the start of a long barren spell. Despite trying sandeel, mackerel, whiting, squid, lug, and any combination of these I could think of, the next 2 hours were completely dead for me and I could feel what little mojo I had left draining away, as my rods remained completely still
.
While I was struggling, the other lads were still catching and though a lot of their fish were too small to weigh in, they were still getting the odd bigger one among the pins. Meanwhile, I was rapidly losing the will to live, but I kept on trying, and as the last hour of the match began, I actually had another bite! (SHOCK) This bite looked a lot more positive than the earlier ones had been, so I was rather hopeful of finally catching something else, but alas it wasn’t to be and when I finally reeled in I was surprised to find the bait almost intact!
This set the scene for the rest of the match, and despite me getting decent bites on every catch for the remaining time, I failed to connect with any of them, and for the first match this year I failed to weigh in ?.
Though my season ended with a whimper rather than a bang, it wasn’t the same for everyone, Steve A finished with some excitement as around half an hour before the end, his gear decided to go walkabout along the beach! He had obviously hooked a pin whiting, which had in turn become a meal for a decent thornback ray. Sadly the ray threw the hook before he could get sight of it but it was still very exciting to see. Steve was of course gutted but he didn’t have to wait long to make amends and on his last cast of the match it was a case of Deja-vu. This time there was to be no escape for the whiting snatcher and Steve duly landed his ray. Unfortunately it wasn’t big enough to weigh in, but it did go some way towards making up for his earlier disappointment at losing a decent one. So, that was the last bit of action before time was called, and we made our way back to the cars to add up the final bag weights.
Obviously I was out of contention with my blank but Glyn and Steve didn’t have it all their own way either, as along with a late whiting, Gwions bass was enough to give him his first ever match victory with 1.08kg, and 14 points on the night. In second place was Ady, who had managed to snare the only doggy of the night, to bump his bag up to 0.91kg. So where did that leave the main contenders? With 4 whiting for 0.87kg, Steve had managed to beat Glyn to third place and 11 points, but with 3 whiting for 0.67kg he had still finished fourth and scored 9 points. This was still enough to take the winter league by a single point on 74 to 73, along with the overall league title by 155 points to 152, to reclaim the shield I won from him in December 2019 ?.
So that’s the end of another season, and all that remains now is the annual Christmas Challenge trophy, which is a one off match with a £10 entry fee, where the biggest fish takes all. This is usually held at a rock mark on Anglesey, and was booked in for the 29th, but sadly now it looks like being called off due to the Level 4 lockdown being imposed on the 28th by the WAG. We tried our best to fit everything in to the limited time we had to fish during 2020, and for a moment it seemed like we would actually pull it all off, but sadly now it looks like the evil Mr Drakeford will have the last laugh after all ?.
With 11 matches fished, the overall league was led by Glyn on 146 points, Steve A (aka Goldenb***s) was in second place on 141 points, while I was in third place on 135 points. Theoretically, I could still make up the difference, but in reality, barring a miracle it was between Glyn and Steve.
The winter league on the other hand, was a lot closer, with Glyn leading on 65 points, Steve A in second on 62 points and me in third on 60 points. Despite the closeness of the scores though, given the choice of venue and the fact that both Steve & Glyn are both highly skilled whiting bashers, I was resigned to the fact that my reign as club champion was almost over ?.
The rest of the lads were obviously mad keen and when I arrived at the prom at the pre-arranged time, I was surprised to find most of them already there and kitted up. Glyn, our club secretary had also got his times mixed up and so we had arrived half an hour before anyone else! ? Of course this lead to him getting all sorts of grief, and it was even suggested that he might have turned up early in order to bury a bag of groundbait in front of where he intended to fish ?. With the banter in full flow already, it looked like we were in for an entertaining evening.
With 15 minutes left until kick off, we were all set to go and we made our way out onto the sand, once there we all busied ourselves with rigging up, then at 17:30 on the dot, 7 baited rigs were cast out into the darkness, before we sat back to wait for the action to start.
Things began quietly for me, but news soon filtered down the beach that Gwion had got off to a flyer, with a bass on his first cast ?. This certainly gave everyone a boost and we fished on expectantly.
With a decent surf running, coupled with the 30ft tide, we were soon pushed off the sand and onto the pebbles, then almost an hour after we first started fishing, I finally beat the blank with a brace of whiting. Sadly, at 23 & 25cm they were undersize, but at least I knew there were fish about. On the following cast I was in again, just a single fish this time, but at under 20cm, the size was going in the wrong direction! As if that wasn’t bad enough, the tiddler was my last fish for a while and it signalled the start of a long barren spell. Despite trying sandeel, mackerel, whiting, squid, lug, and any combination of these I could think of, the next 2 hours were completely dead for me and I could feel what little mojo I had left draining away, as my rods remained completely still
.While I was struggling, the other lads were still catching and though a lot of their fish were too small to weigh in, they were still getting the odd bigger one among the pins. Meanwhile, I was rapidly losing the will to live, but I kept on trying, and as the last hour of the match began, I actually had another bite! (SHOCK) This bite looked a lot more positive than the earlier ones had been, so I was rather hopeful of finally catching something else, but alas it wasn’t to be and when I finally reeled in I was surprised to find the bait almost intact!
This set the scene for the rest of the match, and despite me getting decent bites on every catch for the remaining time, I failed to connect with any of them, and for the first match this year I failed to weigh in ?.
Though my season ended with a whimper rather than a bang, it wasn’t the same for everyone, Steve A finished with some excitement as around half an hour before the end, his gear decided to go walkabout along the beach! He had obviously hooked a pin whiting, which had in turn become a meal for a decent thornback ray. Sadly the ray threw the hook before he could get sight of it but it was still very exciting to see. Steve was of course gutted but he didn’t have to wait long to make amends and on his last cast of the match it was a case of Deja-vu. This time there was to be no escape for the whiting snatcher and Steve duly landed his ray. Unfortunately it wasn’t big enough to weigh in, but it did go some way towards making up for his earlier disappointment at losing a decent one. So, that was the last bit of action before time was called, and we made our way back to the cars to add up the final bag weights.
Obviously I was out of contention with my blank but Glyn and Steve didn’t have it all their own way either, as along with a late whiting, Gwions bass was enough to give him his first ever match victory with 1.08kg, and 14 points on the night
. In second place was Ady, who had managed to snare the only doggy of the night, to bump his bag up to 0.91kg. So where did that leave the main contenders? With 4 whiting for 0.87kg, Steve had managed to beat Glyn to third place and 11 points, but with 3 whiting for 0.67kg he had still finished fourth and scored 9 points. This was still enough to take the winter league by a single point on 74 to 73, along with the overall league title by 155 points to 152, to reclaim the shield I won from him in December 2019 ?.So that’s the end of another season, and all that remains now is the annual Christmas Challenge trophy, which is a one off match with a £10 entry fee, where the biggest fish takes all. This is usually held at a rock mark on Anglesey, and was booked in for the 29th, but sadly now it looks like being called off due to the Level 4 lockdown being imposed on the 28th by the WAG. We tried our best to fit everything in to the limited time we had to fish during 2020, and for a moment it seemed like we would actually pull it all off, but sadly now it looks like the evil Mr Drakeford will have the last laugh after all ?.
