Andy 1965
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2020
- Messages
- 370
- Reaction score
- 3,401
- Points
- 93
- Location
- North Wales
- Favourite Fishing
- Lure
After a successful week on the lures, it was time on Saturday afternoon for the latest club match, to be held at the Ranges near Holyhead and after my victory in the species hunt, I hoped for another good result.
Things started off slowly on the fish baits, so we all concentrated on targeting wrasse close in, where I found no shortage of hungry corkwings. Though they wouldn’t amount to much weight-wise, with a point awarded for each fish they were still worth fishing for until other, bigger quarry started to feed nearer dusk.
Though most of the wrasse were corkwings, they weren’t all the smaller variety and every now and then, the occasional ballan put in an appearance. Some were too small to weight in, there were a few better fish in among them, including one particularly chunky specimen weighing in at 1.07kg, 2lb 5oz in old money ?.
Among the smaller ballans, I was also intrigued to catch a couple of unusually marked examples, with a strange stripe running the length of their flanks.
and though I’ve never seen such markings before, we caught at least half a dozen of them between us, leading us to wonder if it might be a colour pattern common in the population at this particular location ?.
As well as the corkwings & ballans, Steve A managed to find a solitary goldsinny, while the other lads also caught pollack, poor cod and a tompot blenny, but eventually the small stuff started to go off the feed.
Though it wasn’t quite dusk, Steve A and I now decided the time was right to switch back to bigger baits, and this seemed to be a wise move, as we both had bites on the very first cast at distance. Unfortunately for Steve, he missed his bite, but I managed to add the first dog of the match to my bag
.
Up until this point, I was feeling quite confident that I was in with a chance of winning but just as dark was falling, Ady really put the pressure on, when he landed a half decent huss. Though my confidence was dented, I could do nothing about it, but to carry on catching myself and to add enough fish to my bag to cancel out Ady’s biggie.
By the time the sun had set, everyone was back on the big baits, but while most struggled to catch, I went on a bit of a roll, and I had a bite on every cast. These bites resulted in 2 more dogs and an undersized strap conger but not knowing exactly how he was doing; I couldn’t help thinking that I was probably still trailing Ady.
My penultimate cast resulted in another good bite and a reassuring weight on the line had me convinced that I had hooked another dog, but when I finally lifted it ashore my heart sank
. Rather than another dog, my catch turned out to be a small huss and with a minimum size limit for huss of 61cm, it looked like it might be too small to weigh in ?. More in hope than expectation I decided to measure my catch anyway, just in case, and much to my surprise it was nearer to the minimum size than I expected ?. Unable to hold the huss still on the measure by myself, I enlisted the help of Kenny and Glyn and between the 3 of us we finally managed to wrestle the bugger straight ?, and we could then see then that it was in fact a couple of millimetres over 61cm, result! ? At 0.90kg it was hardly a monster but that probably equated to 2 medium sized dogs, so I was really chuffed ?.
With 20 minutes of the match left, there was time for one last cast and though I hoped for another dog, my rod stayed disappointingly still. I would just have to hope that Ady hadn’t caught anything else of note ?.
After the long walk back to the car, we packed our gear away and then it was time for the moment of truth, as we gathered to add up the final bag weights.
In 6th place was Glyn, with 5 corkwings, 2 ballans and a poor cod weighing a total of 1.63kg, in 5th place was Kenny with 3 corkwings, 2 ballans and a dog for 1.70kg and in 4th place was Steve Owen with 5 corkwings, 1 ballan, 1 conger, 1 pollack, a poor cod and a tompot blenny for 1.79kg.
Now for the top 3, in 3rd place was Steve A, who’s 5 corkwings, 3 ballans and the goldsinny weighed 2.34kg, but who had taken first place?
Though at 2.99kg, Ady’s huss was the heaviest fish of the match by far, he hadn’t caught as many fish as I first thought and his 1 huss, 2 ballans and 1 pollack weighed in at 4.50kg. This meant that I had in fact won with something to spare, as my 5 corkwings, 3 ballans, 3 dogs and a huss weighed a total of 5.66kg ?.
So, the summer league is over now, and I finished in second place, 4 points behind Kenny, but with my 1-point lead over Steve A in the overall league, and with 3 matches to go, it’s still all to play for ?.
Things started off slowly on the fish baits, so we all concentrated on targeting wrasse close in, where I found no shortage of hungry corkwings. Though they wouldn’t amount to much weight-wise, with a point awarded for each fish they were still worth fishing for until other, bigger quarry started to feed nearer dusk.
Though most of the wrasse were corkwings, they weren’t all the smaller variety and every now and then, the occasional ballan put in an appearance. Some were too small to weight in, there were a few better fish in among them, including one particularly chunky specimen weighing in at 1.07kg, 2lb 5oz in old money ?.
Among the smaller ballans, I was also intrigued to catch a couple of unusually marked examples, with a strange stripe running the length of their flanks.
and though I’ve never seen such markings before, we caught at least half a dozen of them between us, leading us to wonder if it might be a colour pattern common in the population at this particular location ?.
As well as the corkwings & ballans, Steve A managed to find a solitary goldsinny, while the other lads also caught pollack, poor cod and a tompot blenny, but eventually the small stuff started to go off the feed.
Though it wasn’t quite dusk, Steve A and I now decided the time was right to switch back to bigger baits, and this seemed to be a wise move, as we both had bites on the very first cast at distance. Unfortunately for Steve, he missed his bite, but I managed to add the first dog of the match to my bag
.Up until this point, I was feeling quite confident that I was in with a chance of winning but just as dark was falling, Ady really put the pressure on, when he landed a half decent huss. Though my confidence was dented, I could do nothing about it, but to carry on catching myself and to add enough fish to my bag to cancel out Ady’s biggie.
By the time the sun had set, everyone was back on the big baits, but while most struggled to catch, I went on a bit of a roll, and I had a bite on every cast. These bites resulted in 2 more dogs and an undersized strap conger but not knowing exactly how he was doing; I couldn’t help thinking that I was probably still trailing Ady.
My penultimate cast resulted in another good bite and a reassuring weight on the line had me convinced that I had hooked another dog, but when I finally lifted it ashore my heart sank
. Rather than another dog, my catch turned out to be a small huss and with a minimum size limit for huss of 61cm, it looked like it might be too small to weigh in ?. More in hope than expectation I decided to measure my catch anyway, just in case, and much to my surprise it was nearer to the minimum size than I expected ?. Unable to hold the huss still on the measure by myself, I enlisted the help of Kenny and Glyn and between the 3 of us we finally managed to wrestle the bugger straight ?, and we could then see then that it was in fact a couple of millimetres over 61cm, result! ? At 0.90kg it was hardly a monster but that probably equated to 2 medium sized dogs, so I was really chuffed ?.With 20 minutes of the match left, there was time for one last cast and though I hoped for another dog, my rod stayed disappointingly still. I would just have to hope that Ady hadn’t caught anything else of note ?.
After the long walk back to the car, we packed our gear away and then it was time for the moment of truth, as we gathered to add up the final bag weights.
In 6th place was Glyn, with 5 corkwings, 2 ballans and a poor cod weighing a total of 1.63kg, in 5th place was Kenny with 3 corkwings, 2 ballans and a dog for 1.70kg and in 4th place was Steve Owen with 5 corkwings, 1 ballan, 1 conger, 1 pollack, a poor cod and a tompot blenny for 1.79kg.
Now for the top 3, in 3rd place was Steve A, who’s 5 corkwings, 3 ballans and the goldsinny weighed 2.34kg, but who had taken first place?
Though at 2.99kg, Ady’s huss was the heaviest fish of the match by far, he hadn’t caught as many fish as I first thought and his 1 huss, 2 ballans and 1 pollack weighed in at 4.50kg. This meant that I had in fact won with something to spare, as my 5 corkwings, 3 ballans, 3 dogs and a huss weighed a total of 5.66kg ?.
So, the summer league is over now, and I finished in second place, 4 points behind Kenny, but with my 1-point lead over Steve A in the overall league, and with 3 matches to go, it’s still all to play for ?.
