The Trophy Room

Although I am not a match angler I have entered or been entered into a range of competitions. 

As a youngster I used to send in details of my specimen coarse fish captures to gain Kingfisher Guild Certificates from the Angling Times. An Angling Times Top Ten badge was proudly worn for a while, this was the mark of a true specimen hunter at the end of the seventies.

My allegiance then changed to the Anglers Mail, and at one stage I used to send in photos for publication. In those days the Anglers Mail paid £25 for each photo it used. Believe it or not, a 5lb 9oz Welland Chub back in 1989 won me a reel as the fish of the week. How things have changed, even a six pound chub barely gets a mention nowadays!   

Various badges from Trout Fisherman and Sea Angler Magazines have arrived in the post and like the Angling Times Top Ten Badge have briefly adorned fishing clothing. I don't recall ever entering a trout, it being good publicity for day ticket fisheries.

My match career is limited, I have entered one trout fishing match. I travelled all the way to Bure Valley Fishery in Norfolk to find that the only way I could fish that day, was to enter a competition. I fluked a four pound rainbow first cast and walked off with a trout rod for the biggest fish of the day.

Despite this glittering array of awards I had never won a trophy until a couple of years ago when I was the weakest link in a two day RNLI competition aboard Colin Penney's Flamer III. Today I finally got another trophy to accompany it after accidentially winning a Portland and Surrounding Waters competition aboard Flamer IV.

 I have entered several matches aboard Flamer, simply because this has given me access to species rich areas that would not normally be visited during a charter trip. During Colin's matches I have landed several new species including the rare Red Band Fish and the Baillions Wrasse. Whilst I admire match anglers, I have no real desire to compete and continue to concentrate on trying to catch new species. I felt that I had a chance of Trigger Fish, Dragonets and Butterfly Blennies and fished accordingly. Unfortunately I failed miserably and yet again, the angler next to me caught the only Butterfly Blenny of the day. 

I was truly astonished when Colin announced that I had not only landed the most species but was also the points winner by some way. I don't really understand why, as I am sure that Steve Clements the runner up caught far more fish than me. However I would have happily swapped the kudos for Steve's  Butterfly Blenny and the weakest link spot!

Where is my trophy room, the downstairs loo of course!

Portland Species Competition!

Today, I was a guest angler amongst the regular Friday Species League crew aboard Colin Penney's Flamer 4. Although I not personally into match fishing of any kind, you can learn a lot from match anglers. The fishing today would be restricted to the areas in and around Portland Harbour, a species hunters paradise.

After a short sail we arrived at Colin's secret muddy mark where the rare red band live. These unusual fish live with their heads sticking out of the mud grabbing shrimps and the like. A set of mini sabikkis were baited with tiny strips of squid ready for the first of several short drifts. By the time we moved we had acounted for more than twenty red band fish between us. They are truly stunning looking fish being a pinky orange colour with electric pinky purple edging the fins. If Barbie was a fish she would be a red band fish. I also managed a goby or two including a Jeffreys Goby (it has an elongated 2nd ray on its first dorsal). Unfortunately I managed to drop it back in before getting the photo.

We spent some time drifting a range of marks including the harbour entrances. The rocky areas were wrasse city and a wide variety of species were caught including ballan, cuckoo, goldsinney and the rare ballions wrasse. Tompot blennies, gobies, mackerel, scad and pollack also showed.

Gurnards manly tubs showed, I only managed to catch reds........again! Several anglers caught dragonets which again evaded my hooks. Andy Selby from Weymouth Angling even managed a couple of red mullet, the first Andy had ever caught. Two trigger fish were also landed.

In retrospect I should have fished short flowing rigs to keep all three baits on the bottom, rather than a paternoster rig. I am back for a two day competition in October which will allow me to test out my hypothesis. Most of the anglers on board had homemade bait containers divided into sections and hung on the boats rails, which immediately means less time is spent baiting up and more time spent with a bait in the water.

The planned drifts over the wreck of the Hood had to be abandoned due to the presence of divers.

Our final mark was at anchor over a muddy patch where I targeted butterfly blennies and dragonets on tiny hooks baited with slivers of ragworm. I became a smoothound pup magnet landing four of them along with some dogfish.

Richard, the angler next to me landed the only butterfly blenny of the day. Again I suffered the indignity of seeing others landing dragonets and tub gurnards.

What an enjoyable day in good company. I added three species to my challenge total and missed out on five others (butterfly blenny, dragonet, red mullet, trigger fish and tub gurnard). In excess of tweny species were landed by the crew and I ended the day with 14 species, in fact too many to record as labels on this blog item (blogger has a limit of 200 characters)!

A stroll around Weymouth Harbour

Tuesday was wet and windy, very wet and windy, storm force 8 wet and windy! 

I spent a few wet and windy hours during the evening trying to catch a flounder from the shore at Swanage which was sheltered from the south westerly winds. However the freshwater outlet outside the Mowlam theatre was discharging coloured water and the sea was full of weed. Unsurprisingly I struggled with only a poor cod and a missed bite to show for my efforts. 

Wednesday saw me take a leisurely stroll around Weymouth Harbour armed with a quivertip rod targetting the mini species again. A two hook paternoster with size 12 hooks were baited with pieces of ragworm. I fished through the ebbing tide from high water. I started on the pleasure pier and caught lots of ballan and corkwing wrasse. Although I tried several spots along the pier only wrasse obliged.     

I walked back to the main bridge and crossed over the river taking time to enjoy the comings and goings of various small craft. I sat down on the harbourside next to a family who were crab fishing and cast down the edge. I had a bite every cast which resulted in corkwing, ballan and a solitary goldsinney wrasse along with several gobies.  The children were fascinated by the different fish and the parents were amazed at the bright colours of the male corkwing wrasse.

The various species of gobies are notoriously difficult to tell apart and pictured opposite are a black goby (above) and a sand goby (below) or is it a common goby? The black goby is slightly darker and with the high dorsal fins, unfortunately the first dorsal is not fully extended.

A stop at the Stone Pier cafe for a bacon butty, piece of carrot cake and a pot of tea saw me ready to tackle the Stone Pier. Here I caught dozens of wrasse and mini pollack, and taught a couple of children to fish, before moving to the end of the pier. A cast away from the structure resulted in a short spined sea scorpion.

Another pot of tea at the cafe was consumed before fishing alongside a wall behind the sailing club. This was whiting and goby city.



During the day I had caught eight species of fish without trying too hard and enjoyed a pleasant stroll around Weymouth Harbour.

The final day of my Weymouth break was spent fishing the Dorset Frome at Wareham Quay hoping for a bonus sea trout. Several big dace responded to my swimfeedered maggots in the coloured water. The largest weighed in at ten ounces, only an ounce short of my personal best. However, I did have a decent fish come off which was probably my bonus sea trout!