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December 12th Fun Match |
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Sunday 12th December saw the last of
our autumn / winter fun competitions for 2010.
Thankfully we had a nice break in the recent
weather with a light easterly breeze and sunshine the order of the
day. Aboard My Way for the match were My Way regulars Pete Minns,
Tojo, Tony Dooney and welsh International Chris Hamblin, who vowed to
avenge his second place result from the previous match in November.
Making up the Motley Crue we had 3 lads new to My Way, Graham, Steve
and Andy who have hopefully asked Santa for a Sat Nav and Alarm clock
each for that special day. Young Harry, My Ways reliable crew man
joined the lads for a festive fish.
The plan was to stick inshore all day and scratch
out as many bits and pieces from the murky and cold sea within
Holyhead Bay. Our first stop was the mud banks around 1mile outside
Holyhead Breakwater. With the flood tide just starting, our aim was to
hook into a few dabs
and
whiting
before the
dogfish
chomped on the baits. Sadly though I had forgotten to inform the
fish of our visit that morning, with only the odd
whiting
being caught, Chris bucked the trend with a nice plaice falling to his
black lug and squid cocktail. The fishing however remained very slow
and everyone struggled to catch a number of fish, despite an excellent
armoury of rigs and baits. |
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| With the winter rigs not showing signs of success, Steve attempted
to turn up the heat on his fishing by swotting up with the
Boat Fishing Monthly ‘summer rigs’
booklet. After a slow hour we made a move up to Church Bay.
Again the fishing was slow, but a little more variety started to
come aboard with the anglers adding more whiting along with
dabs,
dogfish, poor cod and a few
dragonets
to their tally. |
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At noon a move to the Mussel beds was on the
cards to take in the slack water period. With only a 25ft tide, we
hoped to have a good few hours on the mark with plenty of fish.
This moved proved to be the making of the
competition as the lads started to pull in single, double and treble
shots of fish, with whiting, dabs and dogfish making up the vast
majority of the catches. Harry fishing the stern was happily pulling
in the odd double shot to shouts of ‘watch it’ from Pete.
Not content with the Fun Match element of the day
and naturally cash winnings at the end, there was also another side
bet running between these 2!
From the first 2 marks, Pete, Chris and Harry
were all within a couple points of each other, so now the ability to
pull a few fish in a drop was going a long way to separate the group. |
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Struggling on the first couple marks, Tojo and
Tony, pegged next to each other as well, started to find their fish. A
few double and triple shots of whiting between them soon lifted them
to within snatching distance of the lead. Sadly Graham was not having
the best of days, with just the odd single fish falling to his rigs,
much to the amusement of Andy who plodded on with a wheelhouse draw,
focused only on beating his 2 travelling companions. By this time
though, Steve had realised ‘summer rigs’ were not the way forward and
concentrated on basic 3 down rigs that did then help him increase his
catch rate.
A break for lunch was on the cards during our
time at this mark, but with fish finally feeding well, everyone tucked
into a bowl (or 2) of our warming chillie as they carried on catching.
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Our final move was back to the mud for
the last hour and hopefully a few more fish on the ebb than
was caught during the early flood tide at the start for the
day. As we checked the scores it was Pete and Chris who were
vying for the top 2 slots, with commendable leads over the
other anglers. 3rd place though was proving a
little more interesting as Harry, Tojo and Tony where all
within a fish of each other; dogs,
whiting
and some fat dabs
again the order of the day.
As the sun set behind Holyhead it was
soon time to lift anchor and head for home. After calculating
the scores it was Pete that had taken top slot from Chris.
3rd place fell to local angler
Tony from Holyhead, not bad considering he also found time for
far too many bowls of chillie
J. |
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