March 2016 – Spring Match Challenge
Last weekend saw My Way take part in an invitation Spring Challenge match between anglers representing Wales, Scotland and the hosts the RAF sea angling section.
This is the second year of which is now set to become a regular early season outing to blow away the winter cobwebs for these keen match anglers before the season gets into full swing.
All week the forecast was showing a great weekend ahead of us, with light winds & sunshine seemingly the order for the duration of the match. However things started to change on late Thursday resulting in a change of plans on the Saturday morning as the anglers were greeted to a Force 5 -6 southerly blow in Holyhead Bay.
Church Bay has fished quite well on the few occasions we’ve been out the past weeks. Nothing too special but ideal match fishing with dogfish, whiting, small huss and other bits species making up respectable numbers. Not too many or too few, just enough really to force tactics and ideas to be thought out properly to maximise the returns.
Nice triple shot for Don, dogfish, codling and small huss
After Church Bay, a move inshore out of the F6 wind over tide resulted in a good number of whiting falling to all the rods aboard the boat. Again mixed in with some pretty small huss, few it suggested barely 6 months old!
Taffy with a couple small huss
Back out after the inshore mark not too far, but just outside the harbour in search of more fish and maybe a ray. We managed a couple small thornies to add to the numbers. By the end of day one our anglers had amassed a fairly respectable 350 fish between all 8, with Scottish International Scott Gibson, pipping his newly appointed Scottish counterpart Scott Rennie across the finishing line.
Scott reeling in another brace of fish
Day two and the atrocious conditions of day one had abated, leaving a glorious blue sky and calm seas. With Wales leading after the day one, and with only 100% separating all the teams, everything was still to play for.
Fishing though was harder than the previous day, despite calmer conditions. I think the extremely murky waters played apart in keeping the fish away from the hooks, with catches at our first mark down drastically on day one. Moving off a couple miles onto the mussel beds things changed, with a strong and cleaner tide the dogs, huss and whiting came out to play with the alds managing the odd brace and triple shot for the score sheet.
Scotland v Wales as Scott Gibson & Chris Hamblin battle out on day two
Fair to say no trip aboard My Way is complete with out food, a bowl of chilli apiece, second for most and fourths for Ken, happy days.
Onto the mud to end, and much of the same with plenty of fish coming to the gunwales with again a couple more thornbacks adding to the species list.
RAF Angler Ken, with his ray from day two
Welsh International Arthur, with a small thornback on day one
Was a close event, In first place with 1191% over 2 days was Wales, second with 1165% was Scotland, and third was the RAF with 968%.
