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Sea Angling News
ISSUE 264 OCTOBER 2017
NEWS - BOAT & SHORE CATCH REPORTS - TACKLE REVIEWS - ANGLER FRIENDLY ACCOMMODATION - COMPETITIONS - FEATURES
NEW! THE LANGSTONE HARBOUR AND AREA BOAT REPORT...P11
Ltd.
THE £1000 MINEHEAD COD CHALLENGE ENTRY FORM...P2
CORNISH ANGLER BAGS HUGE COUCH’S BREAM
WINNER Cornish angler Lewis Dray landed this huge 8lb 2oz couch’s bream while targeting late season smoothounds aboard Bootlegger out of Newquay Harbour in North Cornwall.
Prestige sea fishing tackle
www.snowbee.co.uk NEW BOAT PB BLACK BREAM ABOARD POOLE CHARTER BOAT...P19
ENGLAND TRIUMPH AT HOME NATIONS BOAT CHAMPIONSHIPS
England home nations boat team Scotland hosted the SALC Home Nations Boat Championship this year and held it out of Scrabster in the far North of the country. Scrabster was chosen as it is a regular venue on the Scottish circuit and offered excellent hard ground fishing for Cod, Ling & Pollock, a staple of the Scottish match circuit. Therefore anglers for all teams came armed with trays of pirks and artificials in every shape, size and colour imaginable. However the weather on the week proved both unpredictable and highly changeable and the normal grounds around Dunnet Head were out of bounds. Therefore all the teams spent the week practicing on mainly soft ground marks around Dunnet Bay and to the west of Holborn head. Throughout the week the teams had excellent numbers of Cod and Haddock interspersed with Whiting , Gurnard, Dabs and a variety of other species. This led to a strategy across all teams to utilise the very abundant fresh mackerel as bait on scratching 3 hook paternosters or similar. It was clear however that due to the wind and tides that heavy leads were required for drifting across these grounds and apart from the Scottish team, most anglers were scouring around for 1-2lb leads for the competition. Come the competition the lead skipper drew a line from Holborn Head to Dunnet Head to fish with in, mainly over soft broken ground, due to the expected bad weather and tides. Normally in a Scottish competition context we wouldn’t have bothered, as the fishing wouldn’t be as good as the standard rough ground marks. However come day one this theory was thoroughly disproven. The Scottish, Irish, English and Welsh teams were split across 3 boats which all fished different areas of the bay but all with great success. The boats all filled up on excellent numbers of cod, and haddock as well as the other usual species. It was the English who proved they had spent their practice days well and took advantage of the conditions, with 2 anglers getting 100% and the other 3 all scoring above 90% to take a 40% lead over Scotland with Ireland 3rd and Wales 4th. The peculiar mention for the day would go to Ally Campbell (Scotland) and Steve Batchelor (England) who managed to catch 88 and 90 fish respectively and exactly tie on points to take 100% each on the same boat. An excellent days fishing overall for all anglers with 80-120 quality fish per angler.
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