(Below) Adam Short with a stunning mirror known a Droopy at a weight of 29lb 4oz.
(Below) Jamie Pike with a cracking 20+
(Below)Adam Shortwith with 27lb of pure leney!
23lb 6oz Common – Stafford Moor
Nigel Higgins had 3 carp up to 23lb 6oz from the dam wall swim 3 on Beatties lake in 24 hours at the weekend all on Mainline cell boilies and essential cell pellets.
Stafford Moor latest catches
(Above) Adrian Stockton who banked 11 fish from Lodge lakes swim 2. The best pulled the scales to 19lb 3oz. All caught on sticky baits Manilla and Krill boilies. Great fishing considering the constantly changing temperatures.
(Above) Adam Atkins and his dad John had 3 fish out up to 20lb 5oz from the summer hut swim on Beatties lake over the weekend all caught on Sticky baits Manilla and Sticky baits buchuberry pop ups.
Upper Tamar Pallatrax Carp Open March 2018
It was a very cold weekend at Upper Tamar lake for the Pallatrax Carp Open pairs competition. This was the first competition of 2018 with two more to follow in July and September.
There was £3500 up for grabs for the top three finishing pairs and no one could predict which swims would do well this time around. The weather had been frankly horrendous leading up to the weekend with more than two feet of snow covering the majority of the lake at the beginning of the week!
The sun did eventually come through on the Sunday during the last few hours of fishing and it was rather pleasant during the BBQ and presentations.
The anticipation and nervousness for the draw on Friday morning was evident with some anglers arriving to get a couple of laps around the lake in the hope of spotting a few fish!
A fantastic breakfast was provided by Wendy Shore and her team in the Froghopper café at Tamar and we were all set for the draw which started at 1pm. Anglers names were drawn in turn from the draw box and they chose their swims until everyone had picked. There were 30 pairs of anglers and they were then transported to their swims either by boat or trailer.
The horn sounded at 4pm to start the competition and the first fish was lost very quickly by Roy and Greg Jones from the quarry swim.
The first landed fish and an early lead was taken by Neil Merriman and Adrian Morgan from West Bay, peg 27, on the Cornwall Bank with a 7lb 13oz common. Just minutes after Mark Thomas and Phil Haggarty caught their first from peg 33 by the dam at 5lb 11oz.
This was followed on the first night by Mike Trew and Roger Smith, peg 23, on the Cornwall Bank who had an 8lb 7oz fish and Rob Champness and Kevin Smith who were on peg 18. They landed a 6lb 15oz fish. Rob and Kevin also lost a couple of fish during the night.
It was fishing really hard, as the March competition always does! The wind changed direction a couple of times and there was a mild frost both nights and cold wind during the days.
At 6:30 am on the Saturday Mark Thomas and Phil Haggarty caught their second fish which proved very decisive. A 13.09 pristine common gave them the lead from peg 33.
Jamie Rusling and Nick White moved into contention from peg 16 on the Devon Bank, they had a 13lb 5oz common.
Saturday evening provided a couple of fish, a lovely 15lb 14oz common for Jason and Leanne McEvoy from peg 21 to move them into second and Richard Chalke and Jamie Woods from the lookout tower banked a 7lb 6oz fish.
It was all to play for and anticipation of a few more fish which would change the entire competition around.
Saturday night went without any more action until early Sunday morning when Richard Chalke and Jamie Woods managed their second fish, this time at 10lb 6oz, to move into second less than 2lbs behind Haggarty and Thomas.
With the sun now shining we thoughts a few more would be caught but how wrong I could be!
The remainder of the competition didn’t provide any bites.
With every single pair in with a chance right up until the hooter at 1pm it made for a really close competition which was well contested and enjoyed by everyone. The presentations were made during the free BBQ for competitors provided by Gary Vogel, warden for Tamar Lake.
Only 9 fish were caught and we look forward to the July competition when there will be plenty more!
It was great to have some new champions and runners up. Congratulations to Mark Thomas and Phil Haggarty for winning and Jamie Woods and Richard Chalke for finishing second. 2016 runners up Jason and Leanne McEvoy won third place.
A huge thankyou to our fantastic marshall team Terry Reid, Bob Davey, Ian Ellis, Steve Gliddon, Amy Maunder, Roger Maher and Bob Oates and to warden Gary Vogel.
Full results:
7th – 1 fish for 6.15 in peg 18 was Rob Champness and Kevin Smith
6th – 1 fish for 7.13 in peg 27 was Neil Merriman and Adrian Morgan
5th – 1 fish for 8.07 in peg 23 was Mike Trew and Roger Smith
4th – 1 fish for 13.05 in peg 16 was Jamie Rusling and Nick White
3rd winning £500 with 1 fish for 15lb 14oz was Jason and Leanne McEvoy
2nd wining £1000 with 2 fish for 17lb 12oz was Jamie Woods and Richard Chalke
1st winning £2000 with 2 fish for 19lb 4oz was Mark Thomas and Phil Haggarty
Next competition: 6-8 July pairs
Entries on 01566771930
Ben Smeeth
Head of Angling
In search of spring ray
As spring sets in there is a good chance of catching an early ray from our local surf beaches. Steve Dawe shared these fine images of the sun setting as he waited the onset of darkness and chance of a ray. Whilst he blanked on this occasion the scene certainly illustrates that there is more to this fishing than just catching fish. You can catch up more of Steve adventures by visiting his blog in which he describes his adventures whilst aiming to catch fifty species in a year for charity :- https://stevedawe189.wixsite.com/fishtytwochallenge
Combe Martin SAC member Jonathon Stanway also targetted ray from a local rock mark and was rewarded with a personal best small eyed ray of 11lb 2oz. ( Below)
SEA ANGLING RESULTS
After a very quiet few weeks its good to get a bit of sea angling news coming in. The two cold blasts from the east have certainly impacted upon both fish and fishing effort. Lets hope things start to improve over the next few weeks.
Bideford 24 hour results
1st Andrew Clements Thornback 7lb 14 1/2oz 80.902%
2nd Nathan Clements Thornback 6lb 12 1/2oz 75.173%
3rd kyle Blackmore pouting 1 lb 2oz 75%
Triple Hook Club – Derek Philiips Memorial
1st Dennis Toleman – dogfish 2lb 3oz
First salmon of the season – River Torridge
Alastair Blundell fished the Lower Torridge and tempted the first salmon of the season using a large orange and yellow copper tube fished on an intermediate line. With the river still running very high it is likely that salmon are distributed throughout the river and increased angling effort should see a few more caught.
Biggest spur of the season on Bluefin _ It’s a club record!
Kevin Pike boated the biggest spurdog of the season weighing a massive 21 lb 6oz whilst fishing off Ilfracombe aboard John Barbeary’s Bluefin. The party also boated a bull huss and dogfish.
Andrew Atkinson updated my earlier report _
” The fishes official weight is 21lb 6oz. The fish was kept alive and weighed ashore and returned to the water where it swam away. strongly
The fish sets a new Appledore Shipbuilders Boat record for the species.” Andrew commented further that up until the capture of the spurdog it had been “one of the worst days fishing they had participated in. After Kevin caught the specimen it was far from their worst day ever.” Illustrating the fact that its not over until the last line has been reels in.
http://www.bluefincharters.co.uk
Stafford Moor – Double Takes a plenty
Liam Shipway with Charli had eight carp between them from the inlet swim on Beatties lake in 24 hours. They were using Mainline Cell boilies and Mainline glug. They had 2 lots of double takes.
Furzebray – Carp on the feed and what stunning looking fish they are!
Dave Forster landed Blackspot at 38lb 4oz just a few hours after setting up for the weekend.
(Above)John Rose banked Measels at 32lb 12oz
(Above) Adam Short with Clover at 39lb 14oz.
(Above) A couple of carp from Willow Lake.
