Boat Match – Out of West Mersea

Nice day out from West Mersea fishing was steady from the start but the amount weed on the ebb forced a move to a venue further inshore but still a few more fish were caught. Thornbacks, smoothhounds and a few bass were caught together with some baby tope. Best fish was a smoothhoud of 4.10kg caught by Brian Grundy.  Paul Hart had a bass of 1.71kg.

1st Paul Hart 96 points, 1 bass,4 dogfish, 1 smoothhound, 4 thornbacks

2nd Barrie Senior 83 points, 2 dogfish, 5 smoothhounds, 1 thornback

3rd Brian Grundy 57 points, 3 dogfish, 2 smoothhounds, 1 thornback

4th Robin Joy 35 points, 3 thornbacks,

5th Colin Crocker 32 points, 1 bass, 3 dogfish

6th Alan Porter 25 points, 2 smoothhounds,

7th Chris Leonard 24 points, 1 dogfish, 1 thornback

8th Graham Nash 15 points, 1 tope.

Beach Match – Pevensey – 7th April

Braintree Sea Angling Club members went to Pevensey for their latest match which turned out to be a good decision.  The weather was ideal with a light breeze and a calm sea making the fishing easy.  From the start the fish were feeding and a constant trickle of fish took the anglers baits.  By the end of the day all anglers had a good number of sizeable fish in this catch and return match.  Barrie Senior came out on top with a catch of 5 plaice, 3 flounders, 6 whiting, 2 rockling, 2 dabs, 1 bass, 1 silver eel and a smooth hound for 342 fish points. He also had the best fish a 32cm plaice.  In second place was Chris Bull with 173 points from his catch of 1 plaice, 13 whiting, 1 dab and 1 rockling.  Robin Joy took third spot with 3 plaice, 4 whiting, 2 flounders, 1 pout and 2 rockling for 160 points.

Beach Match Report – Brighton Marina – 24th March 2019

Braintree Sea Angling Club members travelled down to Brighton to fish the Marina east arm.  With the target species being plaice conditions looked good, sunny with a light breeze and clear water.  Robin Joy started well with a flounder in the first 15 minutes.  However, it was another hour before the next fish was caught, a fine 40cm plaice to Paul Drake.  This turned out to be the best fish of the day.  Paul caught a further three plaice to win the match with Robin’s flounder giving him second spot as none of the other anglers could find a fish.8

Beach Match Report – Dunwich – 24th Februrary

A report from our on the scene reporter:

2 coffin dodgers from the BSAC Elite squad made a lunch time raid on the Dunwich dabs,  unfortunately, due to the bright sunny weather they saw us coming and swam off in a hurry, even the seal avoided Dunwich as he knew about the fishes travel arrangements.

Off like a whippet called Usain Bolt, Young Robin was first in the blocks, first out of the blocks and was weighing in a treble shot of whiting within a nanosecond of starting, from 50 yards they looked more like rockling all bigger than any previous ones caught this year.

It continued in a similar vein for 6 hours with Young Robin catching monster whiting and monster dabs to 26cm whilst Old Drako could only muster jailbait whiting many of which did not reach 18cm.

After the final whistle sounded Young Robin was seen striding back to the car park carrying his bucket proudly above his head whilst Old Drako was dragging his bucket behind him in the mud.

Overall;

  1. Young Robin – 17 fish for 134 points (6 W & 11 D)
  2. Old Drako – 12 fish for 88 points (5W & 7D) (all 18.00001cm)

Brilliant sunshine, gentle breeze and no waves to talk about so I won’t mention them

Lots of dog walkers and even some girls swimming in the sea nearby.

Your Roving Reporter Old Drako
ps. I needed a lift home so I thought it best Robin should win!

Beach Match – Sizewell – 10th February

The dabs were feeding well when Braintree Sea Angling Club members fished their recent match at Sizewell.  With an offshore wind casting was easy but the rain and cold squally winds for most of the day made fishing uncomfortable.  In addition to the dabs a few whiting were caught but most failed to meet the 18cm minimum size. With 41 dabs and 3 whiting Barrie Senior came out on top with 375 points. Second place went to Paul Drake with 286 points from his catch of 32 dabs and 5 whiting.  Chris Bull was third with 30 dabs and 4 whiting for 281 points.  Chris also had the best fish a 28cm dab.

Beach Match – February -Dungeness

Braintree Sea Angling Club members went to Dungeness for their latest match.  Results were varied with a couple of the anglers finding fish and the others struggling in the sunny but cool conditions.  Paul Drake was top rod with 307 points from a catch of 20 dabs, 3 rockling and the best fish of the match a 34cm flounder. In second place was Chris Leonard with 16 dabs and a whiting for 154 points.  Graham Nash was third a whiting and a dab for 28 points.

Beach Match – 6th January – Sizewell

Braintree Sea Angling Club members travelled to Sizewell for the first match of the year.  Fishing in calm conditions, fish were caught all through the match but many did not make the minimum size.  Chris Leonard was the most consistent in finding the larger fish and at the end of the match had accumulated 343 points from a catch of 25 dabs and 13 whiting. In second place was Paul Drake with 14 dabs and 8 whiting for181 points.  Barrie Senior took third spot with 161 points from a catch of 7 dabs and 10 whiting.

 

Beach Match – 27th December – Bottle Match

Walton pier was the venue for the last match of the season for Braintree Sea Angling Club members.  With a very light breeze and the grey sky gone it was almost spring like so making a comfortable fish for the seven angler that wanted a change from mince pies and TV.  For the first two hours up to high tide there was little action with only a couple of fish caught.  Once the tide turned the fish came on the feed.  It wasn’t actioned packed but a steady stream of small whiting were caught interspersed with the occasional dab and rockling.  Rolf Marschalek came out on top to win a bottle of scotch for his catch 21 sizeable whiting and 2 rockling for 192 fish points.  Second place went to Barrie Senior with 178 fish points from a catch of 16 whiting, 1 rockling and a dab.  Kevin Thorpe took third spot with 11 whiting and a dab for 115 points.  The best fish, a 31cm whiting, was caught by Paul Drake and won him a bottle of port.

Beach Match – 9th December – Holland on Sea

Match Report direct from our roving reporter (and erstwhile fisherman – apparently)

After Chris had personally phoned Michael Fish and who in turn had threatened, Hurricanes, Tornados and Blizzards the youngsters from BSAC set out anyway, they were not going to be put off by such idle threats, in the end the weather was as docile as a puppy that had just been neutered. 

The young Mr C decided he would go one better the old King Canute himself and set his brolly up below the high water line, 2 hours later Pickfords were in to help him move further up the beach, then in no time at all the ‘Right Move’ placard was up and he was on the move again, not wanting a third move as this would have been mentioned over sherry at the next BSAC meeting he moved into the front garden of some old dear in Brighton Road who brought him some tea and biscuits.

All this moving and getting snagged up gave him less time to fish unlike the erstwhile Mr D who just dug a trench in front of his bivvy and carried on fishing regardless. 

 With a gentle and steady wind from the nether regions and a flat sea it made fishing easy until the weed arrived, both the big stuff and the horrible small stuff that gets snagged to your leader knot. Fishing in the same bay as Messrs Senior and GNash had done in the previous match it was a whiting a chuck, anywhere from 22cm to 34 cm, nothing undersized for these boys, then a lonesome pout put in an appearance so the whiting did not have it all their own way.

You may think the first day of the January sales is hectic, this is what I call hectic, with all the weed, the dog walkers and trying to measure and record trillions of whiting whilst keeping a tidy scorecard going, I am totally cream crackered.

We need Kev to invent an e scorecard that adds up your points for you! I will get my team to develop a phone app for us 🙂

In second place with over 400 points was the Young King Canute comprising 29 whiting and no passes.

The top angler on the day was The erstwhile Mr D with over 700 points including a killer pout (plus 49 whiting to 34cm)    This was an excellent advert for sea fishing everywhere and leads me to believe everyone however tall should join a sea angling club.

 Bring on the fur and white feather Xmas match on the 27th December

Boat Match – 6th December 2018 – Bolduc Cup

Braintree Sea Angling Club members fished the last Bolduc Cup match in the series out from West Mersea on Chris Mole’s Enterprise

The strong winds forecast arrived later than expected so the boat anglers were able to get afloat for the last match in the Bolduc Cup series.  Fishing up to high tide was slow with a few pin whiting coming aboard some making the 30cm minimum size to count.  Additionally a few dogfish and thornback rays put in an appearance.  Following a move more thornbacks were located amongst the whiting and there were more counting fish caught.  At the end of the match Chris Bull came out on top with 49 points – 2 dogfish, 2 thornback, 3 whiting.  In joint second place with 41 points were Robin Joy with 1 dogfish, 2 thornbacks, 1 whiting & Barrie Senior – 2 dogfish, 1 thornback, 4 whiting. 4th place was also shared between Chris Leonard 34 points – 3 dogfish, 6 whiting and Graham Nash – 2 thornbacks, 2 whiting.  Barrie Senior took the Bolduc with 23 match points from the three matches runner up Chris Leonard with 20 points.

The Full Results

1st Chris Bull 49 points – 2 dogfish, 2 thornback, 3 whiting
Joint 2nd Robin Joy 41 points – 1 dogfish, 2 thornbacks, 1 whiting & Barrie Senior 41 points – 2 dogfish, 1 thornback, 4 whiting
Joint 4rd Chris Leonard 34 points – 3 dogfish, 6 whiting & Graham Nash 34 points – 2 thornbacks, 2 whiting
6th Colin Crocker 26 points – 1 thornback, 3 whiting
7th Paul Hart 22 points – 2 dogfish, 2 whiting
8th Brian Grundy 17 points – 6 whiting
9th Alan Porter 2 whiting

The final match points for the Bolduc cup over the three matches are:

Barrie Senior 5, 10, 8 = 23
Chris Leonard 7, 7, 6 = 20
Alan Porter 8, 8, 1 = 17
Chris Bull DNF, 6, 10 = 16
Robin Joy 2, 5, 8 = 15
Colin Crocker 6, 4, 4 = 14
Paul Hart 10,DNF, 3 = 13
Graham Nash 4, DNF, 6 = 10
Brian Grundy 3, 3, 2 =8