Match Reports 2011

BSAC Members fished between Aldeburgh and Thorpeness. Started fishing at 1600.
Nice evening with no breeze and a full moon, although a bit of ice on the bivvy!

Between them a small whiting from the start, One Codling at 43cm, 8 Dabs, a pouting, Schoolie Bass and a flounder

1st Place went to Chris 512 points 2nd place went to Robin with 298 points.

The beach at the east of Aldeburgh was the venue for Braintree Sea Angling Club’s latest beach match. The evening match fished in a stiff southerly breeze produced whiting, dabs, a little bass and several small codling. Robin Joy won the match with 576 points, his catch included 7 codling. The biggest codling was caught by Chris Leonard a fish of 2lb 3oz, he also took second place with 379 points.

Braintree Sea Angling Club members travelled to Orford a rather disappointing session by all accounts.

The anglers massed in the car park at 8.30 and agreed due to old age and old war wounds to fish close to the car park. The night shift were packing up without much to report so things did not look good.

The clouds scudded across the sky with the waves caressing the beach like an old Bob Marley record

Our intrepid International quality Braintree match anglers strode towards the sea front and as the cock crowed nine times the first leads were seen hurtling wither, thither and yonder and the titanic battle had commenced

The battle at times frantic continued blow by blow, bass by bass at a sustained level rarely seen at club level with never more than 1 fish between the leading protagonists, in fact at the end the two leading BSAC anglers had only a small flounder between them.

The bite was ferocious ripping the rod from the rest, and as the fish ducked and dived it felt more like a mid double smoothound making its last gasp attempt at freedom than a 24cm flounder.

At the weigh in the top two swapped stories of missed bites (we had only seen 2 all day!) and giant crabs dropping off in the last wave

The winner said he intended to spend the winnings on wine,women and fast cars and squander the rest, 1st was Paul 2 fish (flounder/bass) and 2nd Robin 1 fish (bass) and no one else caught anything at all.

Braintree Sea Angling Club members travelled to Orfordness for the first of the autumn/winter matches. With a strong breeze blowing there was colour and a chop in the sea which boded well for the day. The anglers were not disappointed with all catching dogfish and whiting and the first small codling of the season came ashore caught by Chris Leonard. At the end of the day it was tight at the top with Chris Leonard on 355 points just edging out Paul Drake who had 351point. In third spot was Robin Joy on 270 points.

Launched around 11 and fished until 1800 - decided to have an extra hour as it was nice out on the river! Alan and Chris went round the back of the Island as recommended by the Peter the Ferry man.
Not such a good choice! If anyone wants to know what happened to all the eels, they are all in the river; Alan and Chris were plagued by them! Paul and Paul fished near the Crouch drop off point, again lots of eels but more bass. Alan and Chris joined them there for the last hour or so: Results as follows

Paul Ambrose: 9 bass 234 points, Paul Drake 3 Bass 75 points, Alan Porter 1 bass 51 points (and the biggest bass at 37cm) and Chris 1 bass 28 points.

So no monsters but a very pleasant afternoons fishing. Bait was from online, picked it up in the morning, very good and £52.00 for 2 Kgs -so a good price

Walton was the venue for Braintree Sea Angling Club’s latest match in the Summer League. The eight anglers fishing in squally thundery conditions for the first 3 hours found the odd flounder and school bass but they were few and far between. After the wind dropped and the tide began to ebb a few more school bass were caught mainly to ragworm baits. Other fish caught were dabs, pin whiting a sole and an eel. Colin Crocker fishing his first summer match this year came out on top with 4 bass, 2 flounders and a dab for 94 fish points. In second spot with 3 bass and a sole for 88 fish points was Alan Porter also fishing his first summer match this year. Third place went to Barrie Senior with a large eel, 2 bass and a flounder for 77 fish points. With two matches still to be fished Robin Joy still heads the Summer League with 25 points, closely followed by Tim maples on 23 points and Chris Leonard, 19 points.

Braintree Sea Angling Clubs latest evening match was held at Orfordness in windy conditions. The choppy sea had plenty of colour in it but the fish weren’t feeding. The seven anglers only caught seventeen fish between them, mainly small bass. New member Paul Hudson on his first trip had six of them to win the match with 107 fish points. Brian Grundy took second place with four fish for 104 fish points and Tim Maples was third.

Braintree Sea Angling Club’s latest match in the Summer League saw the anglers fishing the sandy beaches of Waxham in Norfolk for bass. Apart from a couple of short thundery showers the forecasted rain kept away and conditions were good in an offshore wind but only a few school bass, flounders and small whiting were caught. For most members the fishing was slow but Chris Leonard managed to locate seven school bass and two flounders to win the match with 208 fish points. Mike Namock took the second spot with three school bass and two flounders including the best of the match a 14 oz fish for 164 fish points. Kevin Thorpe was third with a 153 match points from his catch of four school bass, largest 59 cm and three pin whiting.

Braintree Sea Angling Club members watched a big red sun set as they began the first of their Summer League matches at St Osyth beach. Fishing in a strong 20 mph wind on the flood tide most fish came to ragworm baits with a variety of fish being caught in this catch and return match. Catches consisted mainly of small whiting and an eel or two. Other species caught were codling, dogfish a flounder and a bass. The match was closely fought with Robin Joy and Tim Maples who fished next to each other sharing top spot with 245 fish points apiece. Third place went to Mike Namock with 222 points.

Braintree Sea Angling Club members travelled to Thorpeness for their latest match. Fishing a flat calm sea with the sun coming out after a cloudy start the conditions were not ideal. It was a close match with a mixed bags of whiting, codling, pouting and dabs being caught. The winner Tim Maples also had a small bass in his catch to give him 142 points. He was closely followed by Paul Drake with 140 points and Robin Joy was third with 81 points.

Nine members of Braintree Sea Angling Club enjoyed a warm sunny days fishing at Orfordness at the weekend. Following the previous couple of days strong winds there was plenty of colour in the water, ideal cod conditions.

Plenty of fish were caught by all mainly codling, whiting, a few dogfish and dabs but all were small nothing for the table and so were returned in this catch and release match. After some disappointing results so far this year Chris Leonard was back on form and took first place with 28 fish for 513 points. In addition to codling, whiting, and a dogfish Chris had two surprises an early smoothhound and an unusual visitor to the east coast a small pollock. Close behind was Barrie Senior with 41 fish, again small codling and whiting for 505 points. Third place went to Robin Joy with 22 fish for 389 points. Next match is scheduled for Orfordness on 17 April.

Five members of Braintree Sea Angling Club fished Orford Island from 10:00 to 16:00 in a south easterly wind and with plenty of colour in the water. The winter and summer fish are starting to cross over and hopes were high that the spring run of codling could see some good eating fish caught. The fish had other ideas and only small codling, whiting and dabs were caught. 1st place and the Jimmy Turner Shield went to Paul Drake with17 codling, 5 whiting and 1 dab , 2nd was Chris Leonard with 18 codling and a dab, 3rd place went to Robin Joy with 11 codling and 4 whiting. All the fish were over 18 cm's and all were return to grow bigger. Best fish was a dab of 29cm for Chris Leonard. It was great to see so many small codling for the first time in 2011 and hopefully they will come back next year even bigger.

This evening match fishing for the Braintree & Witham Times cup was again disappointing as only a few whiting and dabs were caught. 1^st Robin Joy with 49 points. 2^nd Paul Drake 26 points. 3^rd Peter Costin 15 points.

The fishing was poor Joint 1^st Robin Joy and Mike Namock with a dab a piece for 16 points. 3^rd Peter Costin with a codling for 12 points.

Nine members of Braintree Sea Angling Club travelled to Orford to fish the second shore match of the year. Fishing an ebb tide with plenty of colour in the water and a light onshore breeze conditions were good for the anglers. The fishing however, was very poor with only a few pin whiting, undersize codling and an occasional dab for some. At the end of this catch and return match there was no clear winner. Mike Namock fishing his first match with the Club had 8 fish for 94 points. The winner of the last match, Paul Drake, also had 94 points with his 6 fish so sharing the top spot with Mike. In third place with 54 points was Barrie Senior.

The first match of the season was transferred to Dungeness from Orfordness due to the original Dungeness fixture clashing with a major open match, the world dab championship on the 30th January. The members made the trip to Kent hoping for dabs and possible codling. The weather had been from the south west for several days and upon arrival at the power station and the point areas the anglers found it was almost unfishable due to large waves and swells from 20mph plus wind. The members fished the area in front of the boats instead which gave some protection from the rough seas and wind. The dabs and whiting were very obliging from the start of the ebb tide and in fact stayed throughout the match. The match winner was Paul Drake with 51 sizeable dabs and whiting (over 18cms) for 631 point which is approximately 13.5lbs. Paul fished 3 hook flappers and clipped down rigs and had several treble shots. Second was Tim Maples again with a bag of 32 sizeable dabs and whiting for 344 point approximately 7.5 lbs. In third place was Peter Costin with 28 sizeable dabs and whiting for 291 points. All the members had a very busy day and thoroughly enjoyed catching lots of fish of which mostly were returned to fight another day.

	Braintree Sea Angling Club

11-Dec-2011