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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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. 4^th 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

Braintree Sea Angling Club members fished the first of their Summer League evening matches at Aldeburgh. With a strong East North Easterly wind whipping up the white horses fishing was not easy until the tide turned and the wind dropped. Only a few small whiting were caught until the tide turned. In the last hour and a half when Graham Nash found several dogfish to win the match 289 fish points from his cagch of 6 whiting. 1 sole and 5 dogfish. Second place went to Paul Drake with 5 whiting and a smoothhound for 77 fish points. Barrie Senior had 7 whiting to take the third spot with 67 points.

Braintree Sea Angling Club members fished Aldeburgh in trying, grey and damp conditions at their recent match.  With strong north easterly winds casting was difficult but Paul Drake caught a codling on his first cast which raised expectations. This was the only one caught and the fishing was poor for the rest of the match.  A run of dogfish an hour and quarter before the finish meant that all the anglers had at least one fish on the score sheet.  Paul Drake capitalised on his good start to win with the codling, 5 whiting, a pout and 3 dogfish for 364 points also the best fish a dogfish of 63cm.  Barrie Senior was second with 5 whiting, 3 dogfish and a pout for 281 points. 3^rd was Graham Nash with one dogfish for 84 points.

Earlier in the week a few of the members had taken a trip to St Osyth and managed to find a few thornback rays the best being a 6lb 12oz fish caught by Paul Drake.

Braintree Sea Angling Club members headed down to East Sussex for their latest match at Pevensey Bay hoping for some plaice.  With a south westerly wind and a calm sea the fishing conditions looked reasonable.  The fishing was slow with a the occasional fish being caught.  Three of the anglers managed to catch at least one plaice.  Barrie Senior started with a plaice and steadily caught fish throughout the day and ended up with two plaice, one flounder, six dabs and seven whiting for 229 fish points.  Second place went to Paul Drake with the best plaice of the day a fine fish 35cm and three whiting for 83 points. Chris Leonard took the third spot with 54 points from his catch of one plaice, to whiting and a small smoothhound.  

we fished Sizewell today, with the wind over our right shoulders off the land and a lot of sunshine it was a pleasant day  with good weather, good conditions, good bait and good company what could go wrong?

it turned out however to be a quiet day, even the seagulls were quiet, they had flown to Denge Marsh thinking we had rescheduled the match against all the odds three elite sea anglers from the National Braintree Sea Angling squad took on the hard fighting dabs of Sizewell in a
head to head battle that left no punches pulled, coming out on top to eclipse any double world gold medal in the winter Olympics.

Dab for dab the match started out slowly, slowing down somewhat in the middle then then petering out all together until the turn of the tide then like a tour de France rider with a dodgy jiffy bag Robin ‘he’s one of our own’ Joy gave the dabs a good bashing with 26 straight victories
bettered only by doffing up a monster rockling giving him a total of 27 fish for 179 points.

Graham ‘coat hanger rig’ Nash also gave the dabs no quarter with whiting and rockling also not able to escape the inevitable end for a total of 111 points from 15 fish.

Squeezed in the middle between the above two lotharios was El Drako with 19 fish for 125 points and no passes.

Numerous undersize dabs, whiting, rockling and bass were caught, should we reduce the limit to 12 cm to give these fish a fair chance?

Call the Midwife is about to start so I must dash

Result:

1) Robin 27 fish 179 points

2) Paul 19 fish 125 points

3) Graham 15 fish 111 points

all 3 had a fish of 24cm so prize for longest fish shared

dab 24 cm Robin & Paul

whiting 24 cm Graham

rockling 21 cm Robin ( it looked a lot bigger than 21 cm to me)