Great Yarmouth Suday 11/11/07

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:22 am

We went
We saw
We did a little fishing.

More later when I've got time!

Member Joined: Nov 02, 2006 Posts: 84 Location: Rayleigh

I shall attempt to elaborate a little.

Sheddy and DuncBooth5 picked me up from home at some completely ungodly hour to commence our journey to Great Yarmouth. Filled with enthusiasm for the forthcoming event (it was for charity mates) we set off into the darkness.

It didn't stay dark for too long and with the rising sun already making its way skyward, we arrrived at the rendezvous point in Yarmouth in good time. I must appologise at this stage as I cannot remember the name of this tackle shop were we all met but they provided us with tea and coffee along with sausage or bacon rolls.

I believe there were 12 of us making up the Essex contingent for the competition and we set up on the beach between the main pier and the jetty to its right as you look out to sea. The weather was not good, with the wind blowing something fierce across from the left and the tidal pull very strong. It did not take long for our gear to become buried in sand and monor excavations were being conducted at varying intervals to retrieve our stuff.

At 1000 hours the competition began. The first two hours were fraut with problems. The wind prevented much distance to your casting and the strong tidal flow prevented your lead from anchoring before being swept 50 yards along the beach to the right. We were continuously becoming tangled with eachother and having to set off along the beach to retreive our tackle. The weed that the previous swell had brought up was also a massive problem. Within seconds, our lines were becoming tangled in large amounts of weed that wrapped itself around your traces like rope. All these problems meant that you were casting out you line for 10 seconds before having to reel in and spend the next 5 minutes detangling your rigs. You then cast out for the next 10 second fish before starting the whole procedure again. With tackle losses and tempers high, most decided to sit it out and wait until the swells subsided before trying again.

At about 11:30, the weather had calmed down and the fishing started in earnest. The lines had to be retrieved about every 10-15 minutes to prevent the traces being tangled up with the weed but it was fishable.

The fish coming out were mainly undersized whiting, pouting and dabs with a few codling here and there and most people caught something, even if they weren't keepers.

All the weigh-in fish were to be of minimum landing size and the ones that I know of to mention were a 27cm dab and a 35cm codling from me, a 36cm codling and some dabs from Berrybob (Guy), a 38cn whiting from Sheddy and a 23cn dab from DB5.

At the weigh-in it was apparent that the fishing had not gone too well and the quantity of eligable fish was low. Every fish had to count, despite it seeming worthless.

The results came in with Norfolk winning with the highest weight. Despite having the fewest anglers, Essex came in second.
The heaviest individual weight went to a Norfolk angler with an individual catch being a little over 5lb. The next heaviest individual weight came in just under 3lb.
Berrybob got the prize for heaviest weight for Essex ( 2lb 1oz ((i think)) ) with me in second (1lb 8oz) and Sheddy in third (1lb 6oz).

There were lots of prizes awarded and then the rafffle. It was like Christmas early. Prizes flying everywhere.

The initial sum given as being raised for the charity was said to approximate about £1,200 and was expected to get a little higher.

Al in all it was a long, hard day but in light of what it was in aid of, well worth it.

I apologise for any mistakes or for people left out. I'm sure those there can fill in the blanks.

Guest

You forgot to mention my 24cm dab - caught on an enormous lug bait big grin

and StuartDV had a 4.5oz pouting as I recall.

One of the best days fishing I've had despite the weed, wind, rain and swearing ..... big grin

Member Joined: Nov 02, 2006 Posts: 84 Location: Rayleigh

Cheers Bread.

Like I said, I couldn't remember everything and didn't know I was tasked to complete a match report until last knockings so I didn't get all the details.

Guest

Apologies to those that were there for me being in a foul, foul mood all day. My casting was crap, I lost six sets of tackle to weed, snags and crack offs (thank you Scitter for dragging one set back-what happened to the rest big grin

), I have to thoroughly clean out 2 tonnes of sand from my reels (and I never usually clean my gear), I had to do an archaeological dig to recover my gear at the end of the match, there was so much weed that I could have resurfaced my lawn, the Penn line that I'd respooled my reels with turned out to be utter crap and the Stren shockleader more so and all for 2 undersize whiting (whiting? theres a surprise) an undersize codling and a dab which at weigh in came out at 41/2 ounces and had died out of spite. Just to make matters worse, Mr Scitter had forgotten his bucket and so his rather better catch spent it's time in mine. Problem is that at the weigh in, you couldn't have combined catches in one bucket so my rather pathetic dab ended up in Scitters sandwich box while he touted his in a mustad bucket that I had obtained at great expense from Jetty Anglers (free). Oh the shame of it!

All in all not my best days fishing by far and one that in many respects I'd rather forget-so we won't mention it again-ever.

The only good thing to come out of it was the fact that when being filmed, I did actually manage to get a reasonable cast away and not look a total pillock much to StuDVs dissapointment as he could readily imagine the headline-'Some fat anglers at Great Yarmouth and one of them is really p**sed off!' after I'd launched my rod up the beach and given it a really good kicking while shouting expletives at it!

Well done to Burybob, Scitter, Sheddy, Concrete, StuDV and Bread for some decent fish.

Thanks to Sheddy for driving.

Thanks to Burybob and Concrete for sorting out a really bad casting day when I was seriously considering packing up and going to the pub.

I have now taken my medication and I'm calm-yes, really calm.

Here's to no more days like that!
big grin

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 12:19 pm

DuncBooth5 wrote:

I was seriously considering packing up and going to the pub.

You never told me that the pub was an option ......

Guest

DuncBooth5 wrote:

Apologies to those that were there for me being in a foul, foul mood all day. My casting was crap, I lost six sets of tackle to weed, snags and crack offs (thank you Scitter for dragging one set back-what happened to the rest big grin

), I have to thoroughly clean out 2 tonnes of sand from my reels (and I never usually clean my gear), I had to do an archaeological dig to recover my gear at the end of the match, there was so much weed that I could have resurfaced my lawn, the Penn line that I'd respooled my reels with turned out to be utter crap and the Stren shockleader more so and all for 2 undersize whiting (whiting? theres a surprise) an undersize codling and a dab which at weigh in came out at 41/2 ounces and had died out of spite. Just to make matters worse, Mr Scitter had forgotten his bucket and so his rather better catch spent it's time in mine. Problem is that at the weigh in, you couldn't have combined catches in one bucket so my rather pathetic dab ended up in Scitters sandwich box while he touted his in a mustad bucket that I had obtained at great expense from Jetty Anglers (free). Oh the shame of it!

All in all not my best days fishing by far and one that in many respects I'd rather forget-so we won't mention it again-ever.

The only good thing to come out of it was the fact that when being filmed, I did actually manage to get a reasonable cast away and not look a total pillock much to StuDVs dissapointment as he could readily imagine the headline-'Some fat anglers at Great Yarmouth and one of them is really p**sed off!' after I'd launched my rod up the beach and given it a really good kicking while shouting expletives at it!

Well done to Burybob, Scitter, Sheddy, Concrete, StuDV and Bread for some decent fish.

Thanks to Sheddy for driving.

Thanks to Burybob and Concrete for sorting out a really bad casting day when I was seriously considering packing up and going to the pub.

I have now taken my medication and I'm calm-yes, really calm.

Here's to no more days like that!
big grin

Up to now, the best line I've found for main line and shockleader is either the Sufix or the Varivas. Red Ice is also good, but not as good as the others.

..... and it was nice to hear that your French has improved..... suprise