Saltwater Boat Angling — November 2017

Many anglers bemoan the

decline of club competition participation

and indeed the decline of clubs generally. It is

true that in many clubs it is hard to get the same

numbers competing now as it was even ten years ago.

We remember competitions and festivals in south

coast club being contested by upwards of forty anglers

• now it’s often difficult to get enough to even make a
  competition worthwhile. Our contributing editor Jim,
  when he worked on his own magazine in the
  noughties, organising a boat league of anglers based
  on the results of club competitions all over the country.
  The top winners at the end of the year got to compete
  in a final with a spectacular prize on offer. It would be
  great to return to those days. Watch this space... In
  kayaking it is different, this newish sport runs very
  successful well attended competitions all through the
  summer - most of which we have covered. However,
  this doesn’t paint the whole story, and if a
  club or individual does make an effort to organise and
  publicise a competition then it can be very successful.
  We’ve already covered a number in the last few issues
  and over the last few weeks, there have been a whole
  raft of boat competitions and we’ve managed to cover
  some of them in this issue. So, welcome to the Festival
  special and I’m sure there’ll be many readers featuring in
  these following pages.
  We have reports on the Bexhill Sea Angling Festival –
  both kayak and private boat species hunts – the
  Hastings and St Leonards Angling Association plaice
  competition held in early September, the Lyme Bay
  Bream Festival, the Manx Boat Fishing Festival and
  finally the Salcombe small boat festival.

By the time this issue is published there will have been a

further raft of events some of which we’ll cover in the

next issue including the following in Weymouth

organised by Colin Baker skipper of Flamer IV:

October 20th – Annual 1 Day Species

/Hunt/Competition

October 21st and 22nd - Annual 2 Day Species

Hunt/Competition

Flamer Festival Competition for the persons who fish all

three days October 20th, 21st, 22nd

November 18th and 19th - F.I.S.H. Species Singles

Competition

November 20th - F.I.S.H Species Pairs Competition

Finally, if you have a competition that you want to get

coverage for send in the report, or better still let us

know in good time and we’ll try and get someone to

come and cover it for you.

2017 Festival

Special Bexhill Sea Angling

Festival Boat and Kayak competitions.

The Bexhill Festival has been running for six years and

incorporates two competitions afloat. Navionics

partnered Saltwater Boat Angling in sponsoring both of

these events. The weather intervened twice to prevent

the Kayak competition from taking place which was a

big shame but the Boat Species Hunt did go ahead.

However, because the forecast was not great quite a few

anglers were put off, so the numbers entering was

depressed as a result.

On the day the weather was marginal with a brisk south

easterly blowing and, for the first part of the

competition, running against the tide which produced a

short uncomfortable chop and made launching tricky.

With an hour gone two boats had to come in, one with a

seasick angler and another with engine trouble.

Those who toughed it out until the wind dropped at

high tide found the fishing tough with a lot of under

sized plaice and dabs being boated. In the end the

winner was Bexhill club Chairman Arthur Freeman with

his boat partner Luke Allcock winning second prize and

the junior prize too.

So, a disappointing weekend with one cancelled and

one competition understrength but we’ll all come back

for more in 2018.

The weigh in Tim Macpherson with

winner Arthur Freeman

Luke Allcock Runner up

and Junior winner

Mel Adrian

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