Source: Angling Trust
This year’s Angling Trust Members’ Boat Championship took place in Weymouth with 24 top anglers taking part, including most of the current World and Home Nation team members.
At the start of the event the weather was force 6-7 north-easterly winds and in many ports the boats would have never ventured to sea, but with the lay of the land you can still get out from Weymouth in such conditions – although the fishable areas were restricted.
Day one saw a close battle between all of the anglers with Steve Bachelor eventually coming out on top scoring 130 points, followed by Cliff Newbold with 123 points. Day two saw slightly improved conditions, with the boats able to fish the famous Shambles Bank, and it was nice to see quality plaice to 5lb being caught and returned alive.
Colin Searles won day two with a fantastic score of 176 points with Rolf Marchalek runner up on 156. The anglers were pleasantly surprised with the number of species caught, with 17 different species landed over the two days.
When the results were completed the overall winners were as follows:
1st Rolf Marchalek Norwich 183%
2nd Colin Searles Southampton 176%
3rd Cliff Newbold Portsmouth 171%
2 man open winners were Steve Bachelor and Colin Searles
4 man open winners were Steve Bachelor, Pete Bailey, Cliff Newbold and Rolf Marschalek
4 man drawn winners were Gareth Croft, Ryan Casey, Cliff Newbold and Mike Lelliot.
Two juniors fished the event: Ryan Casey from Weymouth came a very credible 6th place, beating many top anglers, and 13-year-old Nina Frapple from Shepton Mallett fished her first ever boat competition and finished 17th. Both juniors are members of Weymouth Angling Society and they did well fishing in what were very difficult conditions.
