The FishingMagic Species Hunt 2006, Sponsored by Mistral baitsWELL IT WAS all a bit ‘last minute’ and the number of entries was lower than it will be next year when we have more time to get it organised.But the fact that the event actually went ahead, raised a few quid for a good cause, got generous sponsorship from Mistral Baits, FishingMagic and some big-hearted site members, and is already pencilled in for next year, is enough for me.
Overall I think the entrants enjoyed the challenge of trying to catch something that they would not normally target, and hopefully the onlookers enjoyed the craic, the accusations of sabotage, counter accusations of cheating and rumours of disqualification from those taking part. And for those of us whom were sharp enough to tell our partners that it was a huge national event with millions in prize money, well it meant that we got to go out fishing almost every day for over a week! But before I tell you all about my adventures that week, here are the results: RESULTS BEST TEAM: Team 3, which was Mark Wintle and Pikey Paul with a total of 33 species. Each receive a cheque for £ 100 courtesy of Mistral Baits.
BEST INDIVIDUAL: Mark Wintle with 31 species. Mark wins the trophy and gets to keep it for 12 months. He also wins a Fox 12ft, 1.75lb TC XS Barbel Rod, for the individual with the highest number of points. Trophy and rod courtesy of FishingMagic. BIGGEST FISH: Jonny Northmore for catching a barbel of 10lb 5oz. Jonny wins a £ 20 Hogs Back Brewery Gift Voucher. This and the next two prizes courtesy of Neil Maidment. BIGGEST GUDGEON: Ric Elwin – 1/2 oz. Ric wins a bottle of Duchatel Champagne (on the basis that Ric’s post was the first to quote a weight!).
SMALLEST CARP: Eddie C. – 6oz. Eddie also wins a bottle of Duchatel Champagne. BIGGEST FISH CAUGHT BY AN UNDER 16: Christian Tyroll, who wins a Badger Waggler Rod kindly donated by Fred Bonney. BIGGEST FISH BY PERCENTAGE OF CURRENT NATIONAL RECORD: Lee Swords, who wins a Fishrite Carp mat donated by Danny Lancaster. This Was My Species Hunt The original concept of the Species Hunt is nothing new, a TV series from the 70s (I think) started the ball rolling, and selfishly, I am always looking for something new to do, albeit a different species, venue, strategy or method, so something like this personally gave me a fresh outlook, and got me thinking about my fishing in a different way. I do admit to sitting down and making a plan, thinking how I was going to maximise the number of species caught in the given time and which venues would offer me my best chance of the more difficult ones.
Anyway my first session was a few hours one evening on the River Dee, the closest coarse river to me at 30 miles away. I caught dace, chub and then punched the air (honestly) when I landed a small eel right at last light. Being ‘forced’ into fishing this, and other venues, and utilise methods which I would not normally choose, enabled me to sample what was some very good fishing for this neck of the woods. Nothing exceptional by national standards I suppose, but certainly it opened my eyes to the quality of sport on offer, certainly from when I had last fished it, and as you can imagine, the banks were empty.
A few days later saw me back on a tributary of the main river trying to catch………a minnow (really), a grayling and some spotty trouty type things that I’ve caught there previously! Anyway, although the grayling eluded me, a minnow soon obliged as did a trouty type thing later on, both to trotted red maggot – 5 points and counting, gerrintherre! The next species I targeted was barbel, which for me is one of the trickiest, in that although they’re not particularly difficult to catch when feeding, the distance I have to travel (50-60 miles) meant that I had to get it right first time. I decided that my best bet would be to try the Severn just below Shrewsbury. Monday afternoon, and after a 90 minute journey I found the river pushing through with a fair bit of pace, the recent rain obviously having had a positive impact. Travelling the distances I do, that first look at the river is always a bit nerve racking. Not being local means you are pretty much in the hands of a few trustees to give you your info on what sort of condition the river is in, to such people I am always genuinely grateful, unfortunately I have no such contacts in this area, but luckily for me it looked spot on. I chose a swim with fast water close in and fished micro pellets through a running feeder with a few 10mm hair rigged pellets for hookbait. Whilst positioning my rod rest, the bank felt a bit ‘squashy’ I stamped, it felt squashier, another stamp loosened a huge clod of earth that quietly disappeared totally into the river within two seconds.* *Mental note, buy a flotation jacket! A slight adjustment of my fishing position and after a dozen quick casts I had my barbel about 90 minutes later, weighed and photographed, the fish was quickly returned. I then had a moment of thought and considered what I had done. That sort of fish was something I could only have dreamed of throughout my teens and prior to learning to drive, yet I’d caught it, photographed it, and safely returned it without so much as a thought – talk about taking things for granted! Anyway, a change of tack had me trying lobworms down the edge for a big perch but to no avail. I left relatively early and saved some brownie points up for later in the week, the prize money having increased by the time I got home. Tuesday gave me a very mixed and frustrating session. The club water I visited is a genuine mixed fishery with all sorts of silver fish, crucians, tench and also carp. I decided that I would target the crucians and tench on the float, taking whatever silvers came my way, and also fish a carp rod. A method feeder cast out to the edge of some lilies was away within minutes, the fish finding said lilies within seconds and everything went solid, a few minutes later I re-cast a little further out, a similar quick take, but this fish felt somewhat smaller, and a few seconds later a good crucian came into view; ‘lucky sod’ I thought, then it disappeared from view as the hook pulled, ‘Oh dear’ I didn’t say! I finally managed to set the float rod up, plumb the depth and start catching silvers before realising I had missed out an eye when threading the line, dead funny, start again! One or two more fish got bumped on the method rod so I changed the pellet for an activ-8 ready made boilie, believing the many bream were grabbing at the pellet. I hooked another carp, and played it expertly, but not expertly enough to get it in, cue another lost fish! I’d been fishing for about three hours, yet hadn’t been fishing if you know what I mean, it had been non stop, but I still hadn’t added to my list of species other than a small roach and a tiny rudd which I did not photograph as I was convinced it would be dwarfed by a later capture! The evening wore on and I did not catch a crucian but did manage loads of bream and a small common on the float, a pretty little fish, that led me a merry dance! I was just about ready for the off, having stayed on an hour into dark, when my corn hookbait was taken by a hard scrapping fish, a minute later a lovely roach of about 10oz was landed, this was followed by several more around the same size including one slightly over 12oz, I would probably never have known this stamp of fish were present in decent numbers were it not for my attempts at catching crucians and tench! So although the hoped for crucian and tench were not forthcoming, the stamp of roach I caught late on made that quite bearable and certainly gave me thoughts for the future! The following day I headed off to the Lleyn peninsular West Wales, with a dual purpose in mind, first off, one of my elder brothers (aka The Bait Fairy) had an interview in Porthmadog, then after this we headed off to Pwllheli to try and catch a dogfish and whatever else we could muster from what is comfortable fishing off a lovely beach. A funny thing about sea fishing, you can have a whole two mile stretch of coastline, be totally on your own, yet no sooner families with kids, dog walkers or just out and out loons appear, then they insist on occupying your personal 10 metre stretch. I fished about 8 metres away from me bro and within an hour we had horrible little rat children throwing stones in the sea right between us, their parents saying nothing, but the best was yet to come. A little later another family came down; again they had the whole two mile beach but chose to ‘fish’ five metres from our kid. A dad with three young daughters probably aged 5-8yrs old, they had the usual seaside town corner shop fishing equipment. A standard 4 ft rod, accompanied with a plastic reel, and other shiny bits and bobs. Thoughtful dad sat 50 metres away and let them get on with it, that is, until the light faded, when he got up, said ‘I’ll see you later’ walked off and left all three of them totally alone right next to me and my bro! We sat there amazed, totally unreal, and we wonder why some kids are messed up!
Anyway, I caught an eel, but couldn’t catch a barker to save my life, same for our kid, ‘I’ll give it ’til midnight’ says I, then at 11.55 the tip rattles and a small bass is landed soon after, our kid follows suit with one even smaller, I lose another fish then we head off home. I arrive on my doorstep at 4am. Friday I take the little lad out and catch a gudgeon and some perch from the canal, then on Saturday morning the banks of The Royal Blue Mersey beckon. We decide to fish Fort Perch Rock, New Brighton at low water, as this will hopefully boost my faltering attempts. I pick up The Bait Fairy at 6am, so called because when he comes fishing with me, top quality locally dug lugworm, and freshly collected peeler crab always manage to find their way into my bait bucket – amazing!
The tides were good, the fishing was not, a pin whiting was all I had to show, the Bait Fairy catching the same, plus some dabs and a lesser weever, so we ventured up the river to await the incoming tide. Here we found more of the strange characters that the seaside attracts, a bloke about 24 totally rat arsed on cider at 10 am, with his young lad in tow, and another bloke sprawled on a bench also drinking strong lager. You do see some sad sights when fishing! A plaice came my way, thanks to the fresh peeler crab, and a tiny flounder also followed later on. Sunday was to give me my most enjoyable session of the week, the bank holiday Monday was set aside for a rock mark, so I HAD to catch a rudd, tench and crucian. I figured the rudd would be easy, the tench should be the next easiest with the crucian the most difficult of all. As such I opted for a club water which I had caught plenty of tench from, and rudd also, but there were also crucians present, but in what numbers I could not say.
A maggot feeder should have caught me a tench, but didn’t, despite persisting for over two hours. In previous sessions, after half a dozen silvers, the tench were usually onto the bait, but not today! No worries as I had been throwing in micro pellets, corn and maggots in the margins for two hours; surely some Tincas would be here! A quick change; I set up a light float and first cast I netted a crucian of about 8oz. Get in! I then caught another, and another, and on it went. I had so many fish in such a shallow swim that I could not cast out without having a bite or line bite I fished corn, worms and maggots but still could not find that tench or rudd but the crucian session was the best I’d had for probably 15 years. I also landed a ‘rogue’ common of 6lb. None of the crucians went over a pound but it was really good fun doing the sort of thing I used to do as a lad. It slashed down, I had no brolly, my chair soon became home to a nice little puddle that made my arse wet, but did I care? Not a jot, and yet again, another mental note was made of what is actually available to me should I decide to take the blinkers off!
The last day was to be spent on the Isle of Anglesey, fishing a well known, but hard to find, rock mark, known as Whitebeach. The walk down to the mark wasn’t too bad but my first three casts all resulted in total tackle losses. Then a change of casting direction led to my tackle losses ceasing and four more species come to hand, a mackerel (Bait Fairy’s breakfast next day), dogfish, pollack and a last cast ‘postage stamp’ dab, made a round 20 species to me. This was proper fishing from a beautiful if very exposed, and potentially dangerous, location, certainly the place to take someone you don’t like. The walk back uphill to the car made me realise that I had taken a little too much kit after all. On the way home we stopped off at a Spar on the Isle, the girl inside said to the Bait Fairy ‘Have you been fishing?’ He replied ‘Yes, how did you know?’ ‘By the fishy smell’ she said. Thankfully he refrained from saying ‘I thought that was you,’ although I know he wanted to! |
Welcome!Log into your account
