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IRSA National Shore Angling Championships 1997 Conwy, Wales, 13th September 1997 Match Report Thank you to Graham Land for finding us such a scenic venue that produced fish as well as a little sunshine. It was the first time that any of us had fished the venue and we expected to catch eels and the odd flat fish. Some of the locals who were very friendly, especially a certain young lady in the tackle shop, told us we may also have a chance of a bass or two. The match was fished on a stretch of the Conwy Estuary from the bridge to a point about 200 metres up stream. We were aware that when the tide was fully out there would not be much more than a wide stretch of river Conwy left to fish in. Before the start there was the expected jokes made about having a sea angling competition in a river such as “I forgot to bring my roach pole” and “do chubb and dace count?”. However most of us were pleasantly surprised at both the variety and quantity of the fish we caught. We decided that each of us could choose our spot rather than having a peg draw. Just before the start at 12.30 we all made off to what we thought may prove to be the best spot. Graham, Alwyn and Adrian (the Welsh lads) headed off to a spot near the bridge but were forced to turn around as they could not ford a side river barring their route. They decided to join Tony and Nigel (two of the three from Merseyside) who had taken up positions on a mussel bed point (it was nearest to where the cars were parked). The other Merseysider, Keith along with Barry, John and Peter from down South and myself headed for a sandy beach upstream from the others (what a mistake). We hoped the beach would be the best place for bass but the bass had obviously gone somewhere else for their lunch that day. Only one eel (Keith), three undersize flaties and an undersize whiting (Peter) were caught from this stretch between the five of us in the whole five hour match. Barry managed to get some bird watching in though which helped to keep him awake. Shortly after half time I took a walk along to the point to check the scores on the doors and was amazed to find Graham and Nigel had got good hauls of not only eel but codling which we had not expected at all. On several casts Graham brought in three at a time which boosted his tally no end. Keith and I lugged our gear along the beach to the “hot spot” to try and get a piece of the action and I caught one small eel which must have felt sorry for me. Although Tony was fishing in between Nigel and Graham he found rough ground each time he cast and lost an amazing eight sets of terminal gear. To make things worse he only landed two eels and the sizeable one just did not fancy swimming around in his bucket so made off hastily back to the water (his excuse was his “gammy leg”) no doubt just in time to be caught again by Graham or Nigel. Our commiseration’s must go especially to Peter who caught four fish which counted for nothing. Also because he could not get anyone to feed his pussy he had to set off early on the long drive back to Kent and so missed the buffet. I do hope his valiant efforts were appreciated. The fact that most of us caught something however and could bring the fish to the scales made up for the constant wind that battered us all day and which no doubt was specially arranged by the Welsh tourist board when they heard about the invasion of tax men. Compared to our winter matches we had expected we would need our shorts and ambre soleil , a summer match with a suntan we thought. In the end we almost froze to death. The weigh in was most comical as we had to transfer the fish from our own buckets to the “official weighing in bucket”. Well you see the eels had other ideas and had got quite used to their own buckets. Silver eels are rather slippery creatures and slip through your hands with great ease. At one point we had ten of them all heading off along the road in different directions with ten of us trying to bring them under control. The locals who had already probably made their minds up about us were now certain where we came from and I am sure it had nothing to do with SA. We managed in the end though and although both Nigel and Alwyn made an excellent effort Graham’s magnificent 18.20 lb was an easy winner as well as a Revenue record breaker! We were relieved to say the least when we got them all safely back in the water, well all except one nice codling which made a young pensioner back in Liverpool very happy I am told. After an excellent buffet in a local hostelry Graham was presented with the trophies for heaviest bag (or should I say bucket) and heaviest fish which had been a codling of 2.20 lbs by my five year old son, Matthew. All the important local dignitaries and MPs had other things on their minds that day such as devolution and as Matthew felt he was important he decided he would do it and did. He was well into dragons and Welsh flags by this time which added a bit of colour to the otherwise dour photographs of weather worn fishermen. The men discussed the fishing or in some cases the lack of it as well as the one that got away which would have won the match for Tony but unfortunately weighed in as 0.00 lb. Matthew re-wrote the results to his licking. Unfortunately I still didn’t win and have therefore decided to change my name to Graham in time for next years Championships. Well
done to those who did catch and made it into the teams who will represent the
Revenue at the CSSC National Open Shore Angling Championships which are been
held at Herne Bay on 15th November when it will hopefully be really really cold!
Commiseration’s to those who travelled all the way up from the South in
vain. Better luck next time. Iain IRSA Sea Angling Organiser |