FESTIVE FISHING

WEYMOUTH Angling Society anglers braved the weather over the festive season to fish their last two matches of 2013.

The first of these was their annual Christmas match, which was moved to the back-up venue of Preston Beach due to the weather.

The strong winds and heavy rain made fishing quite hard, but the determined competitors still managed to catch.

Keith Diplock had top weight on the day – a 2.02kg bass.

Ryan Casey won best specimen with a dab of 0.52kg which was 115 per cent of specimen. Casey also took second top weight with 1.55kg for his bag of pout, dogfish, whiting and dab.

Danny Woodcock was third top weight with a bag of bass and dogfish weighing 1.47kg.

Both Diplock and Casey won Christmas hampers for their efforts.

The weather was kinder when Weymouth AS held their annual Bangers & Beans match, with only light rain in the evening.

Sixty-three anglers, including 11 juniors, signed on to fish around Weymouth’s inner harbour.

The top bags came from the club side of the Town Bridge where the small whiting were not so prolific. Species caught included flounder, eel, pout, pollack, thin-lip mullet, wrasse and rockling.

Top angler on the day was Art Powell from Calne with his bag of flounder and pollack tipping the scales at 1.56kg.

Powell’s flounder also won him the heaviest flat fish prize.

Second was Keelan Owen, from Minehead, whose thin-lip mullet of 1.14kg also bagged him the heaviest round fish prize.

Portland’s Pete Hegg was third with flounder and silver eel for 1.11kg and Weymouth’s Martin Johns was fourth with 0.70kg.

Top lady was A Bedford with 1.04kg and top junior was Steve Buick with 0.57kg.

NEW YEAR

JANUARY, generally speaking, sees the start of the new fishing seasons for the local clubs and Weymouth and Dorchester both kicked off their new campaigns with matches.

Weymouth AS were due to fish Chesil Beach but, yet again due to weather, moved the match to Preston Beach, including the piers.

As the wind wasn’t too bad three anglers tried to fish Chesil Beach only to be snagged by all the floating weed, so most chose to fish the piers.

The top five on the day were as follows: 1 Phil Cheeseman with 1.16kg; 2 Ryan Casey (1.08kg), 3 Ben Stockley (0.97kg), 4 Ray Barnes (0.89kg), 5 Ethan Casey (0.48kg).

Ben Stockley took best specimen with a 56.48 per cent dog-fish, top lady was Jane Johns and top junior was Ethan Casey.

Dorchester SAC were due to fish their match at Abbotsbury but a small gap in the weather allowed them to move the match to the contingency venue of Preston Beach rather than cancel.

Eleven anglers participated with six bringing fish to the scales, including dogfish, sole and whiting.

Pete Taylor and Lee Taylor were joint winners with Paul Chaffey in third.

Dorchester SAC League winners for 2013 were: 1 Pete Taylor, 2 Paul Chaffey, 3 Aaron Barclay.

Memberships for 2014 are now open and being taken. Contact Paul Chaffey on 07888 766366 for more information or go to dsac.englishboard.net