LYME BAY BOAT TROPHY MATCH – 2017

LYME BAY BOAT TROPHY MATCH – 2017

 

The rearranged annual boat trophy match took place on Saturday 4th November at Lyme Regis with Lyme Regis SAC hosting this year’s competition.

 

The competitors for this year’s event were from the following clubs; Axe Valley SAC, Beer & District SAA, Lyme Regis SAC and West Bay SAC. Individual competitors were Scott Rice and Wayne Harwood (Axe Valley), Les Bradbeer and Nigel Derbe (Beer), Darren Herbert and Roy Shipway (Lyme Regis), Steve Fowles and Gerry Reed (West Bay).

 

Lewis Hodder, skipper of Pegasus, was the host for the day and he carefully selected five different areas to fish over the eight hours of the match. All these areas offered different opportunities to catch fish over a range of depths.

 

The match was based on the Lyme Region SAC catch and release match card which gave anglers the opportunity to acquire bonus points once they had caught three fish of each species. This was weighted accordingly to the type of fish caught i.e.: Dogfish, Mackerel, Pouting etc being worth 1 point, Pollack, Ballan Wrasse, Cuckoo Wrasse etc 2 points, Black Bream, Bass, Gurnard, Rays 3 points.

 

The match started at 08.00 sharp once competitors had drawn for fishing 8 positions. At 12.00 everybody rotated 4 positions around the boat to give everybody a chance to fish a different position.

 

The first position fished was close in to the shore giving anglers the chance to catch Ballan Wrasse, Corkwing Wrasse, small Pollack and other mini species. After that Lewis moved to anchor just off the edge of West Tennants for many species of fish including Black Bream. He then moved to anchor off another area of cleaner ground where there was Bream, Dogfish, Mackerel, Scad and Gurnard. The fourth position he selected was drifting an area of West Tenants in the hope of catching Ballan Wrasse, Cuckoo Wrasse, Bream, Pollack , and Pouting. The final spot selected was back inshore on sandy ground for Dogfish and Rays.

 

At the half way mark, when anglers changed positions, the scores were as follows: Beer had 66pts, Lyme Regis had 57pts, Axe Valley had 55pts, and West Bay had 49pts.

 

With 30 minutes to go, things were very tight between all the teams and on the last mark it became evident that a few good fish could swing the match.

 

Fourteen species of fish were caught during the day: Ballan Wrasse, Bass, Black Bream, Corkwing Wrasse, Cuckoo Wrasse, Dogfish, Garfish, Red Gurnard, Mackerel, Pollack, Poor Cod, Pouting, Thornback Ray, Scad,

 

Two notable fish were caught, a nice Bass caught by Gerry Reed estimated around 6lbs plus and a 4lb plus Ballan Wrasse caught by Roy Shipway

 

The final results were as follows:

 

1st Beer & District SAA  96 pts (Nigel Derbe – 54pts (9-8), Les Bradbeer – 42pts (9-6)

2nd Lyme Regis SAC 93pts (Darren Herbert – 49pts (9-6), Roy Shipway – 44pts (9-5)

3rd Axe Valley SAC 90pts (Wayne Harwood – 51pts (11-5), Scott Rice – 39pts (9-6)

4th West Bay SAC 85pts (Steve Fowles – 44pts (8-5), Gerry Reed – 41pts (10-5)

 

(Figures in parenthesis indicate total number of species caught followed by the number of three fish limit caught.)

 

Congratulations to Beer & District SAA on winning the trophy. It was a close run match and big thank you to all the competitors taking part, it was a good humored match with the right amount of friendly banter.

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