Salthouse Sunday 11th September 2011 – Cockaday Cup
A rather depleted club gathering met at Salthouse beach car park for the first match of the winter season. With many having fought through torrential rain to make it on time and the remnants of hurricane katia about to head our way the omens were not good. The first match in September is always a tough one and as everyone headed off the sight of one or two pleasurers coming off with strings of mackerel said it all, we were in for a struggle.
Pegging was our usual slot between “little” and “great eye” to the left of the car park. By now the rain had disappeared, the wind was a strong southerly and the overcast sky at least gave the fish a little cover. The water was gin clear, no colour, no wonder the mackerel were in shore, not a pretty sight for us match anglers. Even so everyone was full of optimism at the whistle ignoring all the predictions and signs of gloom. However, it soon became obvious that another challenge was about to present itself and that was the damn weed. It was everywhere , marsh weed, red weed, all sorts of types, not difficult to remove but just a nuisance.
With every cast bringing in acres of the stuff coupled with the vermin on a feeding frenzy and with no sign of fish the morale along the stretch began to sag. Then out of the blue “moto maint” had something alive on the beach, just a reasonable dab but at least it was points on his card. This was followed shortly after by another small dab to “yoda” and then things went quiet again apart from the weed which just kept rolling in. “Scoop” was left wondering if his long journey was worth it and maybe he should have sorted out his back garden instead. “Last cast” was getting confused by the lack of action and had opted for small hooks at range, very uncharacteristic for him but did find time to ponder the shoals of whitebait and mackerel leaping about just yards off shore.
“Class act” with his vast array of baits laid out in his buddy just couldn’t find a fish and “silver fox”, well he really had lost the plot for the day. In the meantime, “moto maint” added another small dab to his card and end peg 1 “sandy coke” was trying some new tactics for him. Learning from others, he decided to use a rolling lead close in which resulted in weed acting as an anchor on his line. Much to the surprise of others including himself the hauling of yards of the damn weed resulted in a nice plump 28 cm dab being entered on his card. At the other end, “scoop” had finally managed to find a reasonable dab along with “last cast” whose small hooks had finally done the business.
“Yoda” managed to double his score with another reasonable dab with “moto maint” also increasing his score to 3 with a small dab. However, it was “last cast” who conjured up a nice 26 cm dab to show everyone once again how it should be done. At the whistle Mike “last cast” Watts took the honours with just 10 2/3oz from just 2 fish. He was closely followed by Dene “moto maint” Conway with 9oz from 3 fish doing his usual trick to pip Tony “yoda” Thomas by 1 point who had 8 2/3oz from 2 fish.
Not an outstanding match but par for the course for this time of year with just 9 sizeable fish caught compared with 11 at the same match in 2010 but with a bigger turnout. Let’s just hope that the next match at Cley brings some improvement.
Club Match Result Top 5
1st Mike Watts 10 2/3oz
2nd Dene Conway 9oz
3rd Tony Thomas 8 2/3oz
4th Peter Loke 8oz
5th Paul Fenech 4oz
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