Holt SAC Annual Open and Roy Waller Memorial (Report)

Sunday 5th November 2017 - Bacton

The Holt SAC Annual Open & Roy Waller Memorial was held at BACTON on SUNDAY 5TH NOVEMBER. The Club’s Annual Open has been run since the 50’s and even as late as the 90’s it was being pegged for 100 at Bacton but sadly those numbers are long gone. Currently, Open matches are competing for fewer and fewer match anglers so after last year’s Open had to be cancelled because of clashing with a local match, this year the Club advertised the event early as well as acquiring Penn Points to avoid this situation. Unfortunately, the situation was repeated and two major local events clashed, this is not good. However, the Club decided not to cancel this year and a few of the supportive Club members were soon tucking into bacon sarnies in Castaways Cliff Top Inn. Many thanks to Anna and Richard for the continued use of their premises for our matches.

Forecast for the day was a moderate westerly moving round to a stiff chilly north westerly with bright sunshine and a 2ft swell increasing to 6ft by the close. They just about got this right except the swell which thankfully seemed to remain static throughout the match. Pegging was infront of the Gas Site between pipes 1 and 2 avoiding any close pegs to the pipes. This was a big big tide and pegging had to be done at the bottom of the cliff way behind the revetments even an hour after HW. However, by the time of the off the tide had resided far enough for everyone to be on the open beach in front of the revetments.

At the whistle everyone was apprehensive about the infamous Bacton weed, there was a lot on the beach but didn’t look too bad in the water. Wrong! first cast showed there was acres of the stuff drifting along particularly close in. As soon as lines dropped they were covered in it and rapidly swept eastward with the tide. This led to some standing with rods held high between casts to even have a chance to continue fishing. Fortunately this surprising did not deter the fish as Dabs, Whiting and Flounders came ashore wrapped up in the red weed morass. Easy stuff to get off just a nuisance.

With such a big tide the water was rapidly sucked away and fresh sand was being exposed every minute. Plenty of tide flow at mid-ebb bringing a lot of fish through along with the dreaded weed. Mainly Whiting at first with a few of decent size along with the odd Bass with one of 39cm recorded and some small Dabs. As the tide eased slightly so did the weed and those stonking Bacton Flounders started to show well into 30cm+. As the tide dropped further the weed eased next to nothing but although the fishing was more relaxing the fish for the majority switched off. They probably hadn’t stopped feeding, just there wasn’t any tide to bring them through.

At the bottom the odd Dab was obliging along with the slinky Whiting but it was quiet. As soon as the flood start this brought back the weed but nowhere as bad as the ebb. With the weed being contained this allowed a few to do a bit of distance into the flooding tide resulting in a few Dabs cast after cast along with the odd whiting. However, for some the return of the weed was the last straw and decided to call it a day even though they had started to fill up their cards. As the tide started to flood harder towards the end this certainly brought the fish back with a few more Bass, the odd big Flounder along with the Dabs and Whiting.

In the end it was the quality of fish rather than numbers that enabled KEVIN GREEN to sneak victory with 5lb 8oz from just 10 fish which included a good Bass and three 30+cm Flounders. Runner-up was unlucky HENRY RANDELL just 3oz behind on 5lb 5oz from 22 fish and we say unlucky as he had a match winning monster 30+ Flounder at his feet which decided to unhook itself and disappear out of his grasp resulting in curses that could be heard all the way down to South Africa and continued for the remainder of the match.   Final podium slot went to the inevitable MIKE WATTS with 5lb 2oz from 25 fish and it wasn’t until the last 2 hours when he managed to locate the Dabs and put his metronome style to good use.

Heaviest Flat fish was a 35cm(1lb 1oz) Flounder taken by the old stalwart BILLY TEMPLE (Peg 5) and he left it to almost his last cast to find this one. Heaviest Round fish was that 39cm(1lb 4oz) Bass taken early on by KEVIN GREEN. Altogether 140 fish (61 Dabs, 54 Whiting, 20 Flounders and 5 Bass) were recorded weighing 39lb 9oz.

An interesting, typical Bacton match marred by the weed but that is just part of our fishing these days. A very close match at the top where for once quality prevailed over quantity and just one more decent fish would have reversed this situation which of course could have been that lost Flounder, we shall never hear the end of that one.

Next Club match is for the J. Long Shield and the 2nd Round of the North Norfolk Sea League on SUNDAY 12TH NOVEMBER. This has been moved from Gorleston to GT. YARMOUTH South Beach from just south of the Sea Life Centre to south of the Pleasure Beach fishing 10:00-3:00 LW 9:25 HW 3:57 4.2m. Gt. Yarmouth is better fishing the flood on a small tide so let’s hope there’s no weed. Draw will be at the Monument car park (Monument Road – NR30 3QL) from around 8:00 onwards … Tony T

Top 5 Individuals (on the day) …

1…Kevin Green……...5lb..7 2/3oz…...(10 fish)

2…Henry Randell…….5lb..5 1/3oz……(22 fish)

3…Mike Watts….......5lb..2 1/3oz……(25 fish)

4…Adrian Bordianu…4lb..8 1/3oz……(16 fish)

5…Jake Cooper.……..4lb..7 2/3oz……(11 fish)

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