Catches across the wide spectrum of angling disciplines and species during the past year were way beyond expectation.
Conger enthusiasts had much to rave about. Although not officially weighed, two fish judged to be in the 100lb class came from a Lyme Bay wreck during a visit by the Torquay charter boat, Anne Clare.
-
Bob Easton
An officially weighed eel of 96lb taken from the Plymouth boat Size Matters by local rod Bob Easton therefore takes the honour of the year’s biggest specimen.
A fish of 93lb 15oz won the Plymouth Boatmen’s Conger Challenge for Brixham’s Jim Attwood, who fished from Kaimalino, and the runner-up was Gary Wiltshire with a fish of 83lb 12oz taken from the same boat.
The British Conger Club’s Championship fished out of Brixham was won by an eel of 72lb by Portsmouth angler Kim Bowden.
Cornishman Steve Holyer, who is totally blind, gained the runner-up position with an eel of 71lb 7oz. This was surely the year’s most meritorious performance.
The Conger Club celebrates its Golden Jubilee this coming June and, whilst the ever increasing cost of offshore charter angler is taking its toll of what is essentially a boat fishing organisation, it will still be one of Europe’s biggest single species club for years to come.
The Torbay Festival saw a shore conger victory for Torquay’s Kevin Lee. His first-day catch of a 49½lb eel set a target that was simply too great to beat.
The year’s leading sea species showed that Westcountry waters can still produce headline catches. Plymouth rod Tony Webb fishing from Sea Angler 11 winched up the heaviest ling that weighed 37½lb, a weight more in keeping with the great offshore angling years of the 1960s and ’70s.
Its close relative, the cod, was represented by a fish of 29¼lb by Mark Curtis, who was on his first boat trip.
Britain’s biggest pollack of the year, a fish of 25¾lb, fell to Barry James, who worked it to the gunwale of Happy Days. It was Plymouth’s second largest since 1983. when a fish just 4oz bigger set a British record.
Shore catches were among the UK’s best. An amazing catch of bass headed by fish of 12¼lb, 11½lb, 11¼lb and 10½lb plus others was made by Shaun Yates, who fished from the Mount Batten shore in the Plymouth Cattewater.
Just one double-figure fish in a lifetime eludes most anglers, so this is a catch that might never be exceeded.
Teignmouth’s Ashley Cockram set the year’s big fish tally going in February with a fine thornback ray of 18lb 15oz taken from the privately owned Sea Jay, and some months later encountered a fine wrasse of 7lb 10oz.
Grey mullet honours go to Teignmouth’s Roy Repton for the 9lb 6 dram specimen he took from the Exe Estuary shore. This brought his total of fish over 9lb to an unprecedented four.
Plymouth’s Shore League contest was won for the fourth year in succession, so equalling Brixham SAC’s record of success, by the Stonehouse Team. The contest’s best fish overall was a bass of 12lb 1oz registered in the seventh heat by Terry Cunningham.
A catch of 14 gilt head bream from the River Fal shore by Craig Pope was another heat success.
The opening up of Emperor Lakes at Loddiswell to day-ticket anglers, formerly an exclusive syndicate fishery, brought a new dimension to Westcountry coarse angling.
Among the fish reported were sturgeon to 45lb, by Andy Buchanan, and the heaviest of many catfish was recorded at 66lb for Joe Biddlecombe.
Among the many mirror carp over 30lb was a specimen of 41lb by Roy Mercer.
Such is the growth rate of the fishery’s carp, UK record weights will surely be approached within five years.
Bristol Water Fisheries revealed the capture of a 42lb pike which set a Chew Valley Lake Record.
The UK record could be in jeopardy during the forthcoming Pike Trials, for somewhere in the depths of this vast reservoir is a pike of truly stupendous size just waiting to be caught.
