This season has been rather special for me as I actually managed to achieve a long time goal of mine to finish top of the league. After fishing the club for 10 years now I thought it might never happen but this year I finally managed it. I remember emailing Scottish international angler Steve Souter a couple of times and asking for a few tips on match fishing. Amongst a lot of things he told me was "you need a hyde like a rhino lad" - "The more fish you get the more people will be on your case". Well that certainly was true. I managed to locate a couple of fishing marks where I could scratch out a whiting or 2 (and sometimes a dozen) on the calmer nights when I knew some of the other lads would struggle for a fish if the whiting never came to the beaches at Whitby. I remember the first time I put them on the scales - All the hardline cod anglers turned up their noses and I could hear comments of "bloody whitings" floating around in the background. Being quite a sensitive person it felt pretty bad and at times I must admit I felt like not fishing at all and walking away from the club. But those words of Steve's stuck in my mind and so did his advice of "make an achievable goal and go for it - and don't be put off by others". Its a fishing club not a cod club I said to myself and so I continued.
Next came the enquiries about where I was catching the whiting from. I couldn't go bait digging or pleasure fishing without enduring endless questioning from 2 people in particular as to where I was catching my fish on the calmer nights. I managed to dodge the questions and refused to speak to them about the matches.
Through the early part of the season up till Christmas I had some great catches. Luck had played its part and I'd even managed a 10 pounder in a bag of 5 fish weighing 19 pounds from from one of my favourite marks. When the sea was rough I fished for the cod and when it was calm whitings were the target. Christmas came and went and I thought that might be the end of the better catches as things go down hill usually in the new year. But that wasn't to be the case this year and at the end of January I was struggling back up the cliffs with my heaviest bag of the season - 5 cod (all of a similar size) for 23 pounds in total - a bag which was to later turn out to be the heaviest caught throughout the season by any angler in the club. Not bad for a whiting angler - I thought to myself.
On the following Sunday one of the whiting venues I'd been using was discovered by the lads who had interrogated me many times over the season. "found you" came the shout from a grinning face as their car pulled up a matter of seconds behind mine. The 2 year game of hide and seek was finally over. As we got onto the pier question after question came about where to cast, what bait to use. It was the 4th February and I had a 50 pound lead, so I didn't worry to much although one of the lads who had found me was the lad in second place. Comments of "were gonna catch you up" although said tongue in cheek did knock me out of my stride a little but I still managed 10 pound of fish that night whilst they only managed 4 between them.
As we headed into March I still had the 50 pound (and a bit more) lead I had had at Christmas and although I had been worrying about being caught up I felt with a month to go I was about home and dry. Through March I went on and fished well, infact I was very pleased as I often catch nothing at all in this month. I managed almost 30 pounds in total this month also getting the heaviest bag of the month at 12 pounds and the heaviest fish of the month at around 6 pounds. In the end I finished 75 pounds ahead of the next person behind me.
Needless to say I was over the moon at finally winning. As I said to myself in November (and every other month) when a certain few were making things difficult because I was targeting whitings. This will probably be the last season I will compete 100% in the fishing club. I will still be there next year as there are some good mates who also fish and I would miss the social side of things with them if I didn't fish, but I wont fish as often and on those calmer nights Ill probably stay home rather than take stick for catching whiting - I wont be competing to win from now on, just enjoying the fishing.
I have set myself another goal now and that is to start fishing the local open matches a lot more - something I've never done. Although I don't expect to win if I can get up there amongst the top 3 in the odd one I will be more than happy.
Well that's another season over. It's the presentation dinner this month and I have 3 trophies to collect - Heaviest bag, Most fish and League winner. Not bad for a whiting angler if I say so myself.
Now its off to collect the bait for next years fishing.
No comments:
Post a Comment