So this week saw me do something I’ve never done before I entered the salcombe small boat comp crewing for my mate on his Orkney spinner she’s an absolute butey . The event was over two days best two specimens on each day with excellent prizes up for grabs I arrived on Friday with about 10 other guys from the club we first pooped down to the harbour to meet up with some of the beys who traveled down in the morning and went out toExplore possible Marks for the next two days includeing the big guns Barry and James amazing boat anglers who come back in with a brace of fresh bass for that evenings bbq we talked some 5hit and then headed to the campsite arfter setting up we gorged ourselves on undercooked bbq meat and fresh bass drank a couple of tinnies and shared old fishermen’s tales. Up at 6 am the next morning coffe and porridge devoured we headed to the harbour my mate atm was around 8 ish as he was bringing the boat down that morning but I did book on another boat just in case ( he has ahabit of being late ??) I booked into the comp and he rocked with plenty of time so we got the boat in the drink and headed out to see wot we chould find I was a littleApprehensive
On the way out as ours was probably the smallest boat in the comp up against Alaska’s predators avours and quicksilvers and as we headed out of the estuary the bigger boats fecked off my mate held firm and kept headed into some rather swelly water I shouldn’t have worried as the Little Orkney socked ecru thing that got chucked at her and I never once felt concerned ?.we anchored up and began fishing are first mark apart from a small tub that was it for the first hr so we moved further out into the open ocean this time we had bites from the off I was in first into wot felt like a huge fish turned out to be an 8 lb blonde ray ??They suck themselves to the bottom and really use that tide well my partner Si who’s been small boat fishing all his life then tuned it on with a Succession of nice rays inc a sixteen lb blonde a 4 lb spotted and a 10 small eye all weighable for the comp I managed another blonde around ten lb and a few more se all too small for comp but great fun this carried on for a few more hrs till we decided that Si had enough to weigh In and we’d go have a try for ballens very unlikely we’d hit a specimen round here but a bit of as I’ve never really caught many before we drifted over snarly ground Si showing his wrasse fishing skills nabbing 4 in quick succession carefully move ing the weight around the rocks the lifting sharply when he got a hit I wasn’t getting close enough to the rocks Si got a bit braver and eventually bought a couple in great fun . Arfter a bit exporleing round the estuary we headed back in as comp time was up during weighed in 4 fish a spotty a blonde a se and a 1 lb Mac I weighed in nowt but wasn’t worried as I was loveing the fishing best fish of the day was a 12 se but the brothers were close behind with specimin se and decent cuckoo wrasse . Arfter beer and bbq we were out again next Morning with the a few of the bigger boats steaming out to the ray banks but the thought of race ing tides and 2 lb of lead in 200 ft of water didn’t really strike a cord with us So we went after cuckoo wrasse Si snagged and a few ballens I just snagged ?? Eventually getting my quarry we then featherd a few macs then tried for a Huss nothing doing s as I back on the ray mark also slow here but I managed a 8 lb se then a tub a nd a weighable red gurnard si had nowt so we headed back in back at the prize giveing the brothers hit the jackpot James the younger of the 2 winning first prize and a £500 veals voucher for his 11 lb small eye and a 23 lb blonde they been out on the banks most of the day were a lot of guys had given up cause of the strength of the tide so deserved his prize not bad out of 40 boats and 80 anglers his brother took sixth place and they come second in the pairs another lad from are club got best wasse for a decent cuckoo. So a brilliant weekend really enjoyed it caught some great fish in a great place cheers ma buteys oh FYI si getting an Alaska in a couple of weeks so hopefully next year we can go for the big girls ?
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