Highlight of SENPAC's June was undoubtedly the fishing of the Golden Maggot match which was the usual mixture of competition and banter. The turn-out was a little down on previous years for all sorts of domestic reasons that seem to get in the way of a day out fishing, I'm sure you know what I mean? On the day the weather gods smiled on us and we had the small commercial fishery that we use for the event to ourselves which was an added bonus.
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Match winner Dave Greally receives the Golden Maggot Trophy
from last year's winner Chris Graham |
Winner on the day, by a margin, was Dave Greally who enjoyed a fish a chuck during a hectic morning spell which left the remainder of us trailing in his wake. Loser on the day, by a margin was our RO, Mike Bell, who discovered at the weigh-in that he had a skimmer sized hole in the bottom of his keepnet! Needless to say everybody present was keen to express their "sympathies"to Mike and applaud his conservation minded catch-and-release approach.
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| There's a hole in my...........etc..........etc. |
In common with most other PAC Regions, July and August are traditionally the quiet months for SENPAC as the member's focus moves from the fishing to all of the other summer activities that get in the way of the fishing. That said there are those amongst our number who are already plundering the bounty off the north east coast and beginning to fill their freezers with mackerel and launce in preparation for the new season. The only difficulty that is being encountered this year as far as I can tell is that whilst the mackerel shoals appear to be better than average this year, the size of the fish is also significantly larger which provides something of a dilemma for those who are partial to a fresh mackerel fillet. And what of the launce, well they too appear to be achieving specimen sizes and whilst perhaps not a fashionable pike bait nowadays they do provide a solution when an eel bait is felt to be required on waters, or events for that matter, where the rules dictate "sea deads only". They also don't take up much room in the freezer! They certainly seem to work well on some of the Scottish lochs that we fish.
Our July club meeting will be held on the 29th July 2014 at the Northumbrian Piper as usual and whilst I suspect the turn-out will be modest the focus of the get together will undoubtedly be next season's club trips and where we will be going.
