June 2015 - Silly Season Well Underway

I think that it is fair to say that SENPAC's silly season has officially started.

 In common with a lot of the PAC Regions things go a bit quiet up here at RA 24 as the Summer proper kicks in, the holiday season gets under-way and the Region's members become embroiled in the various domestic pressures that are an inevitable part of building up the necessary account of brownie-points that will be drawn against once the Piking gets started again. That's not to say that we are not fishing because most of us are but perhaps not quite as " seriously" as we will be come October.

Speaking of which, what should have been one of the highlights of the SENPAC fishing in June turned out to be a disaster! The eagerly anticipated Golden Maggot Trophy match which we have fished over the last three years on what has been a reliable small local commercial, failed us miserably this time around. This is not a case of poor anglers making excuses honestly, the fish seem to have disappeared? It wasn't just our merry band who struggled, the results were just the same for all others present and a quick look at the catch return book confirmed that all is definitely not well. A bit of a disappointment all this and frankly something of a mystery. The fishery is a little remote, surrounded by trees and does not have any resident supervision so there was no shortage of suggestions from those present as to where the fish had gone. As you can no doubt imagine, all the usual culprits were on the list.
So we were faced with something of a farce when it eventually came to the weigh-in and it is definitely the first time, in my experience, that the universal reaction to the final whistle was "thank *?!; for that!! Last year's winning weight was something over 11lb's. This year's winning weight.............9 ounces, and our Newsletter editor made full use of the situation by featuring that winning bag on the front cover.

However it is what it is and so congratulations go to Dave Gardner, who, like the rest of those present was slightly bemused by the whole experience.
Other fish of note from June, well, Paul Proctor recorded the only Pike of the month when he met up with "Lumpy" on one of our local waters. Previously caught back in April of this year (see the April blog) by our RO Mike Bell, she seems to be managing to prosper despite the significant disfigurement that she has to endure. Hopefully we may hear more of her later in the year.

Paul Meets Lumpy

And there was a new pb reported by our other RO, Bruce Turnbull, fishing one of our urban lakes, with a really chunky 9lb-8oz bream. Mind you he was fishing for carp??
Looking forward to July, well our thoughts are now turning to the arrangements for the Region's Piking trips next season and no doubt there will be the usual vigorous debate about the venues and dates that will constitute our monthly trips. Before all that though we have the first two rounds of our Summer League matches to look forward to which will hopefully be more productive than our last match!
The next club meeting will be held at the Northumbrian Piper as usual on Tuesday 28th July 2015 which I suspect may be a fairly quiet affair bearing in mind the time of year. That said, you will be made very welcome if you choose to pay us a visit for a chat.