River Tay

Well this years event on the Tay was not as eventful as last year. Went up with Eddie and my son Shane. Stewart and the lads were already there when we arrived.
Fished most of the morning and not a take. I decided to try further up the river hoping to connect with one and I come across Eddie and he had landed a small trout. Well it's my turn to listen to Eddie on the way home. lol... Looking forward to the next event.

Arbroath Cod Fishing

The first shore match in the club calendar for 2014 was fished at Arbroath on Saturday 8th February. 5 members fished the event, including John, Shane & Nico Wilson, Robert Edmond and Jamie Soons. Fishing a flooding tide with the match being fished 3pm till 10pm.

Upon arrival to Ballies, for the regsitration, the sea looked pretty damn spot on, nice rollers and plenty of white water, so my expectations were high for decent numbers of fish.

We all opted to fish off the beach around the Ballies area. There was a fair bit of weed / kelp littering the beach but I was hopeful that this wouldn't interfere too much with the fishing. The match started off with not much action and the tide seemed like ages before it eventually started to flood the beach. I was aware that Nico had managed a fish further along so was ever hopeful that the fishing would pick up.

About halfway through the match the weed got pretty much a major problem for me with every cast dragging my line and rod towards the water, after a couple of tackle losses I opted a move! - Robert, fishing just round from me, managed to escape the cauldron of weed I was in and managed a fish.

I was amazed to see no one else on the beach as I thought these conditions were Ideal. I sent out a lug, mussel& crab bait. It wasn't long before my rod tip was pounding over, picked up the rod and felt a couple of good slams, struck and first fish was on it's way in. Nice plump cod around the 5lb mark. Re-clipped and sent another trace out. Again it wasn't long before I was into another fish. with around 5 minutes to go before the end of the match I received my final bite and brought in my biggest fish of the night, 6lb 5oz, I was amazed to see an octopus hanging out of its mouth when I brought it up - thought about using it for bait, but returned it.

Back to the weighing
Upon arrival I wondered how the fishing had went after I left, Robert had 3 fish and Shane & Nico had a fish each, John failed to catch... better luck next time mate!

Match Results as follows...

1st J Soons — 3 fish for 15lb 5ozs
2nd R. Edmund — 3 fish for 9lb 13ozs
3rd S. Wilson — 1 fish for 4lb 10ozs
4th N. Wilson — 1 fish for 1lb 8ozs

Heaviest fish — R. Edmunds fish of 5lb 12ozs

Ayr Sea Angling Club

The final results are as follows.
C Morris J Nicol P Bryan 1 species.
D Sloan 2 species.
D Ainsworth T MaGorian 3 species.
W Kennedy 4 species.
M Bletsoe 5 species.
C Grant 7 species.
S Kirk G Goldie S Mullin I Grant 9 species.
M Allison 14 species.
J soons 18 species.
N Wilson 24 species.
S Wilson 25 species.
W Millar J Wilson 27 species.