Sid Ernie Cup 2014

Sunday 21st September 2014 - Salthouse

What a day’s fishing for mid September. Arriving at Salthouse on a windswept shingle beach what a contrast to 3 days earlier when we experienced 26c of heat. A real shock to the system and a better wakeup call than any coffee could have afforded. A small but good looking team of club members made their draw and pounded their way across the shingle into a not very forgiving head wind. We were greeted by a big swell and plenty of white water. This water definitely did scream bass and for once we were not to be disappointed. Whistle up and off we started. Ten minutes up and Last Cast Mike Watts became First Cast with a 29cm flounder at which point he decided to take it easy for the next 2 hours. Tom ‘Off Duty’ Gibb on the other hand hauled in two bass in two casts 41 and 37 cms. Tony ‘Yoda’ Thomas not to be left out also produced a nice bass followed by a double shot of flounders. Dick Ellis not to be left out also landed a couple of nice flounders while end pegs ex-Captain Richard Ellis and Peter Loke could only wonder what they were doing wrong. John Neave ‘Silver Fox’ could only manage an undersize bass of 34cms. Peter Loke then came in with lovely 33cm flounder, Yoda had another bass and finally Last Cast awoke from his slumber to catch 9 fish in the next hour and a half including a 49 cm bass and storm out into the lead and then go back to sleep. The low numbers then started to produce fish steadily with Ex-Captain Ellis joining in with some nice flounders, Dick Ellis with a 41 cm bass and Yoda continuing to catch more bass and flounders as he crept ever closer to Last Cast’s points tally. But as with the Leicester/Man Utd game later that afternoon with less than half an hour to go and sitting nearly 200 points adrift of the leaders Off Duty decided to put one in the right hand corner, bang 49cm bass (116 points), still leaving him 80 points off the game and then the late penalty bang 44 cm bass (86 points) to take the game and top podium spot by 13 points (4ozs in old money). It’s a funny old game definitely a match of 3 halves.

37 fish recorded weighing 28½lb (28 Flounders and 9 Bass).  Heaviest round was shared between Off Duty and Last Cast both having a 49cm bass weighing in at 2lb 7oz.

1st     Tom Gibbs          7lb  7oz        (  7  Fish) 357 points

2nd    Mike Watts           7lb  3oz        (10  Fish) 344 points

3rd    Tony Thomas       7lb  1oz        (  9  Fish) 338 points.