This year’s competition took place out of Rhyl on 27 June, the anniversary of the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, the last occasion on which a reigning British monarch personally led troops in warfare. Who said you learn nothing from reading fishing reports?

Happily, last year’s cancellations due to bad weather were just a memory as the anglers set out in good weather on Jensen, Suveran and Privateer, although the forecast of winds picking up later in the day meant that the last couple of hours would be fished inshore.

After a stop to catch mackerel for bait the competition got underway with each boat having to remain within one and a half miles of one of the others so that the maximum distance between any two boats could not exceed three miles. To try to ensure fairness each could only fish the well known Calcium wreck for a set time, although whether this was at anchor or on the drift was up to the skipper. Whilst the boats were offshore all anglers began to find fish and the numbers and species began to mount. As predicted, a move inshore had to be made later in the day due to the wind which brought with it the opportunity to target small tope and smoothounds, although later examination of the score sheets showed the anglers on Suveran benefited most in this period.

As the scores were added up it became apparent that this had been one of the best days in the history of the competition with 8 anglers returning 10 species or more and over 20 different species of fish caught, although with all mini species counting under one heading this translated into 17 scoring species (excluding mackerel which do not score points). The big question, as always, was who had found the right combination of numbers of fish and species. For anyone unfamiliar with the format of this competition I would explain that each species of fish is allocated a points score, the first 5 receive maximum points with the next 10 scoring only 1 point. After 15 fish you score nothing meaning that you have to try to catch different species. Additionally, extra points are given for the numbers of species caught. This means that anglers always have the dilemma of trying to build up points with either different species or try for the maximum 15 of one particular one.

When the scores were added and checked, a score which in 2018 would have given second place would this year have only secured sixth place, although surprisingly, the winning 2018 score would have also taken the 2019 title, by one point!

Individual Results

Name Species Scoring Fish Points

Nigel Conlon 12 78 230

Chris Neden 12 81 224

Paul Allen 13 62 219

Alan Turner 12 76 212

Ian Brown 12 59 197

Dave Fung 11 61 179

Keith Lees 9 62 166

Tim Woods 11 45 155

Kevin Shore 9 53 147

Andy Gunn 10 47 141

Eric Robinson 8 63 138

Sedar Ozbek 8 45 124

Moustapha Omar 7 41 108

Allan Crawford 7 41 104

Salim Ismail 6 29 83

843

Team Results

Paul Allen, Nigel Conlon, Eric Robinson 587

Ian Brown, Kevin Shore, Alan Turner 556

Keith Lees, Andy Gunn, Chris Neden 531

Allan Crawford, Dave Fung, Tim Woods 438

Moustapha Omar, Sedar Ozbek, Salim Ismail 315

Boat Scores

Suveran 952

Privateer 876

Jensen 599

And finally

Although I took over as organiser (on the day) at the last minute, due to the illness of Ashley Robertson, all credit for the success of the day is Ashley’s. His tireless and unselfish work prior to the day made my job all the easier. And it should not go unsaid that he has done this over a number of years. All the lads who fished on the day were unanimous in their thanks and send you their best wishes. You were sorely missed.

My thanks also, in no particular order, to the skippers Simon, Jon and Tony who found us the fish, the committee of North West CSSC for their support of this prestigious event, Nigel Conlon and Ian Brown for again helping sort out the scores and the staff of the Mayquay for reserving us space to hold the after match presentation. Last but not least to the anglers taking part, without whom this event would not take place.

Chris Neden Organiser (on the day)