The Swanage Classic.a winners tale

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The following is lifted from AA

It's Mark Radcliffes story of Saturday's competition

 

 

 

 

Four days of fishing fun…

 

I arrived at the campsite in Swanage at 7am on Thursday morning to find Martin and Steve already there. Snapper and Shaun were still in bed but not for long and soon plans were being made which the weather did its best to scupper.

 

During the Thursday and Friday I really just wanted to catch an undulate ray, but some time was also spent exploring the reef and checking what was about. I failed on the undulate but learnt some info that I thought would be useful in the competition. It seemed that the water temp was down on usual and there was a lack of mini species. I didn’t catch a goby, blenny or the like for the whole weekend but there were a lot more dogfish, smooth hounds and rays around than usual so I thought the larger fish would play more of a role this year in the main event.

 

On the Saturday morning the kayaks soon started stacking up on the green.

After the safety briefing we were allowed to launch from the beach and hang around for the count down.

On the whistle I lead the pack out and anchored on my chosen mark. My plan was to spend a couple of hours in deeper water with a target of three species, bream, smoothie and dogfish as well as a possible bonus and then head into the reef for the last two hours for an easy three or four more species.

 

First cast and within a minute the rod was nodding, a bream was soon landed.

I cast again and within seconds was bringing in a garfish.

The next two casts saw a smooth hound and a dogfish.

 

I had 4 species in less than ten minutes of fishing. I hadn’t even managed to rig up my second rod yet. This was a dream start and the possibility of winning was going through my head.

 

I made the decision to move, there was no reason to stay put hoping for a ray as it could take an hour or two to get one so it wasn’t time well spent and there wasn’t much else I could target out there.

 

I headed to the reef to find Martin and Dane right on my favourite mark. Martin had caught five species already and was off to a flyer, but his five were relatively easy and he knew the deep water species would be harder.

 

I anchored ten meters from Martin and cast out. The fish weren’t prolific but eventually a Corkwing was on board.

 

This was soon followed by another bream and a mackerel.

 

Neither were any use to me and I felt I wasn’t over the right patch of ground. I upped anchor and repositioned. Again I wasn’t happy with where I finished up and repeated this two more times until I felt I was over the right patch. The difference was instant with bites as soon as the bait went down. It probably took ten or fifteen minutes to position where I wanted to be but it was critical to catching fish.

 

A Baillons wrasse was soon on board – a brand new species for me.

 

 

Now it was just a case of wading through the small wrasse until a new species came up. I had fish every drop, often two at a time. A ballan came soon appeared.

 

 

Followed by a goldsinny

 

I thought I was on eight species now which I was pretty sure would win. However I decided to give it another half hour to see what else I could catch.

Within minutes I had a rock cook wrasse – another new species for me.

 

 

And next drop a scorpion fish

 

Somehow I had miscounted and thought I had ten species including the mackerel so nine for the comp. It was only 12.30 so two and a half hours into the five hour match. However I decided that was enough. I paddled back to the launch occasionally dropping some sabikis over a likely mark to see if I could tempt a Pollack but nothing showed.

 

Back at the registration I weighed my bream at 2lb 7oz and registered my species. I had miscounted – I actually had eleven species but only ten for the comp as mackerel didn’t count. I registered at 1.03 and was pretty confident as someone would need eleven species to beat me and that has never been done in this event.

 

When people started arriving back it became apparent the fishing got harder as the day went on and although a lot of people had caught fours and fives I didn’t hear of anyone near to ten or eleven, but I never really believe I have won until the results are read out.

 

When they were read out happily I was first and now the proud owner of a 2015 Hobie Outback thanks to Steve at the Hobie Cat Centre.

 

 

 

It was great to see Liam getting second place in his first comp, he was absolutely delighted, definitely a name to watch in the future. Also well done to Hoggy on six species in his first Southern event. Considering he usually uses nothing less than a 6/0 hook that was a great result. He spent the Friday watching and learning, asking lots of questions and you can tell right away that he has the skills to excel in these events as he does in the Northern ones.

 

A massive thank you to Starvin for organising, Hobie Cat for sponsoring and all of the other sponsors and marshals for giving so generously with their prizes or time. It was a great weekend as it always is.

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And some of my photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The boys

 

The gals

 

 

The off

 

 

The overall winner Mark

 

 

Pbsbac and How

 

 

 

 

See you next year