This Is Guernsey

By Len Le Page

IT’S been an incredible month in the West Coast Sea Angling Club’s winter league. In the first month after the summer break, 37 members weighed in a total of 106 qualifying fish.

Sam Robins had a superb month. He caught nine qualifiers and shot up from sixth place to take the lead. His catches were 2-9-0 red mullet, 27-0-0 conger, 9-0-0 bull huss, 1-15-0 sole, 1-12-1 trigger fish, 2-14-0 black bream, 2-4-11 lesser-spotted dogfish, 4-10-0 small-eyed ray and a 5-6-6 grey mullet. His overall score in this shore-based event is 13 species for 678.09%.

Shane Bentley leapfrogged over Mark Le Page to climb into the runner-up spot. In October he landed five qualifiers, a club record 4-8-10 black bream, 2-0-0 triggerfish, 28-0-0 conger, 1-6-0 red mullet and an 8-12-10 bull huss.

Less than 1% separates the third and fourth anglers. Mark Le Page has 11 species for 529.68%, while Shane Huxster has 12 for 528.79%.

In October Le Page had three qualifiers, 1-14-0 trigger fish, 2-6-4 black bream and a 1-8-6 red mullet, while Huxster had seven, 9-2-0 bull huss, 1-11-1 black bream, 2-2-0 trigger fish, 1-7-0 three-bearded rockling, 4-0-0 grey mullet, 4-12-5 bass and a 4-13-14 ballan wrasse.

The previous leader Tim Cotterill had only two qualifiers, a 2-4-12 black bream and a 1-11-1 triggerfish, and as a result slumped to sixth place with 10 species and 503.36%.

Scott McMillan is seventh with nine species for 482.82, his October fish being an 18-2-0 conger, 1-15-9 trigger, 1-0-7 garfish and a 3-0-0 grey mullet.

Eighth-placed Simon Fletcher has nine species for 481.40%, his catches being a 12-4-7 bull huss, 1-15-8 triggerfish and a 1-15-6 red mullet.

The three remaining top 10 places are filled by Paul McLaren, nine species, 450.36%, Steve Huxster, nine, 380.57% and Andy Le Lerre, seven, 336.68.

The top three in the pairs are Robins/McLaren 1,128.45%, Shane and Steve Huxster 909.36% and Mark Gillson/Bentley 891.64%.

AS A result of the British Record (Rod-Caught) Fish Committee’s recent meeting held in London, the Bailiwick has gained two national boat-caught records but lost a shore record.

Raymond Fallaize’s 6-9-7 Couch’s sea bream, caught at the Susanne reef in April, was approved, removing the previous 4-14-4 record from the list.

The national body also accepted Colin Torode’s 1-7-12 almaco jack, which he caught off Grandes Rocques in August. The identification of this rare species had proved to be difficult, but Oliver Crimmen, the British committee’s scientific adviser, confirmed its identity. Torode’s fish will fill a vacant spot on the national record list.

The Bailiwick lost its shore-caught golden grey mullet record, a fish of 3-0-4 caught by Jonathan Reeves in Alderney in October 1991. The new one is a 3-8-0 specimen caught in Christchurch Har-bour. Its captor was David Woolcombe, a regular visitor to Guernsey. When here, he regularly fishes with Mark Page and has won a number of FOM awards.

Other sea fish records approved were a 3-4-14 boat-caught lemon sole, a 2-2-9 shore-caught Guinean amberjack, a 1-4-0 shore-caught blue runner and an 0-12-11 corkwing wrasse.

The amberjack and the blue runner were caught in the channel and along with our almaco jack is a further confirmation of the increasing number of rare fish moving north into our waters.

One English angler has taken record claims to a ludicrous extreme, for he submitted a claim for a one-gramme common goby.

The committee were astounded to receive a claim for such an insignificant fish, but as all the formalities had been correctly completed by the captor, they had no option but to approve it. Our freshwater enthusiasts will be interested to learn that two new records were approved, a 9-5-0 chub and a 21-5-0 zander.