THE Guernsey Mullet Club are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year and have decided to mark the occasion with an open mullet festival. It will be held over two weekends, 16 and 17 February and 15 and 16 March, with the event being brought to a conclusion with a presentation evening held at La Villette Hotel on Friday 28 March.
There will be prizes for the best catches of each weekend as well as awards for the top overall catches.
Details of the event were released by secretary Mike Weysom at the club’s annual general meeting held at La Villette Hotel.
He was able to report on a highly successful season. Membership was up by over 30% and catches were almost double those of the previous year.
In 2007, fishing was generally below par but the club had bucked the trend. The members landed 254 mullet for a total weight of 896-1-1, as compared with 135 fish for 446-15-13 in 2006.
For the fifth consecutive year Weysom was club champion, his top 10 fish weighing 49-7-13, 2-9-12 clear of Gary Le Poidevin in second place. Weysom also topped the overall catch list by a huge margin. He landed 65 for 225-7-2, well clear of Le Poidevin who had 37 for 126-2-1. Le Poidevin had some consolation for he had the heaviest mullet of the year, a 7-2-6 fish.
A further indication of the club’s great year was the number of specimen certificates that were won ﾗ in 2006 46 were issued - last year this rose to 77, five gold for fish over 6-0-0, 20 silver for over 5-0-0 and 52 for over 4-0-0. It’s no surprise that Weysom topped the certificates list, with 13 bronze and four silver.
The club trophies are usually awarded at the AGM, but this year they will be presented at the open festival’s presentation night on 28 March. They will include two new trophies that have been donated by Paul Carre. One would be given for the best golden-grey mullet of the year and the other for the top 10 Guernsey-caught mullet.
All the club’s officers and committee were re-elected for a further term: president Joe Gomez, vice-president Peter Frise, secretary/treasurer Weysom and five committee members, Gary Le Page, Tony Ozard, Mark Gillson, John Vaudin and Trevor Ferbrache.
The two delegates to the Bailiwick of Guernsey Record (Rod-Caught) Fish Committee, Gomez and Weysom, were also re-elected.
As a further part of the club’s anniversary celebrations a members-only competition was fished on Sunday.
John Holdaway won the event with a 3-1-14 fish to win the £20 tackle voucher, while Peter Taylor won £15 with his 3-1-0 specimen.
The vouchers had been donated by Frise.
FOUR new Bailiwick records have been approved by the Bailiwick of Guernsey Record (Rod-Caught) Fish Committee.
Mark Giles has gained the boat-caught record for scad, his 2-1-13 specimen caught at the Canupes in September beating Eddie Plevin’s 2-0-0 record that had stood since 1980.
Colin Torode has added a new species to the boat-caught list with his almaco jack.
This rare fish, which weighed 1-7-12, was boated in Grandes Rocques Bay in August.
His catch had already been approved as a British record at the national committee’s October 2007 meeting.
Visiting angler Roger Wheatland has taken over the saury pike record.
He was obviously after bigger fish when he fished the Hurd Deep area, but he caught the
0-2-8 saury pike on his fly fishing gear.
It beats the former record by just two drams.
The saury pike is very similar to the garfish but is a much smaller type, with the British record standing at a lowly 0-5-4.
Paul Priaulx is the new freshwater record holder for grass carp. His 16-5-8 specimen ousted the previous best, a 15-9-0 fish landed by Andy Le Lerre in 2005.
The committee gave provisional approval to the 2008 Channel Islands lists.
Two Jersey fish and eight Guernsey Bailiwick specimens were considered for inclusion.
Once the Jersey committee have confirmed their agreement to the new lists, the record list booklet for 2008 will be compiled and will become available through the tackle shops or angling clubs.
It was an unusual year for claims.
Fishing generally was below throughout 2007, yet 16 claims for new records were received, the highest in one year since 1991.
October to December is usually considered to be the best time for big specimens particularly from the shore and the high number of claims received in those months over the years has confirmed that trend.
Strangely, both in 2006 and 2007 no claims were received in those last three months of the year, a very unusual occurrence.
THE first two entries in the January Fish of the Month competition have come from anglers fishing in the recent Guernsey Sea Anglers Club’s roving shore match.
Peter Frise submitted a 4-9-10 ballan wrasse that had been tempted by a legered crab bait at Castle Cornet. It will be assessed against the 8-10-13 Bailiwick shore record.
Adrian Sarre entered a 6-7-12 grey mullet. This was caught on the QEII Marina east arm and had been tempted by a bread bait presented on float tackle. It will be judged against the 11-14-6 Bailiwick shore best.
Both were modest entries, but well worth submitting bearing in mind the lack of really good specimen fish at present.
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