This Is Guernsey

By Len Le Page

Mike Weysom, pictured with a grey mullet, has won the Guernsey Mullet Club’s overall championship for a sixth successive year. (S64583)

AT THE Guernsey Mullet Club’s annual general meeting and presentation night, held at La Villette Hotel, secretary Mike Weysom was able to reflect on an outstandingly successful year.

He informed the well-attended meeting that membership was up for the second successive year, catches were up, club competitions had been exciting closely fought affairs throughout the year and the club had celebrated its 25th anniversary with a well supported, two-leg open festival.

During 2008, members had caught 283 grey mullet weighing 977-10-12 from the shore in Guernsey, compared with 247 weighing 871-12-1 in 2007. In addition they landed 11 mullet in the smaller islands.

Nearly all the fish were returned alive.

The statistics confirmed that 2008 was the club’s fifth best year since they were formed in 1984. This is further confirmed by the number of specimen certificates that were won.

In 2007, 77 were issued, five gold for fish over 6-0-0, 20 silver for fish over 5-0-0 and 52 bronze for fish over 4-0-0. In 2008, seven gold, 26 silver and 73 bronze were won, 106 in all.

Weysom had won the overall championship for the sixth successive year, but it was a very close call.

It is based on the members’ top 10 monthly fish. Weysom’s overall weight was 46-14-4, but Sam Robins was only 1-8-2 back in second place and Paul Carre only 1-4-2 further back in third.

It might have been very different if Glen Cortez could have found one more fish. He caught a fish in each of nine months to score 40-7-0. An additional catch in a 10th month would have put him up among the leaders.

Weysom also topped the overall catch list by a narrow margin. He landed 56 for 180-2-2, compared with Carre’s 55 for 181-6-11.

It was equally tight in the pairs championship for winners Paul Carre and Sam Robins only beat Tim Cotterill and Glen Cortez by 0-14-15.

The top fish of the year was the 7-7-10 specimen caught by Glen Cortez in January. Besides winning the Seaward Marine Trophy for the top fish, it also gave him the Kenilworth Light Line award, for he landed the specimen on 6lb BS line.

Andy Fallaize had the best mullet from Sark or Herm, a 5-8-0 fish, while Tim Froome’s 3-4-0 fish was the best from Alderney.

The club will start its new season with a members only competition on Sunday 15 February.

Following the success of last year’s open festival, it was agreed to run it on the same lines again this year. The first leg will run from Friday 27 February to Sunday 1 March, with the second leg from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 April. The presentation night will be held on Friday 10 April at La Villette Hotel.

All the club’s officers were re-elected for a further year – president Joe Gomez, vice-resident Peter Frise and secretary/treasurer Weysom. John Vaudin, Tony Ozard and Trevor Ferbrache were re-elected as committee members. They were joined by Ron Harris and Dave Saunders, who replaced retiring members Gary Le Page and Mark Gillson.

The two delegates to the Bailiwick of Guernsey Record (Rod-Caught) Fish Committee, Weysom and Gomez, were also re-elected.

All the winning trophies and certificates were presented by the club president.

ADIE COQUELIN and Lee Gillot had similar catches to take the top two places in the West Coast Sea Angling Club’s first competition of the year.

Although they each caught a bass and a red mullet, Coquelin took top spot, as he had the heaviest bag, helped by his 5-15-0 bass. His catch gave him 78.5 points, compared with Gillot’s 71.25.

The eight-hour roving shore event attracted 25 members and 14 found fish to bring to the scales.

The total catch consisted of two bass, two red mullet, 23 garfish, three shore rockling, 16 lesser-spotted dogfish, two three-bearded rockling, eight pollack and three ballan wrasse, 59 in total.

The competition kitty was shared between Mark Le Page, who had the heaviest three-bearded rockling, 1-5-0 and Coquelin, who caught the heaviest red mullet, 1-3-0.

The number of fish caught, which included eight different species, can be considered a successful day, bearing in mind the time of the year and generally quiet fishing being experienced in recent weeks.

Article posted on 4th February, 2009 - 2.29pm