IN AN all-night shore match fished in atrocious weather, including gale force winds and heavy rain, Steve Huxster (pictured) came through to clinch the West Coast Sea Angling Club’s Herm championship.
The bad weather prevented the anglers crossing over to Herm so the last match in the series was fished in Guernsey.
Six members braved the elements and four found fish. Steve had gone into the last round just 11 points behind his son, Shane.
On the night Steve landed 12 lesser-spotted dogfish and a pout for 42 points to finish second, while Shane could manage only five lesser-spotted dogfish and a shore rockling for 24.75 points to finish fourth in the match.
This all meant that Steve had an overall score of 285.25 points to Shane’s 278.75, a final lead of just 6.5 points.
The winner of that last match was Steve Greenway, who caught one grey mullet, one golden grey mullet and one common eel for 6-2-0 and 82.5 points.
Jack Thoume completed the catches in third place with three shore rocklings and one lesser-spotted dogfish for 52.5 points.
Not surprisingly the Huxsters had a runaway victory in the Herm Pairs. They finished on 564 points, well ahead of Lee Gillot/Steve Greenway, who had 204.25 in second place. Third were Simon Mauger/Jack Thoume on 144.5 points.
Over the autumn Steve Huxster has slowly whittled away his son’s lead in both the overall and Herm championships.
He finally succeeded in taking the Herm title, but will he do the same in the overall?
With one harbour match remaining he is on 503 points, 47.5 behind Shane who is on 550.5.
DARREN LE MAITRE was convinced he had caught a large herring on St Peter Port Breakwater, a fish that had taken his legered mackerel bait.
It weighed well over 1-0-0 and would have filled a vacancy on the Bailiwick, Channel Islands and British shore-caught record lists. However, when it was formally identified it was proved to be a twaite shad, which weighed 1-5-6.
Although Le Maitre’s record chances disappeared, it became an entry in the November Fish of the Month competition where it will be judged against the 1-12-12 Bailiwick shore record.
Two shads are to be found in our waters, the allis shad, which has never been caught on rod and line locally, and the twaite shad.
Each year a small number are caught but they must be considered a rare fish. So much so that in the UK they are registered as an endangered species and will not be considered for record claims by the British committee.
ANGLERS are reminded that it is soon fish for your Christmas dinner time.
The Skips ‘R’ Us Fur and Feather competition, organised by the Guernsey Sea Anglers Club will take place on Sunday week, 13 December.
This is a fun event with prizes of Christmas fare, including turkeys, meat joints, wines, spirits, Xmas puddings and chocolate.
There is a whole range of prizes that cover the top five fish of the day, as compared with the Bailiwick shore record, the best fish of each species and the greatest number of different species.
If you prefer to chase the heaviest bag awards, the choice is completely yours.
It will start at the St Peter Port Services warehouse at Bulwer Avenue at 9am, with the weigh-in and presentation at the same venue at 4pm.
Low water on the day is 10.13am and high 4.10pm, so anglers will be able to fish high or low water marks.
There will be separate awards for women and juniors and a three-man team event.
Article posted on 2nd December, 2009 - 2.29pm
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