TIME MACHINE
Looking back through 40 years of Britain’s biggest and best sea angling magazine…
A look back through our archives.
2008
■ England’s young anglers grabbed team silver medals in the World Youth and Junior Shore Angling Championships, staged in Spain. Junior team anglers Steven Rathbone and Jamie Morgan got individual gold and silver medals respectively.
■ Gordon Mackenzie caught a 159lb common skate from the shore at West Loch Tarbert in Scotland.
■ A ling of 29lb 8oz was caught by Paul Maris, of Takeley, Essex, who fished a mackerel flapper bait while aboard Dave Brett’s Scorpion out of Plymouth, Devon.
■ Portsmouth charter skipper Rob Hickin caught a personal-best bass of 11lb 9oz aboard his boat Sea Juicer. The fish took a cuttlefish bait on a flowing trace.
■ Membership of the British Conger Club was tumbling, and interest in its prestigious Conger Championships was falling. An idea had been put forward to fish the event during the Borough of Torbay Sea Angling Festival.
■
An angler fishing from his own boat off the Isle of Wight caught cod of 20lb 8oz, 16lb and 12lb. Aaron Shonz, of Paulsgrove, Hants, fished double squid baits near the Nab Tower.
1998
■ Sean Letchford, of St Martins, Jersey, used a light carp rod to set a new island record with a 15lb 14oz bass. Fishing aboard his own boat, he caught the big fish on a Rapala minnow diving lure.
■ Barnstaple angler Alan ‘Panda’ Paddon boated a superb 103lb 12oz conger eel while fishing aboard Gemini II, skippered by Dave Harrison out of Brixham, Devon. The fish took a mackerel bait on a size 9/0 hook.
■ Fishing a wreck 12 miles off Folkestone, Kent, produced two cod of 22lb for Dave Golby. The angler, from Colchester, Essex, caught them on home-made pirks.
■ With the cod ban over, Chris Brown, from Bristol, caught a 27lb cod at a wreck 23 miles off the South Devon coast. He was fishing from Graham Hannaford’s boat Tiburon, out of Plymouth.
1988
■ Two anglers from Swindon were arrested on Chesil Beach in Dorset after throwing stones at a trawler that had ripped away their end tackle while they were fishing. Charges were dropped after the duo agreed to pay the £45 to mend the boat’s window.
■ One of the season’s biggest bass at 16lb 4oz was taken by Chris Lawford, from Southend, while he was fishing for cod from Kevin Benham’s boat Marlin, out of Bradwell, Essex. It took a lugworm.
■ A superb 4lb 4oz whiting fell to Tony Adams, of Kenilworth, Warks, who caught it on a sandeel while boat fishing off Lannacombe, Devon.
■ A controversial cod ban on the south coasts of England and Wales and in the south-west of Ireland was lifted on October 16 and reinstated on November 1. It was assumed cod fishing would be allowed again from January 1.
■ Mike Deogherty and Nobby Clark, from Kent, and Ted Williams and Mark Nicholls, of Cumbria, had five black bream over 3lb when they fished from a mark near the Channel Light Vessel. They were on Artilleryman II, skippered by Geordie Dickson out of Plymouth, Devon.
1978
■ Shoals of fresh-run cod had moved into the Firth of Clyde, resulting in soaring catches. Coalfish also showed, with the result that catches of 1,000lb a day were made by a number of charter boats. A boat out of Rothesey produced 131 cod and 276 coalfish for Coronation SAC members, from Burton-on-Trent. ■ Fish of the month winner was Pte
A Hawkins, of
D company,
3rd Queen’s
Regiment, based at
Dover. He caught a
21lb 5oz 4dr cod while fishing the western end of Princes Parade, Sandgate. The fish took a bunch of lugworms at 100 yards.
■ Sea Angler contributor Bob Gledhill won the Maryport open on his first cast of the event. He caught a 21lb 12oz conger eel within nine minutes of the start. He carried on fishing a bit longer, but lost his enthusiasm and went to the pub!