MATCH OF THE MONTH
There’s a strong international field competing in the latest round of the highly competitive Southern League shore event in Hampshire
All the action from the Southern League.
There was a rather large queue of anglers gathered at the registration point when I arrived to cover round seven of the Southern League, being held at Hill Head beach in Hampshire. Weather conditions were favourable and, I have to add, I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many ‘Team England’ shirts present at any match I’ve covered previously. With plenty of internationals on show, this was certainly promising to be a highly competitive occasion.
In total, 55 competitors entered and were soon heading off to their pegs in readiness for the five-hour match starting at 6pm and ending in darkness at 11pm.
High tide was around 8pm, and much of the talk was suggesting that targeting black bream close to the beach would be a good tactic to build up a score. However,
others reckoned that by casting further, it may attract larger specimens such as rays or smoothhounds that would boost their scores considerably.
As this event is catch, measure and release, and then converted into weight using the league’s own chart, all undersized fish count as a top-up score of one ounce.
FLURRY OF ACTIVITY
During the early stages, there was a flurry of activity in the middle of the stretch in section B, as England world shore internationals Darren Newland (peg 31), who made the short hop across the Solent from his home on the Isle of Wight, and Portsmouth’s Ian Dancey (peg 29), quickly found small bass and black bream feeding close in to put scores on their cards.
Dancey then reeled in a double-shot of small red mullet that was quickly replied by Newland, who was desperately unlucky
to find his bass was just a single centimetre under the regulation size limit of 36cm.
Meanwhile, in section C, and fresh from his Home Nations gold medal win in Ireland with Team England, Ben Arnold was busy finding plenty of action with top-up fish from end peg 60.
The pendulum, though, would eventually swing in favour of another England shore international, Curtis Driver, from Poole, Dorset. The 13-year-old has recently been selected to represent the under-16 squad, which heads out to Italy later in the year.
Targeting black bream at just 40 yards, with size 6 Wormer hooks and small pieces of ragworms, Curtis did well to cautiously play and land a 41cm (across the wings) stingray. On the chart, this gave the youngster 4lb 14oz registered on his match card and, more importantly, a huge lead.
Reports quickly filtered along the beach that stingrays were around as another was beached in section A. Sadly, it was undersized by just 2cm.
As high tide approached, the action slowed considerably for many of the competitors, but with dusk approaching, thoughts soon turned to targeting smoothhounds for many of the anglers.
True to form, they arrived in numbers, but many of these were tiny pups and only offered top-up weights of just a single ounce.
As the match entered into its final stages, Curtis Driver, at peg 42, was still leading and adding points to his tally with undersized top-ups. It would take a decent fish to beat him. He could have sealed it with just an hour to go as he beached another stingray. This time it fell short of the 41cm limit by just a smidge and he was rewarded with just a single ounce on his card instead.
convincing win
At the end, Curtis won the match convincingly with the help of that 4lb 14oz stingray, which was the heaviest round fish on the night. Together with top-ups, his total weight was 5lb 3oz.
In zone B, Darren Newland won with a steady 2lb 11oz, while Mick Wilson headed up zone A with 1lb 6oz. In total, 45 anglers caught 148 fish consisting of smoothhounds, silver eels, stingrays, red mullet, gilthead bream, golden grey mullet, scad, tub gurnards and bass with 17 fish being sizeable.
With no flatfish caught, pools money is carried over to Round 8 of the league. ■