Competition action off North East coast

TO say there was plenty of action last weekend would be an understatement.

There were four major shore opens and the culmination of the Whitby uptide festival which saw Graham Jones, fishing aboard Mistress, take the £1,000 for the heaviest cod with one of 7lb 1oz.

I did not think Alex Leadley’s bag of 55lb would have been beaten but Leadley increased it himself, taking 33 codling for 61lb 2oz.

Andy Dickinson, fishing aboard Sea Otter 2, took the heaviest other species, a ling of 5lb 3oz.

Of the first of the shore opens, Nicky Robson won the Bedlington Station Open with five cod for 16.9lb, also taking the heaviest fish, a cod of 8.1lb, with Peter Stewart second with seven for 14.7lb.

On Sunday in the South Shields Open Gary Pye took the top prize with a cod of 6.2lb. Ged Stevens took the heaviest bag prize with 10.7lb, with Harley Thompson taking his second junior section with 2.4lb.

Graham Slesser took the heaviest flatfish with one of 1.3lb.

On the same day there were some good bags in the Whitby Open. George Homer won the event with eight cod for 22lb 1oz with Dave Turnbull second with seven for 17lb 2oz.

John Homer took the heaviest fish with a cod of 8lb 3oz, brother George taking the second heaviest at 6lb 12oz.

On Monday night in the John Taylor Memorial Open, Darren Browne took a cod of 2,760g (6.1lb) from Souter to take top spot with Terry Wood second with one of 1,955g and Derek Russell third with one of 1,860g.

Whitby has produced some nice cod for pleasure anglers Andy Clyde taking one of 16lb 3oz, while Richy Carr fishing at Souter took two cod of 6lb and 8lb, Phil Wright fishing a Sunderland mark took four cod for 18lb, the best 8.5lb.

Brian Scott had an evening trip to St Abbs, taking four cod to 6.5lb and two conger – one a personal best of 7lb.

Blyth beach is producing some good bags, Kenny McCoy taking seven cod for 17lb 5oz.

Whitley Bay beach has also produced decent bags well into double figures. Some decent pollock showing around Tynemouth, Alan Wood taking one of 6lb 5oz.

The Cumbria coast had been producing plenty of dogfish – in a Workington match the top four anglers took 152, the top angler taking 46 – but these have now thinned out and codling to 5lb are moving in, with a few bass mostly around 1lb with the odd one to 6lb.

Jeff Ayre and Peter Hudson managed an uptiding boat trip off Sunderland, taking 16 cod to 10lb with many under 2lb returned. A small party on Sapphire took 21 to 2.5lb, with again many smaller fish returned. Graham Jones with his winning fish in the Whitby uptide festival