First cast proves fruitful for Neame

Sea angling

Keith Neame ‘skated’ to victory when Herne Bay Angling Association fished their Open Beach competition on the King’s Hall beach on Saturday night. Neame was a clear winner having wasted no time by catching the heaviest skate of the competition, weighing 9.18lb, on his first cast. He went on to catch another five skate for a total weight of 35.38lb. Keith Johnson took second place with 20.18lb beating Les Bates (19.48lb) by the smallest of margins. There were a total of 16 skate caught and all were returned alive. The next beach open competition is being held at Dengemarsh from Diamond to Galloway’s on Sunday, fishing from 11.30am to 4.30pm and is a flatfish-only event. On Sunday, in a moderate north east wind, the club fished a boat match for the Harlow Cup which saw Drew Weller catch five skate for a total weight of 35.2lb. In second place with 29.30lb was Patch Packham who also took the numbers with eight fish, including a 1.435lb whiting, almost a 100% specimen. In third place was Mick Taylor with 28.44lb. The heaviest fish of the day went to Andy Pitts with a skate of 10.83lb. The next boat competition is on Sunday from 7am to 12.30pm. A dozen Heron Angling Society members made the journey to Deal for the Jackson Cup. There was a light northerly wind and conditions were generally good but the same couldn’t be said for the fishing. Despite 11 anglers weighing-in, bags were poor with just one or two fish each, comprising dogfish, whiting, pouting and rockling. Les Murray landed the biggest fish, just missing out on a specimen medal with a dogfish of 1lb 15.6oz and along with a second dogfish, won the competition with a total weight of 3lb 7.8oz. Tony Sadik came in second place with three fish weighing 2lb 3.2oz and had the greatest number, while Ben Morris came in third with 1lb 12.4oz.