Sea-otter 2 takes the lead in the summer festival

[big cod]

Yesterday i took some of my regular lads off from the west country and the lakes only a few days left in the competition and the £5000 still up for grabs the leading fish of 18lb caught on my mates boat shy-torqe was looking very good with the weather forcasters perdicting bad weather yesterday seemed to the last day to try and get the big one we headed down towards scarborough the water the day before was a very mucky green and i was fairly confident with the tides easeing and the flat calm conditions the water would allamost certainly start to clear bringing all those wrecks down towards scarborough onto play we did a stop on the 2 mile off robinhoods bay to check if the fish were takeing all the rods went down and within no time 6 or 7 rods were into fish that was the green light i wanted i new the clarity on the bottom had improved people get the idea if you use bait it doesnt make any difference if the waters murky that is defernetly not the case when drifting you must have good clarity the clearer the water the better the fishing and you will often get the bigger fish as well so after the first drift we had 4 ling and 3 cod a very steady start we did a few more wrecks and were takeing fish off each wreck but in had 1 wreck in mind which i was hopeing if we were lucky might just might throw that big one i wanted to start fishing the wreck 1 hour before slack water that is often the time when the big ling start muching about we started to fish the wreck about 12 oclock first drift we took 3 lings and 4 of 5 codling one which went over 10lb so not a bad start the next drift i posistioned the boat to drift down the back edge of the wreck the lads dropped down and no sooner had they hit the bottom and and mike from windermere rod started to bounce i new instantly he was into a better fish he said it was a very good fish i could by the faces he was pulling it was going to be close when the fish surfaced i insantly thought this is over 20lb sure enought it went on the scales at the weighin at 21lb 14oz not a massive fish but at this stage of the festival it doesnt look a bad one.

Mike with his big ling.


paul.

[wildcard]

Well done Paul. There's no question this is the winning fish with the predicted Northerly winds putting a premature end to the competition before Sunday I reckon. I was very suprised when the 30lb halibut was caught last Sunday (given the conditions) which underlined the fact that any angler could win the competition from any boat. In the end though it is skills and knowledge that consistantly win prizes and I reckon you are the winning skipper this year.

Regards,
Alan