The good old days...

[Davyred]

youll never in a million years see that sort of fishing ever again like

Maybe you're right, but that was at the time when Gill nets were rife up and down the coast. Like I said, the season before was terrible, really bad. I can remember fishing the SAMF masters over 2 days at Easington/Horden, involving the top anglers in the country, and not one codling was weighed in.

[Stores]

Maybe you're right, but that was at the time when Gill nets were rife up and down the coast. Like I said, the season before was terrible, really bad. I can remember fishing the SAMF masters over 2 days at Easington/Horden, involving the top anglers in the country, and not one codling was weighed in.

If I remember rightly Hartley and West Bay went through a similar spell of anglers catching 20 and 30 fish. Can't remember if it was the same year. Have seen the old man have bags of 20 fish from Tynemouth beach. Not resident fish, maybe, just passing through.
I can never remember catching fish, in any year, EVERY time I went out.

[The Great Wallsendo]

If I remember rightly Hartley and West Bay went through a similar spell of anglers catching 20 and 30 fish. Can't remember if it was the same year. Have seen the old man have bags of 20 fish from Tynemouth beach. Not resident fish, maybe, just passing through.
I can never remember catching fish, in any year, EVERY time I went out.

are you suggesting an element of rose tinted glasses perhaps?

[Stores]

are you suggesting an element of rose tinted glasses perhaps?

Not at all. I'm sure the statistics will bear out the fact that more people fish now and there are fewer fish, in general, knocking about so the results from 20, 30, 40 years ago would have been better. I think both mine and Daveys examples are oddities - freaks from the norm and I think the reason is (I think I've said it before) that there is not enough feed on Blyth beach for hundreds of codling but that codling use the parallel gullies to get from place to place and if you're in the right place at the right time you can bag up.
Give you another example. We were fishing off in the boat off Cullercoats one day and there were very few fish around. One of us pulled in and caught a 6lber half way up. The other two did the same and for half an hour we caught fish after fish in midwater. I've never experienced that again and it could only be a shoal passing through. Just a fortunate result.
I think it's the same thing for any mega haul.

[Davyred]

This is a cutting from the same winter season....



I fished both matches and all the top weights came from the North end of Blyth Beach.

I fished Whitley bay beach during the same match, and as me and a mate were walking between marks, we tried this pool. My gear hadn't been in the water a minute when I got a 1.5lb codling out, but got nothing else. We waded through the pool to get to the next mark, and the water never got to my knees

[Charlton]

that winter can only be classed as a one off, there where hundreds of fish caught, complete novices where catching ten fish a session, but if you look at the catches hardly any of the fish where over 3lb, most where 1-2lb. Most anglers I knew, if they weren't fishing a match started putting most of the fish back, many anglers for sport where fishing with light rods. To follow on from Davy, me and a good friend where fishing Blyth Beach, when we arrived we had to wade through a couple of feet of water about thirty yards wide to get to the sand bar, we started catching straight away. A light appeared behind us and started fishing into where we had waded through, the angler who we knew later joined us, he had a bag full from where we had waded through. One night I was on Whitley Beach at Little Bay, got into fish straight away, normally on a big tide you move as the tide recedes, but i kept getting fish, the water got that shallow as I struck into fish they broke the surface. To be honest it got a bit boring, thankfully the fish did not stay all through the winter, If I remember rightly about 6 weeks, when fishing got back to normal.

[Davyred]

that winter can only be classed as a one off, there where hundreds of fish caught, complete novices where catching ten fish a session, but if you look at the catches hardly any of the fish where over 3lb, most where 1-2lb. Most anglers I knew, if they weren't fishing a match started putting most of the fish back, many anglers for sport where fishing with light rods. To follow on from Davy, me and a good friend where fishing Blyth Beach, when we arrived we had to wade through a couple of feet of water about thirty yards wide to get to the sand bar, we started catching straight away. A light appeared behind us and started fishing into where we had waded through, the angler who we knew later joined us, he had a bag full from where we had waded through. One night I was on Whitley Beach at Little Bay, got into fish straight away, normally on a big tide you move as the tide recedes, but i kept getting fish, the water got that shallow as I struck into fish they broke the surface. To be honest it got a bit boring, thankfully the fish did not stay all through the winter, If I remember rightly about 6 weeks, when fishing got back to normal.

Yeah, thats how I remember it Alan. I've just had a look through the catch log I kept, and out of the 84 codling I caught from Nov-Feb, only 5 were over 3lb.

[g-force]

Here's another very yellowed clipping from the 1979 Whitley festival - I know Tony & Bob are still fishing (ps: get well soon Bob ) but I wonder whatever happened to the others? Meself is still at it, after a long break !

[willywetegg]

I have created a new sub forum for threads like this one and will move this there now.

Jim.

[g-force]

Cheers Jim, wondered where it had gone there for a moment!

As you can probably tell, I've nowt better to do today than have a bit of a rummage! Here's Whitley Bay's prizewinners from 1979 - left to right as best as I remember:

Arthur Smeaton, Tony Taylor, Alan Boomer, Brian Martin, Meself, Chris Stringer, Garry Daglish, John Nixon, Billy Gellender, Terry Patterson, Jackie Young and...?? - memory fails on the last face - anyone recognise him?

[Davyred]

Terry Pattersons never changed

Some good names in there.

[Stores]

that winter can only be classed as a one off, there where hundreds of fish caught, complete novices where catching ten fish a session, but if you look at the catches hardly any of the fish where over 3lb, most where 1-2lb. Most anglers I knew, if they weren't fishing a match started putting most of the fish back, many anglers for sport where fishing with light rods. To follow on from Davy, me and a good friend where fishing Blyth Beach, when we arrived we had to wade through a couple of feet of water about thirty yards wide to get to the sand bar, we started catching straight away. A light appeared behind us and started fishing into where we had waded through, the angler who we knew later joined us, he had a bag full from where we had waded through. One night I was on Whitley Beach at Little Bay, got into fish straight away, normally on a big tide you move as the tide recedes, but i kept getting fish, the water got that shallow as I struck into fish they broke the surface. To be honest it got a bit boring, thankfully the fish did not stay all through the winter, If I remember rightly about 6 weeks, when fishing got back to normal.

3 of us fished Tynemouth beach off the Little Pipe, the one that led into the Slatey, on a dead tide one night - the top of the flat end was only just visible, no real roll on.The old man cast out and had a fish on before we were in the water. "Anywhere around 40 yards" he said. We both cast out - nowt. He, in the meantime drew our attention to the lights in the harbour. While we were looking he cast out again - another fish. He then waited until we pulled in before casting out again - another fish.
Finally, through tears of laughter he said "watch this" - easy with a scarboro and he lobbed no more than 10 yards - bang bang again. All the fish were in a hole 10 yards out. We fished until we were sick of catching and like Alan said most went back but they were all the same size - 2-3lb.

[josum]

i remember alan charlton weighing in with 4 cod for 21lb and coming 3rd in a club match, many years past . you have to be a certain age to remember the days of big catches on this coastline.

[Charlton]

i remember alan charlton weighing in with 4 cod for 21lb and coming 3rd in a club match, many years past . you have to be a certain age to remember the days of big catches on this coastline.

But the old git had the heaviest fish at 6lb, think John Summerbell won the match with 32lb, remember the old git catching three cod for 21lb from Blyth Beach, best 8lb and he won the match. That 8lb cod was the best looking cod the old git caught, almost white with lovely mottled markings, not tear or a scratch anywhere. Also remember the old git catching thirteen cod for around 40lb one night from Blyth Beach.

[Davyred]

But the old git had the heaviest fish at 6lb, think John Summerbell won the match with 32lb, remember the old git catching three cod for 21lb from Blyth Beach, best 8lb and he won the match. That 8lb cod was the best looking cod the old git caught, almost white with lovely mottled markings, not tear or a scratch anywhere. Also remember the old git catching thirteen cod for around 40lb one night from Blyth Beach.

Thats some fishing Alan...