The weather for once this year held fine and fare for the warm up comp for the 3 Day Fishing Festival in July. Boats met at the Battery pier at 9 am on the 14th June and all who were taking part were looking forward to wetting a line and seeing what fish were now about in Manx waters.

Meerit I on leaving Douglas Harbour headed straight South not stopping at the back of Douglas Head for bait fish of Mackeral and Launce. Trampie and Bones II did and found bait very easy o come by. Trampie headed off in the same direction as merit I at this point while Bones II headed for a Mark heading South.

Sam clarke fishing on Bones II caught a nice Tub Gurnard but not a lot else was showing at this stage here so we moved on out to the Liverpool wreck with the normal Coalfish and Pollack showing up. Trying to get tight onto the wreck proved a little hard with no C- Map in the GPS was great fun but i managed to get within 6 feet at times. From here Sam and I headed into Castletown Bay in search of a Cod and maybe a Ling.

It was here that Merit I came along side and informed me that they had a slight enghine problem with one of the oil seals and had been into The harbour there to buy more oil in order to get back to Douglas and fix the problem. They said at this stage they had 9 species and we had 5. Trampie was fishing right on the edge of Castletown Bay wich no doubt was one of Martin Lambdens marks and were on 6 species at this time.

One of our drifts here fishing with a live lauce on a flowing trace i did manage to get a decent Callig of about the 4-41/2 lb mark which may have won one of the pools of the day only to turn round to find that my nephew had thrown it back to fight another day, ah well.

With Merit I making their way back towards Douglas, Bones II decided to head to Port Grenaugh. here we put down the anchor and once the rods were deployed it was time to test out the new cooker and burger baps were the order of the day. Dog fish were the 1st things to turn up and Sam caught a wonderfully coloured Cuckoo Wrasse. I had put down a nice Tope rig with a nice Mackie flapper on it and after about 20 minutes of ground baiting the rod began to twitch. The tell taail twisting felt through the rod meant that this had to be the 1st Conger Eel of the season and a nice one it was. I put the same sort of bait down again and within 10 minutes the rod was off again but this time there was no great fight just the tell tale sign of it being a juvenille Bull Huss.

Trampie had come past us and anchored up on the Afton Wreck hoping to find pouting and Poor Cod but with no sucess. They uped anchor and headed back towards Douglas bay to finish off their days fishing. Merit I also doing this. Bones II however headed out to the paddle wheel to see if it would produce anything but with little sucess.

The days fishing had been one of mixed fortunes for all taking part and at the wiegh-in it bacame clear that Merit will still be the boat to beat at the 3 Day Festival.

RESULTS:
1ST MERIT I 14 SPECIES
2ND TRAMPIE 12 SPECES
3RD BONES II 9 SPECIES

Ther was a total of 18 different species caught on the day which proves that the fish are starting to show just in time for next month.
The species that were caught are
BALLAN WRASSE, BULL HUSS,CALLIG,COAL FISH,COD, CUCKOO WRASSE, GREY GURNARD, LAUNCE, DOGFISH, LING, MACKEREL, POUTING, SPURDOG, TOPE, TUB GURNARD and WHITING.

Thanks to all who turned out for the compi hope to see you all out fishing at the next comp.

Here are a few piccys from Bones II