DAY1
Friday morning saw the sun shining and the sea was lovely and calm with just a little breeze blowing, the smell of Bacon and egg being cooked in my van soon had all the compeditors full and raring to leave port at 9:30 am, to get to their first fishing spot of the day for a 10am start. I had got a ride on “Falusi 11” who headed straight to Laxey Bay in search of Thornback Rays and hopefully a full set of Gurnards.
However plans do not always work and on this occasion it was decided to move on and go to a small wreck called the Paddle Wheel to pick up Pouting, Poor Cod and hopefully a Scad. No scad were found at this mark but “Merit 1” did manage a Codling which gave them a slender lead at this time. For the boats that had started off at the south end of the Island from Port St Mary fishing was steady, but fish that are to some easy to catch were not on this occasion with only two boats in the entire first day catching a Herring.
There was some great fishing too, with 1st Michael Cowin fishing on “Merit 1” catching a nice Spur Dog of around the 15lb mark only to be outdone by Camron Sayle, fishing on “Kingfisher 11” he caught what would have been a new Island record for a Spur Dog with one of 23lbs. However rather than kill the fish to get the record he decided to let the fish go to fight another day, good on you Camron. Meanwhile back on “Merit 1” whilst tying another hook to his rig Michael Cowin thought it would be a good idea to stick the 6/0Sakuma hook into his finger resulting in him making a trip to the A&E Unit back in Douglas. A similar fate caught out Billy Booth on TR1 but Billy being the braver man pulled the hook through and pulled it out himself.
“Tax Rebate 1” had a nice Conger Eel and so Did Edwin Jones on “Falusi” 11, where Jamie Hinchliffe also had a couple of very nice Bull Huss. The pool fish for day one of the species hunt was a Cod with Ling as the backup, however all pool fish during the festival did have to make the legal size limit in order to count. No records were broken on any of the three days, but on day one the winner of the pool was “E. V. GRACE” with a Cod of 2lb.10.625ozs, with “Trampie” in second place with a Cod of 2lb.4.625ozs.
With the eight hours of fishing over for the first day at 6pm, the weigh-in on each day would take place one hour later at 7pm. With the pool results sorted, it then became clear who the leader after day one was, with “Merit 1”having amassed a great score of 20 species. So here are the positions of the top four after day 1.
1ST MERIT 1, 20 SPECIES
2ND KINGFISHER 11, 15 SECIES
3RD EQUAL ON 14 SPECIES
FALUSI 11
TR1.
WOULD ANY ONE CATCH MERIT 1??
DAY 2
THE HEAVIEST POLLOCK COMPETITION DAY
This is a short competition of just 6hours in which you can go to any or all of the numerous Pollock marks that the Isle of Man has to offer and try to catch the “BIG ONE” in order to claim the 1st prize of £200, which this year has been donated by Moonfleet Angling, (a very big thanks to owner Paul Hardy).
The conditions on day 2 were just a little bouncy than the day before but nothing was going to stop all boats from fishing all around the south of the Island (best marks here), the best bait that is normally used in this area are live Sand Eels, lip hooked on a Sakuma 6/0 hook, fished on a 5-6ft snood attached to a 14 inch plastic boom and clipped straight to the main line on the reel, lowered to the bottom and then wound up 4/5 turns and then wham they hit you, all great fights on light tackle.
A word of caution when fishing around most of the Pollock marks is to make sure that your rigs are robust as there is a great deal of rough ground which has no mercy on your fishing tackle. Fishing on light rods is great sport when hunting Pollack here but do make the rigs strong.
This year however we were given some great support by Eddystone Eel and it was one of their Bubblegum range of lures that took second place in this competition (big thanks to Martin and the gang at Eddystone Eel), with David Christian catching a Pollock of 8lb.6.125ozs fishing off “E.V.Grace”. The winning fish though came off the leading boat in the species hunt “MERIT1”and was a fish of 8lb.13.5ozs caught by Skipper Gary Bridson. The days fishing had been hard with no one managing to get a fish of double figures, but there was no lack of effort from anyone in the competition.
Results of the heaviest Pollock competition;
1ST MERIT1 8LB .13.5OZS
2ND E.V. GRACE 8LB.6.125OZS
3RD KINGFISHER 11 6LB.12.125OZS
4TH STRIKER 6LB.8.875OZS
5TH TRAMPIE 5LB.5.75OZS
All eyes now were on what was going to happen on the last day of the species hunt and would anyone be able to get close to” Merit1.”
DAY THREE
(THE FINAL COUNTDOWN)
The darkness of Sunday morning had barely disappeared to reveal a glorious day to go fishing, no wind, flat calm sea and nothing but sunshine as far as the eye could see. The battery pier at Douglas sprang into life as the smell of bacon & egg soon had the crews from all boats queuing up and with all bellies full by 9:30 it was time to leave port for one last time and see if the leaders could be caught. They had in fact had moored down at Port St Mary saying that they may go round to the west of the Island in search of Bass, they never said if they did, but I know they did not catch any. Boats that had fished the south part of the Island on the 1st day set of to Laxey Bay in the hope of Thornback Rays, whilst “Falusi 11” to start with did not venture past the old toll gates on marine drive Douglas , during which time a further four species were obtained.
From there it was down to “MY” Tope mark barely 2 miles from Douglas harbour, where not only Tope were found but also large numbers of Smooth Hounds. However although “Falusi” 11 had success here Trampie who were already fishing here at anchor, did not only managing a Tub Gurnard, I think that this was down to the wrong choice of bait as we were fishing with peeler crab. From here “Falusi 11” headed for the Liverpool wreck in search of a Coal Fish but whilst there several Ling were taken including a double figure one for Jamie Hinchliffe.” E.V.Grace,” although not catching as many species as they would have liked did however catch some nice fish with Ali McCloud capturing a lovely Huss. The most unusual fish of the second day was a Lesser Sand Eel which was caught by Ben Richards on “Striker”.
From here it was a further journey south to the Haddock mark off Port St Mary with “Merit 1”arriving trying hard to improve their score. With several phone calls between boats, It was very obvious that the species trophy was a battle between two boats, that of “Merit 1” and the hard fighting “Falusi 11”. It was at this stage that “Merit 1” said that they had 24 species and “Falusi” had 22, but were hard on the trail of both Plaice and Dragonette at one of the Southern hot spots. This did not work out for Falusi 11 and so they went back to the Wart Bank mark and after several Dabs were taken, Ex Marlin world champion Edwin Jones hooked in to a Plaice putting his boat within one off their arch rival “Merit 1”.
A very swift decision was made by “Falusi 11” to head back to a fishing mark just off Douglas that could produce a very late victory in the form of a Herring and a Tub Gurnard, whilst “Merit 1” were still out fishing at the Haddock mark trying to improve their score, but neither could get their desired quarry before the time was up at 6 pm.
It was when the boats returned to port that It became apparent that other boats during the day had not been really able to put a great deal of preasure on the leaders of day 1. “Kingfisher 11” who had been lying in second place with 15 species had only managed to catch a further 5 species in 8 hours, whilst last year’s winners “E.V.Grace” did manage a further seven species they were not able to hold on to the title that they narrowly won last year. The battle for top dog this year in the end went to “Merit 1” who only managed four more species to take their tally to 24, “Falusi 11” however managed an impressive 9 species on the second day to finish with 23 species, just one less than “Merit 1”.
This year a new cup had been donated in honour of the late Dave Corkish a real local character angler, and this cup was to be given to the best flatfish caught during the festival, this went to the boat “Striker” with the best Flat Fish, which was a Plaice of just 14 ozs, but a big well done to to the crew of “Striker”.
This year with a late start to the season the fishing has been on the slow side, however during the festival a total of 25 different species were caught which was on a par with last year. All of the boats and anglers that took part fished with great determination and this did not deter from the vast amount of fun that was had by all. The 3 Day Festival will be back next year, all that is left to say is a BIG THANKYOU to EVERYBODY who has supported the Festival, and to all the sponsors without whom the Festival would not be so special.
FINAL STANDINGS
MANX BOAT FISHING CHAMPIONS 2013
1ST MERIT 1 24 SPECIES
2ND FALUSI 11 23 SPECIES
3RD E.V.GRACE 20 SPECIES
BY VIRTUE OF HAVING THE HEAVIER POLLOCK
4TH KINGFISHER 11 20 SPECIES
5TH TAX REBATE 1 19 SPECIES
6TH STRIKER 18 SPECIES
7TH TRAMPIE 16 SPECIES
8TH ANDORRA 15 SPECIES
This is just the report for on here, i will put on pictures as we go , please feel free to put your pictures on here to help give a full picture of the festival
Admin 316
WE WILL BE BACK IN 2014 EVEN BIGGER
THE NEW ISLE OF MAN SPECIES CHAMPIONS 2013 ARE
MERIT 1, GARY BRIDSON, LEE GRAHAM MICHAEL COWIN & PAUL GRAHAM 
AND GETTING PRESENTED WITH THE TROPHY FROM MICHAEL EMERY AND MR MBF JAMIE HINCHLIFFE
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Subject: BATMAN BEATS SUPERMAN ON MERIT 
Sun Jul 14, 2013 9:18 am
