With six boats and fourteen anglers taking part in this comp sponsered by Mannin Roofing and allround fishing tackle the stage was set .saturday morning scorching sun ,blue skies ,flat sea ,no we are not dreaming folks it was 10am and the fishing began .Boats had been allowed to actually start at their chosen spots and to moter out of which ever port they wanted to.Three boats set out of Douglas kirsty 111,Merit1 and Trampie ,wilst TR1 ,Corrie"C"and Bones set off from the southern port of Port st mary the latter 2 taking full advantage of the rich fishing grounds ,TR1 was slightly handicaped by starting 2hrs behind every one else due to work commitments (hay -Ho).

Kirsty111 skip Micheal Emery with his guest crew man from the mainland Phil Cooper made the strange descision
to head up north to the bharma banks Which was a long and thankless journey as after four hours of fishing they had just 1 grey gurnard each .(Nice views of the island from there though commented Phil).

Meanwhile the rest of the boats were having a hard day as all anglers for once were fishing against each other and some said that they would have preffered it as a boat team comp that they still had a lot of fun fishing .
Merit 1 stopped off at Bones's tope mark and at one stage all four anglers were at the same time pulling up tope ,the same mark was also alive with spur dogs too.Good job nobodyelse but kirsty 111 has this mark otherwise i would have no tope to catch in other comps .
Corrie "C" whos crew of skip David Christian and Ex Sherolyn 11 owner Steve Quilliam were fishing hard south of the island both having success and had Steve finish day one on 16 species level with Cameron Sayle fishing on bones with myself who had 11. Gary Bridson ,Skip of Merit1 finished the day on 10along with TR1 skip Billy Booth wilst a further 3 anglers finished on 11.A wide spread of species was caught on day 1 from tope ,spurdogs and bullhuss ,haddock,cod ,all the gurnards right down to a Dragonette caught by myself on the very last drop of the dy much to the annoance of my fishing partner Cameron.During the day Bones also snapped their anchor chain and resulted in obtaining a new anchor courtesy of Micheal Emery and they had an even earlier star on sunday hunting for shackles at 6.30 in the morning .

Day 2

An early start to day 2 with fishing starting at 8 am and for those who had not had a very good 1st day now really had to pull the stops out ,my partner Cam who fishes south all the time could not catch his banker fish such as dragonettes, herring or conger ,which in the end proved costly to him ,funny really when normally he struggles not to catch these fish .He did redeem himself though as later on one of my gurnard marks he did get himself a dragonette .News was coming in via the mobile phones that Kirsty 111's new crew man was utterly useless according to Skip Emmo and was a waste of sea rations .We arrived at the six mile mark in search of thornys and spurs and we were closely followed by Corrie "C" and Trampie .For Trampie it was one of the first times they had anchored and the descusions that were going on between skip John Maddrell and crew man Martin Lambden are too blue to put even on here (BL**DY CLASSIC COMIC GENIOUS).Fishing here at the start was slow but we could see that Dave Christian of corrie "C" bring up his 3rd thorny of the day. Cam on my boat got whiting and grey gurnard ,before turning his attention to catching tope and spurdogs ,whilst i caught spurs and bull huss ,but neither of us could get a thorny and i could not get a tope .
Cam still did not have a tub gurnard so i played one final throw of the dice for him and took him to a smmall mark just off a wreck on the way back to port . I told him just to use baited daylight feathers with 2/0 hooks and strips of mackie on and within 10 minutes hey presto one tub gurnard of about 3lb ,very nice fish .
That was it for us time to wind in and finish at 4pm ,Bang went the rod with the bang bang of a tope ,got one on the last roll of he dice for me as well ,never had one there before .
Back at douglas and all on shore ,tales of how each day had gone for each angler and that both days had gone without a hitch ,but all said that they had had a good time but all were knackered after a total of 16hrs of fishing aswell as digging bait and the odd pint of golden (TEA) ha ha ha .Well when all the talking and fishing was done this is how it all finished

WINNER. STEVE QUILLIAM (CORRIE "C") 22 SPECIES £200

2ND CAMERON SAYLE (BONES) 21 SPECIES (BY VIRTUE OF HAVING THE HEAVIER POLLACK)£100

3RD JAMIE316 (BONES) 21 SPECIES £75

4TH DAVID CHRISTIAN (CORRIE "C") 19 SPECIES £50 (BY THE TOSS OF A COIN)

5TH LEE GRAHAM (MERIT 1 ) 19 SPECIES £25

6TH GARY BRIDSON (MERIT 1) 18 SPECIES
7TH BILLY BOOTH (TR 1) 16 SPECIES
8TH MICHEAL EMERY (KIRSTY 111) 15 SPECIES (HAVING THE HEAVIER POLLACK )
9TH PAUL GRAHAM (MERIT 1) 15 SPECIES (ON THE TOSS OF A COIN )
10TH MARTIN BOOTH (TR 1) 15 SPECIES
11TH PHIL COOPER (KIRSTY 111) 12 SPECIES (ON TOSS OF A COIN )
12TH SIMON REED (MERIT 1) 12 SPECIES
13TH MARTIN LAMBDEN (TRAMPIE) 10SPECIES
14TH JOHN MADDRELL (TRAMPIE) 8 SPECIES .

DAY 1 POOL . PHIL COOPER WHITING OF 8.875OZS £25.
DAY2 POOL . STEVE QUILLIAM MACKERAL OF 1.2LB
HAEVIEST POLLACK CAMERON SAYLE 5LB .13OZS
MYSTERY PAIRS BILLY BOOTH AND STEVE QUILLIAM ,TOTAL OF 38 SPECIES .

May i say a big thanks to our sponsers of this event MANNIN ROOFING & ALLROUND FISHING TACKLE for their support for this event and a big thanks to GARY BRIDSON for his behind the scenes work and to all of you anglers that fished this comp .Hope that you all enjoyed it .
Here are just a few pics from my camera ,if i recieve others i will of course post them
Cam with a nice big spurdog


TRAMPIE TRYING TO ANCHOR UP


A 1ST FOR ME A DRAGONETTE


HADDOCK


A PLAICE AND DAB DOUBLE FOR SKIP BRIDSON

pAUL GRAHAM ON MERIT 1.


Jamie316.

If you think putting trampies anchor down was comical you should have seen them retrieving it
We certainly enjoyed the comp and it certainly illustrates what a great leveller the good weather is, the better results coming from the smaller boats who could get where they needed to. I think this is the first time I ve fished in Corrie C and not felt like I needed traction on my back the next day
Well done to Jamie for running the comp, look forward to next year
Oh and I need to thank Cameron who very kindly provided some vry productive marks on the Mannin angling website ( info for kayaks )

Congrats Steve....22 is a good haul

And well done to Jamie for what sounds like a great comp!

sherolyn wrote:

If you think putting trampies anchor down was comical you should have seen them retrieving it
We certainly enjoyed the comp and it certainly illustrates what a great leveller the good weather is, the better results coming from the smaller boats who could get where they needed to. I think this is the first time I ve fished in Corrie C and not felt like I needed traction on my back the next day
Well done to Jamie for running the comp, look forward to next year
Oh and I need to thank Cameron who very kindly provided some vry productive marks on the Mannin angling website ( info for kayaks )

They are top secret them, hope you left some fish for the kayak comp??

well done jamie, the comp was very good can you organise the same weather for mannin week please ,
the new braid i tried out this weekend was a good purchase, cheap as well ,well done to steve on the win, i must try harder next time