HSAC Cley May 10th

By Dene Conway

Ah the good old British Summer reared its ugly head, with several members away on holiday or busy elsewhere and windy , weedy conditions we all knew it would be a hard struggle to find some sizeable fish.

Small schoolies dominated the day to the right of the beach with one of our juniors Joel Conway catching in excess of 12, but sadly all under the clubs size limits so none to weigh in.

Most of the club ventured to the left of carpark in search of Bass and Flounder,this proved to be just as bad as everywhere else, with Tony Thomas finding a lucky good sized Bass just under 3lb to take the match easily.

Peter Loke found an elusive Flounder at 28cm giving him second place and pushing him up the leader board into 5th overrall.

John "Silverfox" Neave was the only member to catch more than one fish and he managed 3 small dabs to secure a 3rd place.

Dene Conway also managed 1 Dab just on 18cm to sneak into 4th place with the rest of the field blanking it showed how difficult it was to find any fish at all.

With Salthouse this coming week our hopes are pinned on the bigger Bass that have been reported and hopefully the Smoothhounds will appear in greater numbers.

With 6 matches gone in the Summer Accumulator its still anyone match as the top 6 are very close, just out in front in Tony Thomas on 102pts, closely followed by John Neave on 100pts, 3rd is Dene Conway on 92pts, 4th is Nicole Conway on 84pts who slipped down from 1st after her blank session., and 5th place with 81pts goes to Peter Loke who has leap frogged up the board with some good results recently,still in contension is Richard Ives on 80pts who after a good start and two wins in the frst two matches seems to be letting the others catch up, no doubt he will make a mad dash for the winning post in the last 4 matches, and with the last match being held at Kings Lynn its still anyones title.

Results

1st: Tony Thomas 1 fish for 2lb 15oz

2nd: Peter Loke 1 fish for 0.9 1/3 0oz

3rd: John Neave 3 fish for 0.7oz

4th: Dene Conway 1 fish for 0.1 2/3oz

All other members failed to catch a sizeable fish.

HSAC Kelling April 26th

By Dene Conway

Greeted with a flat calm sea, 11 anglers took to the beach at kelling this week, with the league table being wide open at the top and results varying each week no one could predict or even hope to guess at who would be in the frame today.

Mattew Lawes our latest new member decided to follow Tony T ,along with Robert Ford and Peter Loke up to the blockhouse area in search of big flounder or possibly an elusive in size Bass.

Meanwhile myself, Nicole, Ray, Henry and Richard went down in the direction of the wreck with Richard walking just past and Henry sitting in front of wreck., John and Sam hit their usual spots just down from the carpark The field was spread out and an hour into the match, it was nice to see Dennis Hunn and wife join the match in a hotspot to the left of the carpark although just pleasure fishing for an hour or so it shows the determination of Dennis to get back on the beaches after his illness, so good luck Dennis and lets hope you get back on form for the winter season mate.

Back to the match, Flounders and Dab seemed to be the order of the day , along with the odd bigger sized Pout, Myself and Richard were trying big baits at distance in the hope of picking up a good Bass, Doggie or maybe even an early Smooth hound, this was to be our undoing as Nicole & Henry stayed in close on small baits and bagged up, both ending up with a very good 10 fish each, luckily a late change of tactic for me managed to find a good flounder of 30cm and a last double shot pushed me up enough to secure 3rd place.Nicole managed a triple shot on her last cast and left Ray and myself wondering what we were doing wrong.

Back at the carpark, it became apparant that we had chosen the better end to fish , with a first place and a first ever victory to Nicole Conway, closely followed by Henry "is it time yet" Randell.

Everyone caught fish which is always a good thing,congratulation to Mathew on his first match and managing a great joint 4th place with John Neave, full results are listed below.

As there is no official match over May bank holiday weekend, the next match at Cley should produce Smoothhound and the better sized Bass, we can only hope.

Current Standing in the Summer Accumulator have also been added to the league table page, please click the link in the menu for current standings.

Match Results

Results

1st: Nicole Conway 10 fish for 2lb 11 1/3oz

2nd: Henry Randell 10 fish for 2lb 0oz

3rd: Dene Conway 6 fish for 1lb 13 2/3oz

=4th: Mathew Lawes 6 fish for 1lb 2 2/3oz

=4th: John Neave 4 fish for 1lb 2 2/3oz

6th: Sam Attew 4 fish for 1lb 1 1/3oz

7th: Peter Loke 4 fish for 0lb 15 2/3oz

8th: Tony Thomas 4 fish for 0.12 1/3oz

= 9th: Ray Ward 3 fish for 0.11 2/3oz

=9th: Richard Ives 2 fish for 0.11 2/3 oz

11th: Robert Ford 2 fish for 0.11oz

HSAC Cley April 19th

By Robert Ford & Dene Conway

This week’s match was at Cley and before I begin talking about the monsters of the deep and the one that got away, the club would like to thank the Norfolk Wildlife Trust – Cley for using their car park. A much more pleasant experience compared to last time we used this part of the world. The weather wasn’t great but I have seen it worse. It was a cloudy day with a south-south easterly breeze coming of the sea taking the temperature down with it. Some of the passes by uttered words like “winter” and “freezing” most anglers would have said simply “fresh”.

In the car park before kick off the notion of a good size bass was possible with a good chop on the water. Would it be a walk to the wreck or off to Tony’s hot spot on the left. Many of us hadn’t put any thought into it at all because today’s fixture clashed with derby day. Norwich needed to get at least a point from the Suffolk mob and just before half time the ref gave a controversial penalty to Ipswich which put them 2-1 up. Mean while back to the fishing the hunt for a good size bass carried on. After the first hour things looked promising, with a fish every chuck if it was sizeable or not is a different story. There had to be a few sizeable bass behind the waves and guess who caught the first one… Yep you guessed it, Nicole Conway. She managed to show us how it is done. With a 20-30 yards cast and a bit of rag she poached a 38cm bass right under Dene’s nose. A huge cheer went up across the beach as she wound down to the start of her rig and lifted the bar of silver high in the air for all to see. She clamed that she didn’t want to drag it across the shingle but I think she was just showing off.

Once the excitement of Nicole’s fish had died down the tide stopped running and so did the fish. Also the news that Norwich lost 3-2 helped to deflate sprits too. Crabs were out in force cleaning baits off hooks in minutes. Again tipping off with some fish bait helped to keep the worm on the hook. It didn’t really matter because fish just weren’t there. As soon as the tide started to pull again the fish came back on. Lots of basslets 20-30cm long grabbing baits on the way in. It was nice to see lots of them about, is it a sign of things to come?

The day went to Tony "Yoda" Thomas with an impressive score card, 17 fish mainly dabs with a 38cm bass. Second was John Neave and 3rd was Conway. That’s Mrs Conway I might add.4th place went to myself Robert Ford and I must say i tried very hard to catch Nicole but she is always one step ahead of me, and about two mile ahead of Dene, one day maybe I will win a match….
Back on home turf next week and until then…keeeeeeeep fishing!

HSAC Salthouse April 5th

By Robert Ford & Dene Conway

After the excitement from last week’s match many of us had high hopes. Ok we know that there wouldn’t be as many codling on the beach, if any, but spirits were high.

There was an amazing turn out this week with 15 anglers wetting their lines, including an angler known to us all but new to the club Peter "Baglady" Simmons watch out for this man on the beaches and throw him some pennies…The feeling was that if you could find a flounder or two, you would be sure to be in with a chance.

With this in mind most anglers headed to the left from the car park. However John and Sam both headed to the right where there is slightly deeper water.

The matched seemed to drag this week because the fish were few and far between and the crabs were ravenous. 7-10 minutes between casts would be long enough for the crabs to strip your bait.

Adding fish baits to tip off lug helped to slow down the onslaught. Also letting the lead roll in the tide kept the bait on the hook a bit longer. This also allowed your bait to find the gullies; whether they held fish was a different matter.

After the recent blow ups and rough seas there is such a steep shelf just off shore which tested leader knots and gear. When the tide dropped the water showed just how far out it was. From the high water mark if you cast 40 yards you would have cast too far. Mr Thomas utilised this by casting two hooks on a rolling lead about 80 yards up tide and then clipping on a 3rd hook with rolling carp leads to his main line and letting it side out 20-30 yards in search of a few fish by the shelf. A very effective method that is used in Ireland a lot.

It managed to get him 2nd place with 1lb 11oz. But the day went to Collin Howard who found the gullies straight off and pulled out 2lb6oz of dabs, whiting and pouts. Oh yes I almost forgot, Mrs Conway showed Mr Conway how it was done again, well done Nicole and keep it up!!

The results

1st: Colin Howard 11 fish for 2lb 6 2/3oz
2nd: Tony Thomas 9 fish for 1lb 13 1/3oz
3rd: Peter Simmons 5 fish for 1lb 6oz
4th Peter Loke 4 fish for 1lb 2 1/3oz
5th Robert Ford 5 fish for 1lb 1 2/3oz
6th Ray Ward 2 fish for 0.11 1/3oz
7th Nicole Conway 3 fish for 0.8 2/3oz
8th Richard Ives 2 fish for 0.8oz
=9th Dene Conway 2 fish for 0.4 2/3oz
=9th John Neave 1 fish for 0.4 2/3oz
11th Henry Randell 2 fish for 0.4 1/3oz
12th Tim Hunt 1 fish for 0.2 1/3oz
13th Sam Attew 1 fish for 0.2oz
2 members blanked

HSAC Trimmingham March 29th

By Robert Ford & Dene Conway

After a week of strong Easterly winds we were concerned if the venue was even fishable. If it wasn’t then try Weybourne or Kelling. Trimmingham is one of the types of places you don’t want the swell to be to big because you won’t be able to get on the beach. Even if you can, you still have to cast well into the horizon to even to get a sniff of a fish. The aim was to hit the gullies that lie about 50-60 yards off the ends of the groins. Hope that a few spring codling are still about and the weed wasn’t going to destroy the fishing.

We arrived about half way down on the afternoon tide and the beach was starting to fill up with pleasure anglers. There was a good swell on the water which created a little white water but also helped to show up the gullies.

The first few casts were difficult to hold bottom with the tide ripping though and some weed going with it.

It seemed that the majority of the weed was in the breakers and if you left your line in them it would soon look like a washing line and be pulling your gear on the beach.

One usual Lucky HSAC angler, Golden Bollox’s, managed to hold bottom on the first cast and was rewarded with a 39 cm codling.He managed to hold bottom on his next two casts and was rewarded for them as well, yes, more codling and bigger ones at that – the largest 50cm codling. So at the end of the first hour Mr Ives was 6lb odd up on the rest of us.

As the matched progressed, reports that John Neave had also achieved a similar looking score card filtered through but he was 1oz behind golden bollox’s. At this point our thoughts turned to Mr Thomas who had gone way left from the car park, as you see from the results he just went for a nice walk.

Meanwhile I had landed my first codling at 47cm and had great enjoyment parading it round the Conway HQ further down the beach. A little while later I was pulling in my second 47cm codling when I heard a scream from Conway HQ, well Mrs (I will show you how its done dear) Conway pulled in a 49cm codling. She also took great pleasure in telling me “mine is bigger than yours”. After asking members of the public to wind are-sole man up I thought that picture of him would sum up his day… cheesed off or what!

But good things come to those who wait and Dene managed to pull in a codling the same size as his wife. To mine and every one else enjoyment Nicole only went and pulled in a second. What’s that I hear you say Dene, “I must be a good teacher!”

Meanwhile Richard Ives had lost a few sets of gear (so had a few other club members) and a couple more codling in the surf but managed to land one more before the day was done. When we got back to the cars and weighed in it was 1-2/3oz that separated Richard and John with four codling each, I was third with two codling and a rocking and fourth place who else… Mrs Conway with two codling.

An excellent day for all with good numbers of codling and it made a change from one or two dabs. I very much doubt that next week is going to be the same but there is no harm in trying… until next time fishing fans.

The results

1st: Richard Ives 4 fish for 8lb 1 2/3oz
2nd: John Neave 4 fish for 8lb 2/3oz
3rd: Robert Ford 3 fish for 4lb 8 2/3oz
4th Nicole Conway 2 fish for 3lb 13 1/3oz
5th Russell Barber 2 fish for 2lb 10 1/3oz
6th Dene Conway 1 fish for 2lb 6 2/3oz
7th Colin Howard 1 fish for 1lb 8 2/3oz
8th Tony Thomas 1 fish for 0.4 oz
9th Henry Randell 1 fish for 0.2 2/3oz
3 members blanked

HSAC – Presentation Night 13th March 2009

This year’s presentation evening, the club went for a more formal event instead of our usual trip to the pub. We kept to tradition holding the event at the Dunn Cow, Salthouse. We were not wrong to do so as the food and hospitality were excellent and the club recommends the pub to all readers and followers.

We were happy to have around thirty members and guests attending the prestige’s event. The club was also honoured by Roy Waller’s daughter, Jayne, to hand out our trophies. As many of you are aware, Roy Waller sadly passed away at the being of the 08-09 season. He was an honouree member whose devotion to the club was second to none. To this day we still hold our committee meetings at his house. In honour of his memory the club included a match and trophy to the 08-09 fixtures list.

As the phrase goes “pictures paint a thousand words” and a good night was had by all… Please see pics.

The results for the season are below

TROPHY 2008 / 2009 WINNER

SUMMER ACCUMULATOR : R.IVES

KEN BROWN CUP : R.IVES

COCKADAY CUP : R.WARD

MATHEWS CUP : J.NEAVE

SID ERNIE R.IVES

NELSON CUP : S.ATTEW

MACK CUP : T.CHIDWICK

WOODWARD CUP : T.THOMAS

FOREMAN CUP : H.RANDELL

PRESIDENTS CUP : J.NEAVE

J.LONG SHIELD : R.IVES

PAIRS SHIELD : H.RANDELL / R.WARD

JANET WALLER CUP : T.THOMAS

LLOYD DURHAM SHIELD : R.IVES

BUMPHREY SHIELD : T.THOMAS

NELSON SHIELD : T.THOMAS

NITE SHIELD : T.THOMAS

WINTER ACCUMULATOR : T.THOMAS

MOST FISH : T.THOMAS 25 fish Trimmingham

COD CUP : B.THOMPSON 2lb 4 2/3oz

SPECIMEN SHIELD : T.THOMAS Flounder 1lb 4oz

BIGGEST ROUND : R.IVES Bass 3lb 0 2/3oz

JUNIOR CUP : H.RANDELL

ROY WALLER MEMORIAL : T.CHIDWICK

OVERALL POINTS : R.IVES

HSAC – Sheringham 22/03/2009

Our first match of the summer season kicked off at Sheringham. There was a good turn out from the old faithful considering it was also mother’s day, Oops happy mother’s day mum. With that said the sun was shining and the sea was the colour of mud but it was a small tide.

We arrived and got setup just as the tide started coming up. With the bulk of the anglers heading towards the life boat station and just beyond. Some of the more “extreme” anglers, do we really need to mention names by now, headed to old high. First thoughts were that we would all be hunting for the same flattie, and for most of the match that feeling was right.

About two hours into the match there was a flurry of activity with small basslets, slugs and flatties coming out quick and fast. Some of the luckier chaps managed something a bit special Dene “Smooth” Conway now re-named “are-soleman” pulled in a stonking Sole just short of a pound and also added 3 Rockling to his tally. Not forgetting Richard “Golden Bollox” Ives found a lone codling somewhere near Scotland I think which won him the match.

Our only female member competing today Nicole “Ow my finger” Conway managed 2 fish which was better than some of the blokes did. Peter Loke who also walked the distance with TT and Richard was rewarded with 3 fish to claim 3rd spot and 4th place went to that man again Tony “Yoda” Thomas.

Back to mother’s day I had to leave early to cook mum a meal so missed the last hour when another flurry of fished showed. Well from what I understand slugs and small flatties which all count as the club has reduced the size limits for flatties to 18cm, thank god other wise there would have been a few blanks.

Not what you want at the start of a new season, also with the new points system in place the whole competition is wide open. I know it’s only the first match but you get the general idea.

Well here is to next weeks match, Trimmingham, and fingers crossed the weather gets better for Sunday. Stay tuned fishing fans.

The results

1st: Richard Ives 1 fish for 1lb 14 2/3oz

2nd: Dene Conway 4 fish for 1lb 4 2/3oz

3rd: Peter Loke 3 fish for 0.14 2/3oz

4th Tony Thomas 2 fish for 0.10oz

5th Henry Randell 2 fish for 0.6 2/3oz

6th John Neave 2 fish for 0.4 1/3

=7th Nicole Conway fish for 0.3 1/3oz

=7th Ian Gedney 1 fish for 0.3 1/3oz

9th Ray ward 1 fish for 0.3oz

=10th Colin Howard 1 fsh for 0.2 1/3oz

=10th Robert Ford 1 fish for 0.2 1/3oz