Launched with Pete from Baiter where Bob was sat as official observer. Well, in fact launched twice! I'm sure I'm not the only person to forget the bung! Had a problem booking in on the radio; either a technical fault or a personal one. Whichever, this should be put right when I do my radio course next month. Whisper upbraided me when I made contact so we're probably not registered for the match. No problem.
Tried drifting the Swash first but nothing doing and a lot of weed about. Tried another couple of spots before arriving at the bream grounds, along with everybody else. First cast, Pete had what I think is the biggest garfish either of us has ever seen. I believe he was considering having it stuffed and mounted but decided to put it back to grow bigger, always the optimist. We next both contacted at the same time, me with a very respectable mackerel (nice to see them turning up) and Pete with a bream about 2lb. Needless to say, they became tangled up but after some technical un-knitting, both were landed. Things then went quiet so we decidided to finish with a drift (as we were going that way) and Pete managed a small pollock. After that, it was plain sailing back to baiter with a recovery that we were very proud of. Almost like proper boaters do.
Two things impressed us on the day. 1) Using the alderney ring retrieval method for the first time on my boat which was a great success (thanx to Martin) and
2) circle and half circle hooks. The really do hook around the lips every time. We used size 2 semi circle for bream; about right?
A good day, despite the dull weather and slightly lumpy sea. We're looking forward to the next one.