Sainsbury's & Pascall Atkey Sponsored Open Cod Competition 2013

Senior officers of BAC were faced with a difficult decision on the Saturday morning as to whether to go ahead with the open competition on the Sunday. Conflicting forecasts ranged between F4 & F6 but all were giving winds coming from the northwest. It was finally concluded that sufficient sheltered waters could be found in the lea of land to allow most boats to participate so the decision was reached that the competition would go ahead.

 Despite the far from perfect forecasts and an unfortunate error in the press, a very pleasing 76 members & guests eventually signed on. Conditions on the day proved quite challenging with uncomfortable beam on seas being experienced for all but the last hour or so of the competition.

Whilst there were fairly widespread reports of Conger eels being caught, captures of Cod were very localised with numbers of boats totally blanking.
That said, 24 of the competitors managed to weigh in a total of 30 Cod.

Heaviest bags of Cod:-
1st Matt Porter    32lb 3 1/2 oz (3 Cod) : £250 Sponsored By Sainsburys
2nd Matt James  21lb 9 oz (1 Cod): £150 sponsored by Pascall Atkey (£100) & BAC
3rd David Gawn  21lb 8 1/2 oz (2 Cod) : £100 sponsored by Nick Challen
4th Joe Filipe      19lb 12 oz (2 Cod) :   choice of prize table (values up to £150)  

Matt Porter & Dave Peach’s combined total weight of 48lb 12 oz won them the pairs prize of £25 each sponsored by members Ross Staplehurst & Dave Gawn

Matt James’ single Cod of 21lb 9 oz was good enough to take the heaviest single Cod prize of a rod donated by Des Westmore

Every subsequent heaviest bag of Cod brought to the scales resulted a prize from an excellent prize table that included several items donated by Pascall Atkey that were valued at over £50.

BAC thanks to everyone that supported the competition with special thanks to non- club members who entered.

Many thanks also to all our kind sponsors plus Scotties & East Cowes Tackle for collecting advance entries.

Thanks also to Kev Basham / IW County Press for publicity ( despite the last minute hiccup).

Matt Porter receiving first prize of £250 sponsored by Sainsbury’s

Matt James receiving second prize of £150 sponsored by Pascall Atkey & BAC

Dave Gawn receiving Third prize of £100 sponsored by Nick Challen

Dave Peach & Matt Porter receiving Pairs Heaviest Bag Prize of £25 each sponsored by members Ross Staplehurst & Dave Gawn

Excellent array of prizes for 4^th place all the way down to the lowest bag weighed in such that everyone who weighed in got a prize.