Following Sharkbyte's excellent results in the recent Guernsey Bass festival I thought you lot might be interested in the competition being run over the weekend of the 19th-22nd August by the Guernsey Bass Anglers Sportfishing Society.

Full details are here.(PDF format, you'll need acrobat reader)

Basically there are 2 sections, shore & boat, you can enter one or both. Prizes are awarded for the top 3 heaviest bass, ladies, junior & visitor in each section. Ladies, Juniors and Visitors are eligible to win the top 3 prizes as well. There are 2 weigh-ins each day (9am, 6:30pm), fish may be kept alive & returned if you have the means to do so. Registration is 6-8pm on Friday night, you can register at any of the weigh-ins too. There is a minimum size limit of ~50cm, Top prize in each section is £500 and a bonus prize of £3k for breaking the shore record of 18-6-5. You're likely to need a fish of 8lb+ to win either of the sections assuming the weather is reasonable. The boat section may not be worth entering as I will be winning it.

[ 05. August 2005, 01:46 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

Looks good Toerag.

BTW - if you (anyone) need to read .pdf files, may I suggest/recommend Foxit rather than the adobe product.

Foxit is small (reader download is less than 1Mb rather than the 27Mb for Adobe), faster, works on older OS versions, and is also free. I have to open around a dozen .pdf files at work every day and have been very happy with my switch to Foxit.

Watch out for Henry. He`ll be on Guernsey this month.

Henry Gilbey? I know Ed Schliffke is coming over.

quote:

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The boat section may not be worth entering as I will be winning it.

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That sounds like fighting talk Toerag

PS. The flights are now booked, so you may have to move a step down the podium. There's no shame in second place, some of the best anglers I know have come second in the Bass Comp.

I may have spoken too soon as I broke my boat today!
My mate and I decided to go and fish in the lee of Alderney as it was pretty lumpy with wind against tide, then move offshore when the tide changed. We'd been pottering around the bottom of the cliffs for a bit when I noticed some water on the cabin floor, which is normal if it's been raining, but not on a hot sunny day. Closer inspection revealed a small bulge in the fibreglass on one of the chines which was split and weeping seawater with every wave. My mate went for a swim to see what the external damage was, and a 3" long strip of gelcoat had been knocked/gouged out exposing the fibreglass underneath. We'd obviously hit a floating object on our way up to Alderney without realising it as it was so rough. The leak was so slow that we decided to wait for the tide to turn and flatten off the sea before returning to Guernsey and beaching her on the last of the dropping tide. Luckily my dad had some 'plastic padding' car body filler kicking round in his shed so we cleaned the gash with freshwater, dried it as best we could and slapped some plastic padding on inside and out which has stopped the leak. Unfortunately it's going to need a proper structural repair and I don't know when I can get it done by.
I've got some photos of the external damage and will post them up sometime during the week.

[ 07. August 2005, 09:45 PM: Message edited by: Toerag ]

Sharkbyte,

can you explain a bit about how you kept that fish alive ? you mentioned a carp sack ???

if i can C&R, i will enter - as its about time a flyfisher won it

Mark.

Bad luck Toerag, I'm hoping all that talk about winning isn't behind it. I've bought a puncture repair kit just incase. Hope you get sorted for the comp.

Hi Mark, we bought a new mesh style carp sack just before we flew over to retain any decent fish. It has a full length zip and a couple of cords to tie it off to the side of the boat. It worked very well and the fish seemed happy enough for the couple of hours or so it was in there. The plan was to stay out all night until the morning weighin but as the weather was so miserable and we hadn't the room to pack our flotation suits on the way over we had to head in. We considered tieing off the carp sack on the anchor and buoy for the night but knowing my luck some swine would have pinched it and knocked it on the head. Instead Dad went back for a reasonably large blue plastic barrel he had, this we filled with water and fitted a couple of pumps and aerators to. The fish stayed in there for around 6 hours or so until the weighin and was fine apart from being a little gassed up. I held the fish for going on 10 minutes when we released her to make sure she was ready and she swam away strongly not pausing and bolt upright the whole time.
Russ videod the release which was quite amusing as when she swam out after a lap of honour she crossed paths with a swimmer who nearly died of fright confronted with over 10lbs of bass in his face.

Do they still give £250 for funny videos on that TV show?

I believe you can C&R in any Guernsey competitions should you so desire, and quite often people weigh in live mullet in the fur & feather to be returned. The only problem you have is keeping them alive until weigh-in time.

Sharkbyte - You're going to come second again, my boat's fixed now.