This year’s Angling Trust Personal Members Boat Championship took place in Weymouth from 12th – 13th October with 24 top anglers taking part including most of the current World and Home Nation teams and two juniors.
The weather was force 6-7 North Easterly winds, in many ports the boats would have never ventured to sea, but with the lay of the land you can get out from Weymouth although areas were restricted. The anglers were pleasantly surprised with the amount of species caught with 17 different species landed over the two days.
Day 1 saw a close battle between the anglers with Steve Bachelor scoring 130 points followed by Cliff Newbold with 123 points.
Day 2 saw slightly better conditions with the boats able to fish the famous Shambles bank and it was nice to see some quality Plaice to 5 lb being caught and returned alive. Colin Searles won day two with a fantastic sore of 176 fish points with Rolf Marchalek runner up on 156 fish points.
As the score system is run on the 100% rule this really changed the top 3 anglers. When the results were completed the overall winners were as follows;-
1st Rolf Marchalek Norwich 183%
2nd Colin Searles Southampton 176%
3rd Cliff Newbold Portsmouth 171%
2 man open winners were Steve Bachelor and Colin Searles
4 man open winners were Steve Bachelor, Pete Bailey, Cliff Newbold, Rolf Marschalek
4 man Drawn winners were Gareth Croft, Ryan Casey, Cliff Newbold, Mike Lelliot
It was nice to see two juniors fishing, Ryan Casey from Weymouth came a very credible 6th place beating many top anglers. The other junior was Nina Frapple from Shepton Mallett who is only 13, and fishing her first ever boat competition to finish 17th. Both juniors are members of Weymouth Angling Society and they did very well fishing in very difficult conditions.
The Angling Trust would like to express their appreciation to the sponsors of the event Ammo Baits, Sakuma, and Weymouth Angling Centre.
