The latest North West Sea Angling League competition was held at the famous flounder venue, Port Carlisle. For many years, catches at the venue comprised solely of flounders, with the odd eel thrown in. In recent years, however, possibly due to global warming, other species are being caught.

Nearly twenty years ago, Workington anglers, father and son Paul and Daniel Kirkbride, showed me a photograph of a tuna fish caught in a Haaf Net at Port Carlisle by a relative who lived in the village. Link to: Haaf Net Fishing. If I hadn’t seen the photograph, I wouldn’t have believed them!

In the past few years, there have been the odd dogfish, whiting, and last year, just round the corner from Port Carlisle at Drumburgh, an angler from the north east of England caught a red mullet over 2 pounds in weight!

It has also been great to see the increase in the number of that iconic fish, the bass, being caught. The first one I saw caught at Port Carlisle in a league match around 15 years ago was by local match angler Stephen Smith from Whitehaven. Since then, the numbers have increased, but generally, only school bass in the 1 -3 pounds region. So on Saturday, it was fantastic to see North East angler Gav Owen land a great fish measuring 66cm in length, which is estimated to weigh 7-8 pounds. Commendably, Gav returned the fish alive to breed in future years.

Gav also had a nice-sized flounder on his second hook of 39cm!

Gav went on to catch another bass at 46cm, 12 flounders, and an eel for a bag of 15 fish measuring 494cm in length. Gav won the match, beating the other 23 anglers, giving an exhibition on how to fish an end peg.

Dave Cooper finished in second place with a fine bag of 12 fish for 312cm in length, and Wayne Stephenson finished in third place with 9 fish for 230cm.

The overall final results can be seen below:

The total of fish caught by species was:

Flounders x 121

Bass x 2

Eels x 2