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Wednesday, November 05, 2008, 07:00
Relatively few achieve the distinction in years of endeavour at marks around a Plymouth shoreline considered to be among the most productive on the English Channel coast.
Last year, Shane Barton joined the big fish elite with an eel of 52lbs taken at Devil's Point, the most famous mark of all.
Since then he has had a number of fish above the British Conger Club's specimen weight in the shore category of 25lbs, in itself a standard by no means easy to attain.
Last week, a return to Devil's Point produced a second '50' and this puts him into a very exclusive group. One more in the class would bring him up to the level of Rodbenders' Peter Fulton, considered to be the most successful of all shore conger hunters.
Micky Birks, of Ivybridge, won the British Casting Championships held at Huntingdon Race Course after qualifying for the final at three previous events.
He finished a single point ahead of Torquay's Andy Copping and South Wales' Chris Brayley. The British event was fished on the same day as the United Kingdom Surf Fishing Masters' Final.
Belgium's Danny Moeskops, who is the world champion, had no difficulty overcoming the opposition and sent a 150 gram weight 255 metres against the 241 of the runner up, Scotland's Ian Graham and the 239 of Chris Brayley.
Ivybridge's Birks was a very creditable fourth with a distance of 236.
Tony Vallack of the Specimen Angling Group, fished successfully with live prawn for thornback ray from his own small boat anchored in the Cattewater and had several, the best weighing 11lbs 8ozs.
The identity of the NFSA will be swallowed up on January 1 when it becomes part of the Anglers' Trust, an umbrella organisation made up of four of the country's biggest freshwater associations and the NFSA.
It will have a legal arm entitled Fish Legal and this will take over from the government body Sport England responsibility for coarse, game, and sea fishing in England.
It will involve running all the national and international competitions and investing in angling development and education programmes.
The strong organisation will use its powerful voice to campaign and lobby government and other decision makers on all issues that effect anglers in the various disciplines of the sport.
Each of the participating organisations will nominate a board member.
It is not yet known who will represent sea angling or what the future of the NFSA Divisions such as the South West's Wyvern will be.
Membership rates of the Trust have been announced and these range from £50 for clubs with 50 members and under to £250 for those with a minimum of 1,000.
The cost of joining Fish Legal will be £55 for smaller clubs, but those with 1,000 or more members will be charged £600.
Members of the Trust will be enrolled in a card loyalty programme called Fish 4 Free that will earn points on purchases made at a number of high street stores and some on-line retailers.
The resulting cash can be spent on such as fishing permits, tackle and the annual season rod license.
The NFSA offices at Buckfastleigh are to close, but I understand that a smaller unit is likely to come into being. Where it will be, who will man it and at what cost, has yet to be decided.
The NFSA will be dramatically outweighed by the freshwater organisations and it will need a very strong sea angling director if it is to get a fair crack of the whip.
Sea angling experiences far more problems, not least netting in inshore waters, and it is to be hoped the Anglers' Trust will use its weight to put an end to such practice.
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