12th & 13th April
1st - Derek Yuille
2nd - Scott Gibson
3rd - Hughie Smith
Full individual results in pdf format available here and pairs here.
29 of Scotland’s top match anglers converged on the port of Scrabster on the 12th and 13th of April to fish the catch and release Caithness Open Boat Championships.
The event is normally fished in May but due to boat booking problems and other competition commitments the local club decided to bring the event forward into April. Unfortunately a combination of late spawning by the cod and north to north easterly winds kept the catches down on past years.
Day one started with a blow from the north east which meant that the three boats chartered, Hebridean Warrior, Silverline and Stromdrift, were limited to fishing the west and south sides of Dunnet Head. Generally lures fished better than bait for most anglers due to the lack of cod and pollack to 3kg made up most of the catches. Some anglers did find codling to 2kg and a sprinkling of ballan and cuckoo wrasse made up the rest of the catches.
Thurso angler Derek Yuille lead the first day with 19 fish for 111 points, other Saturday boat winners were Scott Gibson and Hughie Smith, both from Glasgow.
The Sunday saw the wind swinging to the north and the boats were even more limited in the available safe fishing areas and the majority of the day was spent drifting the south side of Dunnet.
Catches on this lure only day were down on the first day although pollack to 4kg and cod to 3kg were landed. The majority of the anglers fished flowing traces due to the lack of cod.
Derek again fished well to win his boat for the second day with 16 fish for 82 points beating Greenock’s Alister Robertson on the boat percentage count back system intoduced for the first time this year. The third boat was won by local David Proudfoot who recovered from a disasterous, two fish first day.
Interestingly a few mackerel were landed over the weekend, very early for these to show this far north.
Heaviest cod of the two days was a 2.9kg fish landed by Eddie Hughes of Inverness.
Derek’s double boat win meant he was a clear winner over the two days and good results for Scott and Hughie saw them finish second and third respectively.
Scott and Hughie also picked up first prize in the pairs with Derek and David taking runner’s up spot. Edinburgh’s Stevie Burns and Steve Souter finished in third.
The competition was tough over the two days with several former winners finding it hard to get into their normal fish catching mode. It’s likely that the organisers will switch the event to a later date next year.