FOR the second year running the England boat angling squad have taken the Gold medal at the Home International Boat Angling Championships.
This year’s hosts were Wales with the fishing from Milford Haven. There were five members fishing from each of the four countries, with two boats carrying eight anglers and one boat carrying four.
Because of the way the anglers are split between the three boats it was vital for the single team member on the four-man boat to win, but equally important for the two team members on the eight-man boats to have a higher combined score than their fellow competitors.
England started the match in fine form with Ray Barron taking the maximum 100 points on the first day to win the four-man boat. But that was only the start as the England partnership of Dave Shay and Ray Ashby managed a combined score of 171.60 points to take the top spot on their boat. Richard Russell and Steve Clements then went on to make it a clean sweep of the first day’s proceedings with a boat winning score of 171.05 points.
Team manager Neil Bryant was overjoyed with the first day’s results and decided that the anglers would all fish the same boats on day two. This proved to be the correct decision as the results were repeated and England retained their gold medal with a total team score of 894 points. Ray Barron was also the only angler to take the maximum 100 points on both days of the competition.


The gold medal winning team: (Top row – left to right) Richard Russell, Ray Ashby, Steve Clements and Ray Barron. (Bottom row – left to right) Steve Spencer, Neil Bryant (manager) and David Shay.

Scotland scraped themselves into the Silver position with 754 points, just one point above Wales who took Bronze with 753 points. Ireland fought hard, but finished with 625 points for the Dark Bronze medal.
As usual the competition was fished with a friendly atmosphere and the hosts Wales did everyone proud with an excellent hotel and fantastic fishing.
The England team were once again sponsored by YYS International and were supplied with the new Maxximus sensor Interchangeable Multi-tip, rods, which turned out to be excellent tools for the targeted species of pollack, wrasse and cod.
Picture supplied by David Rees.

Full Results

Gold – England
                               Day 1        Day2            Total
1 Ray Ashby             76.54           88.68              165.22
2 Ray Barron            100.00        100.00             200.00
3 Steve Clements      96.05          80.26              176.31
4 Richard Russell       75.00          100.00             175.00
5 Dave Shay              95.06          83.02               178.08
Day Totals          442.65      451.96         894.61

Silver – Scotland
                               Day 1        Day 2        Total
1 Alan Bell                38.27           68.42            106.69
2 Joe Connelly          65.79            58.49            124.28
3 Scott Gibson        100.00           77.63            177.63
4 Pete Redshaw        90.79           100.00          190.79
5 Hugh Smith           68.13            86.75            154.88
Day Totals          362.98       391.29      754.27

Bronze – Wales
                           Day 1        Day 2        Total
1 Gwyn Andrews          85.63           86.75           172.38
2 Bill Brunton               55.26          77.36            132.62
3 Stan Kucyj                82.72          77.63             60.35
4 Gethyn Owen            100.00         67.92             167.92
5 Alan Reid                  66.67          53.95             120.62
Day Totals             390.28     363.61        753.89

Dark Bronze – Ireland
                                Day 1        Day 2         Total
1 Kitt Dunne              97.37           79.52             176.89
2 Ken Haggerty          54.37           71.05             125.42
3 Tony Lally               67.11           47.37             114.48
4 Des O’Connell          56.79            47.17             103.96
5 Brian Smith            55.56            49.06             104.62
Day Totals           331.20        294.17       625.37


Darren Taylor – Deputy Editor
Total Sea Fishing Magazine