We traditionally fish this club competition between Christmas and the New Year (I’m told the new term for this is Twixmas), for the largest singe cod, or whiting. Boat caught, winner takes all. Well, these are our rules and we can change them if we like so we did. This has always been a social event and this year it became more social then ever, because the weather was awful and everyone wanted the social event anyway. Rather than postpone, we decided to fish the event in and around the marina and cod being unlikely, the prize would go to the most fish caught.

Colds, Covid and family pressures had depleted our expected lineup but despite that, 12 hardy anglers braved wind, rain and lack of worms to fish for four hours for the Mandela Cup. Some decided to snuggle down in the shelter of their cockpits, others risked a wetting and lost hats to fish from the holding pontoon and marina shores. After a few false starts involving crabs, Dan set the hare running with a surprisingly decent wrasse. Ray challenged with a bass that must have hatched yesterday, Pete found another wrasse hiding under the pontoon and Luke scored with a bass that wasn’t at all bad for a marina catch.

The result was a neat tie for all four, sharing the prize pool of £30 which must have lasted all of one round in the bar. After the celebrations, there had been a plan to continue to a curry venue but history doesn’t record whether that actually happened. Anyway, congratulations to all those who fished and well done the winners. Hopefully we can get back to boat fishing and cod chasing with the postponed Open Cod Competition in January.