Last Sunday, Tenby and District Anglling Club staged its annual Beach Fishing Festival which attracted 112 entrants from all over South Wales and the West Country (writes Neville Andrews).

For this year, the venues were both Tenby beaches, North and South, and a good windy blow the previous day had stirred the sea up a little in readiness.

With a civilised start time of 12.30, the committee were primed to run a slick event as usual and had been considerably helped by local tackle shops, Tenby Angling, West Wales Angling, Pembrokeshire Tackle Terminal and Anglers Corner in accepting advanced entries for the match.

The forecast for the day suggested that we would have largely dry weather for the duration, but with the prospect of heavy rain starting after the end of the match. For once the forecast was pretty accurate. Early reports during the day indicated that flounders, gurnards and dabs were appearing in anglers' buckets and there was also an early rumour of a spotted ray.

As the match progressed, catches could be best described as 'slow', but to add to the interest, reports were being received of a small conger eel being landed by the pipe on the South.

Promptly at 5.30 pm, the anglers reeled in and the catch was rapidly weighed in by the club committee men. After the scales closed at 6.15 pm, it remained a close run thing between the spotted ray caught by Chris Stephens from Bridgend and the conger eel landed by Brian Kilsby from Newcastle Emlyn, with the ray ultimately triumphant by a mere 112 grams!

Local junior Archie John came ninth overall and took a rod as best junior.

In addition to the £600 first prize 'trousered' by Chris Stephens, a further £500 was paid out in cash down to fifth place. Those anglers finishing sixth to 10th also won a selection of fishing prizes to recognise their success.

Full results were: 1. Chris Stephens, Spotted Ray, 1.541 kg; 2. Brian Kilsby, Conger 1.429 kg; 3. Gareth Boyle, flounder, 0.519 kg; 4. Frank Routen, Flounder, 0.456 kg; 5. Barry Taylor, Flounder 0.430 kg; 6. Ben McDonnell, Flounder, 0.339 kg; 7. Alan Omar, Dab, 0.322 kg; 8. G Thorne, Flounder, 0.287 kg; 9. Archie John (Junior), Flounder, 0.271 kg; 10. Karl Boyle, Flounder, 0.266 kg.

Heaviest flatfish was caught by Thomas Eynon, who bagged himself a £100 prize, and three stewards chosen at random received Tesco vouchers as thanks for helping to make the event a success. It would also be wrong not to comment on the fact that three Tenby committee members featured in the top 10 and they were father and son duo, Karl and Gareth Boyle, and the club's senior vice-president, Barry Taylor. Well done chaps!

Finally, the club's thanks go to Roy for acting as 'MC', Mand for selling the raffle tickets and to the Ex-Servicemen's Club for acting as our HQ on the day. In addition to their support in taking advance entries in the run up to the match, West Wales Angling, with their very welcome donation of a quality fishing rod, Anglers' Corner with their kind donation of seat box accessories and Pembrokeshire Tackle Terminal with their generous donation of tackle vouchers, all helped to make the post-match raffle a success, together with the infamous 'cheese'.

A full club match catch-up report will be in next week's 'instalment'! Further info on the club and its activities at any time from Nev on 07500 417737..