This year's Pontin's Fishing Festival went well with over 300 people on site over the week. This unique and relaxed festival has been running for over 32 years and covers sea and coarse angling, with sea anglers fishing the pier at Gorleston and Lowestoft South Pier, the beach at Pakefield and Pontin's or on boats from Lowestoft.
Both events are run over 4 days and the coarse angling event is fished on Barford Lakes' venues with one match on the awesome river Yare.
This year's festival saw guest anglers invited for evening
workshops which for the coarse anglers included Mark Pollard from Fox Match with a Pellet waggler demonstration along with showing off their full range of FX rods.
Fox Match also kindly donated a £160 FX Pellet Waggler rod which was given away on a prize draw for anglers buying Fox products in Barford Tackle's on site shop. The rod was won by John Lowe who now only has the battle with his wife Jo as to who will use it!
Nick Larkin (Nisa Feeders) gave a talk on the River Yare which can be a bit of a daunting prospect for those who haven't seen it. His informative talk covered all feeder and pole feeder tactics needed to fish the river and indeed one angler, Dave Baptist who attended the talk used his information to good use and went and won the river with 25lb (albeit half on his own tactics and half using Nick's advice). Dave won a Fox Match FX 10 - 11' feeder rod for his efforts.
Steve Hopkinson from Tri-Cast came along with Mark Saywer from Angling Times and showed off their excellent new pole range and rods. It was a great opportunity for anglers to see how light their new top range 16mtr poles really are. The cast the feeder into the groundbait bowl and catapult game was a good fun - although the less said about that the better (disappearing feeders Mr Horey and the power one catapult can bring Mr Powell!)
Other prize draws over the week were supported by Dynamite Baits who donated a case of groundbait and thanks too to Daiwa who donated a £100 sea reel. It all added to what was a great festival.
For the sea anglers we had Kevin Southey from Topline Angling attend on the Saturday and he gave free beach casting tuition which helped the anglers in attendance add distance to their cast. We had some excellent feedback from this and all the anglers who attended got something out of it -whether it was distance or better technique - especially form one angler who's arthritic shoulder had stopped him casting - Kev showed him a new way to cast and that's brought life back into his sea angling.
There was also a fish filleting demo from a local chef Andre McMannus and we were shown how to make the perfect beer batter and an awesome homemade Tartare sauce which went down very well! With some shop bought fish but mostly cooked with fresh fish caught from the day.
This long running festival has become for some like a massive re-union of old friends and the atmosphere is awesome. The festival is looking for some additional anglers to safeguard the future of the event. As the event is tackle prize based (there is a small cash pool on each bus but all the prizes are fishing tackle) it is not quite as competitive as your normal festivals and the atmosphere and crack has been more important than the winning - although winning a tackle prize is a bonus!
Pontin's sponsor the event with a retail value of over £6500 of tackle prizes spread over the disciplines.
Whether you'd like to bring your family (the first child place is free) and go fishing every day and not get in trouble, or if you're an angling club looking for an outing/holiday or even if you're on you own this friendly festival would suit you.
Next year's event will probably be a similar week and if you're interested please contact me on 01603 759624 or email me by following this link.
Half board accommodation is based at Pontin's Pakefield and coach travel is provided to the fishing venues. Very affordable with prices starting at £166 per person for a week's half board accommodation. The first child place is free with two paying adults and there's a full programme of adult and children's entertainment along with heated indoor pool, crazy golf, arcade and tours available to Southwold, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft town centre.
There are group discounts available for 10+ anglers so whether it's a family holiday or club outing there are incentives for all.
For further enquires contact Pontins Pakefield on 01502 584792 or Sarah at Barford Lakes on 01603 759624.
The festival this year was from 1st October - 8th October 2010
2010 Costs
Classic Accommodation £166 per adult - half board
Club Accommodation £186 per adult - half board
First child price free (for ever 2 full paying adults) additional children half price.
2010 Fishing costs are additional per day as follows:
Boat £38 per day
Pier £10 per day
Beach £3 per day
Coarse £22 per day
The following Match Report is courtesy of Lowestoft Sea Angler's organiser Stan Gowing.
Sunday saw the start of the fishing in the Pontins Fishing Festival at Pakefield. The first match was the Sam Hook Open on Sunday 3rd. October, Ian Hopper (Eastbourne) won the match with 1 Cod, 8 Whiting and 2 eels for 6lb. 0oz. Second was Colin Sargeant (Eastbourne) with a 4lb 4oz mixed bag and third was local angler Simon Coe with 2 Cod for 3lb. 11oz.
Monday saw the four days of competitions start with sea anglers competing on the Beach, Pier and Boats. The Beach fishing was two days at Pakefield and two days below Pontins, both venues fished reasonably well and Ian Hopper (Eastbourne) had two wins and two seconds to win the weeks event with an aggregate weight of 26lb. 8oz. Second was Terry Taylor (Eastbourne) with 20lb. 7oz. Third was Colin Sargeant (Eastbourne) with 18lb. 4oz.
Two juniors also caught on the beach and pictured are Josh Humphries (11 from Cow's End, Kent) caught 2 Dabs on lug worm and on the right is his cousin Stephen Cook (14 also from Kent) and he caught a Whiting and a Dab.
Pier fishing was two days at Gorleston and two days at South Pier Lowestoft. A win on the Monday and a second on the Thursday was enough for Tony Libby (Deal) to win the aggregate weight for the week with 7lb. 1oz. Second was Chris Cox (Southend) with 6lb. 9oz. And third was Ian Reynolds with 5lb 1oz.
Boat fishing out of Lowestoft saw plenty of whiting being caught but lots were undersize and had to be returned to the sea but the bigger fish made the week very interesting, one day the boats could not get out to sea due to bad weather, but the three days fishing saw Michael Pearce (Gravesend) secure first place with an aggregate weight of 27lb. 15oz. Second was Alex Tibbles (Lowestoft) with 25lb. 6oz. Third was Barry Pearce (Gravesend) with 23lb. 13oz.
Freshwater fishing was again well supported with three coaches needed to get the anglers to the four venues Barford, Colton, Railway Lake and the River Yare at Beauchamp. This year's winner for the week was John Howard (Doncaster) who improved on his last years second place. John, who's week started with a third at Railway Lake with 76lb. 11oz a first at Colton with 153lb. 3oz and a second at Barford with 76lb. 11oz. John then finished off the week with a win on the River Yare with a 20lb. 10oz bag of roach. This made up an aggregate weight of 302lb 1oz. Second place went to Keith Pearson (Doncaster) with 232lb 8oz. Third was Tony Nally (Cotgrave Notts) with 223lb. 4oz.
Coarse Angling Winners as follows:
Barford Match Lake
Monday Rob Blackburn (Basildon) 56lb 8oz
Wednesday Karl Gillett (Leicester) 103lb 7oz
Thursday Keith Pearson (Doncaster) 111lb 0oz.
Railway Lake
Monday M Blackburn (Basildon) 107lb 11oz.
Tuesday Paul Barnes (Northants) 62lb 8oz.
Wednesday Andy Webb (Bellingham) 63lb 5oz
Colton Lake
Monday Tony Nally (Notingham) 67lb 0oz.
Tuesday John Howard (Doncaster) 153lb. 3oz.
Thursday Richard Grange (Peterbough) 46lb. 9oz.
River Yare
Tuesday D Baptist (London) 25lb. 0oz.
Wednesday Paul Barnes (Northants) 26lb. 8oz.
Thursday John Howard (Doncaster) 20lb. 10oz.
The outright winners of the Freshwater, Beach, Boat and Pier fishing all won a £250.00 holiday voucher from Pontin's, second and third won tackle prizes as did the top three daily in each discipline. The week was another success with anglers wanting to book up again for next year.
I would imagine it will be much the same as this year with the possibility of a change of one of the Barford venues.
Richard Grange from Angling Times was covering the event which will feature in the UK Match magazine pull out available in Angling Times at the end of the month
