The 20th Wales Air Ambulance Open Beach Fishing Competition, organised by members from Pembroke & District Angling Club and Osprey Sea Angling Club was held on Sunday ,14 January on Amroth beach in South Pembrokeshire

The weather on the day was similar to that which had been experienced locally in the run up to the competition, cold and mainly dry with northerly wind, a bit different to the appalling weather prior to the run up.

But they weren’t the best sea fishing conditions as the water was very calm with virtually no surf which did not augur well for a bumper catch.

However, the turnout and support was only one short of the previous event with 64 anglers including four ladies and two juniors, a boy and a girl.

As predicted, the fishing wasn’t great with 18 anglers bringing 21 fish to the scales, 14 flounders, two dabs, two five beard rockling, one whiting and two lesser spotted dogfish, which have recently had a name change to cat sharks! There were other fish caught but they were undersized and returned.

The winning angler who managed to land two cracking flounder, for a winning 1Kg 495gms was local Neyland club angler Phil Evans, netting him the first prize of £200.

Second was another local from the Saundersfoot club, Andy Young, who always supports these events and has done for years with some success. He pulled in a lesser spotted dogfish or cat shark of 1KG 85gms netting him the £100 second prize for the heaviest any single fish. Third went to another local, Brian John from Pembroke with a flounder of 795gms.

In the pairs competition, in which both anglers had to weigh in, first were Andy and his partner, another regular from Saundersfoot, Franco Attanasio who added a flounder to Andy’s dogfish for a bag of 1Kg 395gms. Second were Brian and his partner, also from Pembroke and a real stalwart of these events from time immemorial, Hughie Sweeney who had a flounder making their bag 1Kg 35gms. Third were another local and one of the organisers Leigh Rogers and his partner Dorian Harries with two flounders for 645gms. Leigh also won the steward’s draw.

However, the most important result on the day was that the event raised £1,115 for the Wales Air Ambulance pushing the total raised over the 18 years this competition has been running, well in excess of £25,000.

Organisers congratulated the anglers from the organising clubs, and thanked Ian Wilkinson of the Temple Bar Inn who put his premises and valued support at this event’s disposal as well as providing the prize for the Stewards draw.

They also thanked sponsors, Oriel Johnson, Milforge, The Cove, East Llanion, Altrad Engineering Pembroke Dock, Osprey SAC, Darren Jones, Shane Tucker, Dai Fricker, Andrew Skeels, John O’Connor, Liam O’Connor, Leigh Rogers, Peter Kraus, Haydn Cole, Chris Wynn, Kirsty Culley, Alison George.

Next up, on Sunday, 11 February, is the 15th RNLI Annual Fishing Open, in aid of the local lifeboat stations at Angle and Tenby.