Non stop Conger Chaos- Fishing the 2023 Conger Cup

In the late 70s and early 80s, the southcoast ports , used to be among the top ports for catching Conger Eels , specimen fish regularly being caught up to and over the magic 100lb mark. The record being taken in and held for a while by a boat from Rye in Sussex.
The British and World Record currently stands at an enormous 133lb 4oz, taken by Vic Evans in 1995. He was fishing on Sea Spray II out of Brixham on a local wreck some 6 miles from shore. However, much larger eels have been taken by trawlers, including several between 150 to 250lb along the south coast of Devon & Cornwall.
Sadly due to over fishing , and the habit of many in the 70s and 80s to catch and kill, the wrecks around Brighton, Newhaven and Eastbourne became badly depleted , and Conger fishing dropped out of favour.
Consequently the eels have been making a come back , not so many monsters yet, but the wrecks are becoming repopulated, with decent eels.
So Ben Stoten, (the amputee Angler), Jake Davison (Muscle Fishing) and the team from Simpson Marine decided to orgnanise an annual Conger cup. The first to be held in September 2023.
Sadly the weather caused the first date to be cancelled in september, and so all hope was on for the alternative date in October, forecasts were anxioulsy studied, and initially it looked like the second date would also be weathered off, but someone is obvously paying the weather gods, because at the last minute a window appeared and the day saw near perfect weather.
I had been preparing for this day for some time, researching what wrecks held eels, and honing up my wreck anchoring skills, at first I had planned to go out wide and hit some wrecks far out in the English Channel, but research was beginning to show that in fact there were some small wrecks nearer to shore that had survived the onslaughts of earlier years as they were quite hard to anchor, and wee holding good heqads of eels , so this is where I focussed my efforts, if you watch the video wou will see if this approach pays off.

[@ironix1]

I remember those day you mention above Chris. There were amazing catches back then. I recall a great day on another Chris's boat, called Nikaria, that was a day to remember. I was going charter fishing every month back then.

[@SEAFISHINGwithCJ]

I used to fish with Chris Martin too. Sadly he has sailed now. Do you remember how superstitious he was particularly about those animals with the big ears.

[@ironix1]

A successful trip Chris in gorgeous weather. Well done

[@SEAFISHINGwithCJ]

It was a cracking day.

[@nicholascavie2464]

Awesome again CJ plenty of target species. Happy catching from Australia Nick

[@SEAFISHINGwithCJ]

Thanks Nick it was a great day. 👍

[@Idiotsafloat]

Cracking vid well done guys.

[@SEAFISHINGwithCJ]

Thanks

[@vwadventure]

Good vid keep them coming 👍 just updated my boat & put vid on as know you was looking 👍

[@SEAFISHINGwithCJ]

What have you updated to?

[@robsmith7391]

Great video, Chris, bet you slept well that night ! Think I'll stick to catching tiddlers off the beach!

[@SEAFISHINGwithCJ]

Yeah i was nackered

[@TheMaurice0008]

Chris great video yet again. Are you using voice to text for the subtitles? It’s like a quiz ha ha

[@SEAFISHINGwithCJ]

I have no control over the sub titles its youtube. And you are right they sometimes are totally crap

[@user-nq2je6hi4z]

I hate eels frightening things

[@SEAFISHINGwithCJ]

Big slippery slimy angry things