quite convincingly! Second place went to Alcedos

The vast majority of those fishing (28 out of the 33 boats) headed off to the area between Denny Island and North Shore. All bar three of the limit bags came from that area.Winner – local fishing guide John Horsey, who was actually taking a client of his from Jersey out in the competition, managed to catch his limit by 12.35, so apart from the weight of fish that he had caught, he was able to add 10lbs 8oz to his total in what is called “time bonus”. John then gave his rod to his client Serge – who didn’t own a Cortland Blue line; Serge went on to catch his limit too! The vast majority of the anglers caught their fish on this particular line, which is very much the “in vogue” piece of fishing equipment of the moment.Many anglers caught their limit of fish relatively early in the afternoon and were unaware of how quickly John had caught his fish, this lead to a lot more expectant faces at the results ceremony than is usually the case!Derek Stenner was awarded second place, but on a later check, it became apparent that his time bonus had been incorrectly entered on the computer, so that lead to Dennis Symonds moving up from third to claim second. All rather confusing really, and to think that computers are there to help us get things correct in a quicker time than we would otherwise manage!On Sunday, I headed off to Bewl to run the next heat of the Peregrine/Nomad Competition. As with the rounds that we have had so far, the favourite teams managed to win through to the final.Top on a tough day were the last team to weigh in – Bewl Water FF. All four members of their team caught a limit and they also provided the individual champion in Pete Johnson, who contributed 27lbs 15oz to the total of 89lbs 14oz.Second team were the ever consistent Weald of Kent, whilst in third place Sovereign made up for the disappointment of failing by ounces last year. Chompers and Meridian filled fourth and fifth spots.On Thursday we moved on to our home water Chew Valley. Here, there were three days of the competition, with two qualifying teams each day. Thursday saw the best of the three days for fishing and an average of over five fish per rod were caught. The Royal Marines took the top spot – quite convincingly! Second place went to Alcedos – that is the Kingfishers’ “B” team.Friday’s conditions toughened – the sun was out for much more of the time, the temperature reached 25degrees and the wind started gusting around. Rod averages dropped to just over three per man, there were however two ten fish limits brought to the scales, one was caught by local competition man Lee Sennington. He caught his final fish just after 2.30, so had a large time bonus added to his weight of fish. His fellow Bath team members caught enough fish to ensure that they finished in top spot. Second qualifying position went to Kingfishers.With temperatures soaring and the wind speed increasing all day, the anglers out on Saturday had a really tough time. My near neighbour Geoff Lambert topped the field – he was the only angler to “bag-out” in the 56 strong field. He took his ten fish behind the island and was relaxing in the boat after 4.45. His team BRFFA “B” ended up top – good support to Geoff’s bag was given by Tony Holliday with his seven fish. Second team and well clear of third, were Bath Fulling Mill. The Bath team had the most fish but not the larger fish that BRFFA had targeted! Nick Long was their main contributor with nine fish.Our next round is north of the border. I will be travelling up to Loch Leven with Nick Hart to run the three sessions as John Horsey has several bookings on Chew over the same period of time. I promised a breakdown of the results so far in the new Airflo competition. I have spent a lot of time talking to various people at Airflo this week, but as yet they haven’t e-mailed me results through. I hope to have these for next week.Tight lines for this week.

Martin Cottis