Our first Club ‘Species Hunt’ event took place at the beginning of July and turned out to be a lot of fun.

Competitors had between 9,00am and 4pm to catch as many different species as possible on our club waters.

The hot conditions meant that Pike and Salmon were off the list of species to target and the pre-event discussions suggested that somewhere between 6-8 species would be needed to win. After a quick briefing about the rules (all species had to be photographed on a wet mat to count towards the total) the competitors set off.

Maggots and worms were the order of the day for most competitors, but South African member Roy Jacobs concentrated on using his favoured lure fishing tactics and proceeded to catch perch, chub, dace and barbel all on lures, before resorting to maggots to catch bleak and minnow. It turned out that 6 species would be a tough total to beat.

Committee member Adrian Williams managed a very creditable five species along with young Theo Leather, but only John Cheyne could match the six species total, thanks to a decent eel he caught alongside the more expected Barbel, chub, dace, bleak and minnow.

Everyone met up at the White Lion for drinks and fishing chat at the end as well as the prize presentation and it was Roy who was victorious thanks to the fact that he had caught a bigger minnow than John!

It’s difficult for me to envisage a minnow on an unhooking mat but we should possibly awarded an extra prize in the future for managing to get a photo of that eel on an unhooking mat. Never an easy task !