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Last year's species hunt was won by Bob Spencer with 52 species while Brian Gale was second with 32. I was third with 24 species while Tony was hard on my heels with 22. Well done to all who took part.
For any new members wishing to take part in this competition, we allow members to take telephone pictures of their captures and send them in to me for recording at
Martyn.green1@tiscali.co.uk
Please bear in mind though, that this only applies to the Species Hunt prize, which Brixham Bait and Tackle has very kindly offered to sponsor. For all other prizes, you will need to weigh in as normal.
The best of luck to you all!
Martyn Green
Bob Spencer - Mackerel, Rock Goby, Pouting, Whiting, Pollack, Dogfish, Painted Goby, Flounder, Bass and Five Bearded Rockling
Tony Searle - Small-eyed Ray, Bass, Whiting and Pouting
Ben Cheeld - Ballan Wrasse
Brian Gale - Ballan Wrasse
Harry - Mackerel
Harry Pollack
Isabelle F. - Pollack
Olivia F. - Pollack
Tony Searle - Garfish and Mackerel
Brian Gale - Pouting,
Goldsinny and
Pollack
Bob Spencer - Ballan and Corkwing Wrasse, Two Spot Goby, Sand Smelt, Sand Goby and Herring
Tony Searle - Smoothhound and Conger Eel
(Above) Bob Spencer - Garfish, Poor Cod and Bull Huss (Below) Brian Gale - Rock Goby, Common Blenny and Garfish
Ben Cheeld - Rock Goby
Brian Gale
Corkwing Wrasse
Martyn
Corkwing
Wrasse
Martyn - Tompot Blenny
Bob Spencer
Gilthead Bream
(And below, left)
Bob had a first for the club with this giant goby, marking his 29th species in the hunt this year. He also had the plaice below.
Brian Gale
Shore Rockling
(Left)
Ben Cheeld with a smooth-hound 6 lbs 13 oz, a new club record from the shore.
(Above)
Bob Spencer with a 4 lbs 9 oz smooth-hound, one of two that he caught from Slapton Sands.
Bob Spencer - long-spined sea scorpion, goldsinny, rock cook and ring-necked blenny.
Tony Searle - Conger, Lesser Spotted Dogfish, Smoothhound Ling and Couch's Bream.
Martyn Green - Cod and Smoothhound
Robin Main - Cod and Pollack
Steve Furze - Bull Huss (1 of 3 big ones)
John Barwick - Bull Huss
Rob Stentiford - Pollack
Brian Gale - Smoothhound, new club record for about an hour and a half.
Rob Spencer - Montagu's Blenny
Rob Spencer - Couch's Goby, a very rare species never officially reported in Devon before. Well done Bob!
Ben Cheeld - 6 lbs - 13 oz - 2 drm Bull Huss - good one Ben!
Tony Searle - Ballan Wrasse, Corkwing Wrasse and Long-Spined Sea Scorpion
Leaderboard - with the interest shown in the species hunt, I have decided to show the best fish weighed into the club for other trophies. It follows the species hunt table.
Bob - Lesser Sandeel and Common Topknot
Bob - Silver Eel and Thick-lipped Grey Mullet
Martyn - Spotted Ray
Bob - Thin-lipped Grey Mullet
(Left) Bob - Golden Grey Mullet
(Below) Brian - Thin-lipped Grey Mullet
Bob Spencer - (Left) Cuckoo Wrasse and (Right) Tub Gurnard
Neil - Smoothhound
Robin - bull huss
Brian - red gurnard, black bream and plaice. (Below, Big Picture)
Brian holding new record smoothhound
Martyn - Smoothhound
Bob - Axillary Bream
Bob - Dragonet
Brian - Silver Eel
Bob - Couch's Bream
Brian - Rock Cook
Bob - Scad
Brian - Golden Grey
Mullet
Bob - Small-eyed Ray
Brian - Sole
Tony Searle - Left - holding new record undulate ray, 6 lbs 6ozs, caught at Slapton Sands in October and, below, holding 5 lbs 9 oz
Smoothhound caught on same trip.
Tony is doing well with both selachii (sharks) and batoidea (rays) at the moment. On the right, he is holding his first ever tope and, below, a new club boat record spurdog at 10 lbs 9 ozs.
Two anglers doing very well at the moment - Ben Cheeld (above) with a new record shore caught bass of 7 lbs 4 oz caught from Dawlish and Tony Searle with a comber. Since this is such a rare capture, we didn't have a specimen weight to compare it against. I therefore took the Cornish Federation specimen weight of 1 lb and added it to our own. I hope that that is okay with everybody.
While Brian had a new record bull huss - 9 lbs 8 oz - I didn't even have a chance to enter it onto the records before Bob had an even bigger one at 11 lbs 10 oz. Well done to both.
Bob also had a new record shore caught cod - see above - while Brian had a new record spurdog, the first weighed into the club, from shore, in 25 years. Bob's cod was the second weighed in from shore in the same period.