Robins sets new record for most specimens caught

SAM ROBINS has won the Specimen Fish Hunt for the second year in succession. In claiming the top honours, he has joined Marc Eppelein in recording the most wins ever in the event's history.

Both anglers have now won on four occasions, Robins winning in 1996, 2000 and 2002 besides this year.

If that wasn't enough, he created another record by hauling ashore 11 different species, the highest in the 13 years of the competition.

The third and last leg of the event produced an exciting finish.

At the end of the second leg Dave Saunders held top spot with nine species, Mark Thomson was on seven and Robins was one of three anglers on six.

This situation was to quickly change, though.

Over the course of two weigh-ins on Saturday, Robins entered four more species to take his tally up to 10, one more than Saunders.

Robins' fish were a 9-11-5 bull huss, a 1-3-9 three bearded rockling, a 7-15-1 bass and a 2-7-9 black bream.

Could Saunders respond and snatch back his lead?

He tried hard and returned for the last weigh-in on Sunday with a 4-6-3 mullet, but it was to no avail. Robins brought along a 1-3-10 golden-grey mullet to take his tally to 11.

Saunders' only consolation was that his grey mullet brought his total up to 10 species, enough to hold off Mark Thomson who had moved onto nine.

Four anglers tied for fourth place with six species, so they had to be separated by their percentage scores.

Paul McLaren was confirmed in fourth spot with 335.28%, followed by Jason Le Noury 324.07%, Andy Le Lerre 309.72% and Marc Eppelein 284.83%.

The last leg was fished in appalling conditions, with almost continuous heavy rain and strong winds.

The hardy anglers did well to catch 40 fish over the qualifying weights and no fewer than 12 different species were landed.

Black bream topped the catch list with six, the best bream being the 3-7-1 fish by Steve Robilliard.

Three species produced five fish: lesser spotted dogfish, best 2-6-6 by Mark Le Page; bass, best 7-15-1 by Sam Robins; and ballan wrasse, best 6-11-14 by Stuart Tostevin.

Other notable fish were a 2-13-6 sole by Ian Torode, a 2-1-0 red mullet by Phil Lomax and a 1-8-1 garfish by Andy Carre, the first landed over the whole three weekends of the competition.

The event will be brought to a conclusion with the presentation evening, which will be held this coming Saturday at The Bowl at 7.30pm.

One competitor looking forward to that presentation night will be Andy Gilbert.

He didn't finish in the top four to claim one of the major awards, but he will pick up a very welcome £1,000 for breaking a Bailiwick shore record during the event.

The fish that won him the money was the 2-6-9 couch's sea bream.