Alderney anglers notch up festival successes

FOR the fifth time in eight years, Alderney's Dick Smith won the £150 Top CI angler award in the northern isle's open festival - an incredible achievement in such a highly competitive event. He landed four species for a score of 273%. The £150 Top UK angler prize went to Matt Pitter, with four species for 284.05%.

It proved to be a great festival for Alderney anglers: Smith and his partner Bill Walden won the pairs, while Smith, Walden, Rob Blondin and Pete Riley won the four-man team event.

Many Couch's sea bream close to the record have been caught recently and as a consequence they were given their own category for the first time, so it was no surprise that they won major awards, with the top three all beating the Alderney record.

Jersey angler Steve Mullins had the top fish, a 2-8-0 specimen. This gave him the Barbie Cosheril Trophy for the best overall one of the festival, £166.66, which was a third share of the £500 prize for beating the record and £150 for topping the category.

Alderney's Rob Blondin took £166.66 and £125 for his second-placed fish of 2-7-10, the UK's Kevin Frain's 2-2-10 specimen gave him £166.66 and £100 for third, Jersey's Serge Keenan's 1-14-8 fish gave him a reel for fourth, while Alderney's John Kopeland had a bag of tackle for his 1-6-4 fifth placed bream.

The category prizes are the same for all species.

The big disappointment was the ballan wrasse section. Alderney is famous for its huge ones but on this occasion only two were weighed in - a 6-5-0 fish by Dick Smith and a 6-1-2 by Jersey's Jack Gavey.

Once again, plaice were conspicuous by their absence, with the plaice/sole category seeing four sole weighed in. Guernsey's Adrian Coquelin was third with a 2-5-14 fish, with three UK anglers filling the other places: Paul Bogwell (3-1-0), Darren Harding (2-7-14) and Rod Entwhistle 2-4-12.

Only four bass were weighed in. UK angler Malcolm Parsons won with a 10-12-6 fish, Walden was second with 9-9-6, Mullins was third with 7-10-0 and Alderney's John Maurice fourth with 7-8-2.

It was a similar story in the conger category, with only four making it to the scales. Hardin (UK) won with a 36-4-0 eel, Bill Scott (UK) was second with 29-4-0, Paul Bisson (J) third with 26-8-0 and Steve Harder (UK) fourth, 25-8-0.

The other fish under-5lb category produced a mixture of lesser-spotted dogfish and golden grey mullet.

Winner was Andy Hedger (UK) with a 2-2-2 dogfish, second was Dick Smith with a 2-8-0 mullet, Matt Pitter was third with a 1-14-12 dogfish, fourth was Bill Scott with a 1-14-10 dogfish and fifth was Guernsey's Mark Bourgaize with a 2-3-8 mullet.

In the other fish over 5-0-0 section, four of the five fish were cartilaginous species and all were caught by UK anglers.

Nigel Bowditch won with an 10-6-8 bull huss, Andy Hedger was second with a 10-13-12 small-eyed ray, Derek Spear third, 9-14-2 bull huss, Steve Harder, 11-6-10 pollack and Graham Hazell, 9-11-2 bull huss.

All five places were filled in the black bream category. Pitter won with a 3-12-0 fish, second was Alderney's Paul Williams, 3-7-10, third Bowditch, 3-5-2, fourth Andy Rogers (UK) 3-5-0 and fifth Alan Patch (UK) 3-4-14.

Only one prize is awarded in the mackerel/garfish section and this was won by David Mann (UK) with a 1-0-10 garfish.

As expected, all five places were filled in the grey-mullet category.

Winner was Alderney's Martin Huddart with a 5-12-14 fish, second was Kevin Marshall (UK) 5-10-8, third, Steve Mullins 5-6-10, fourth Guernsey's Lynton Carre, 4-13-6 and fifth Naomi Hall (UK) 4-9-2.

Jersey's Jack Gavey won the Veterans' Trophy, Bowditch won the Andy James Trophy for the best cartilaginous fish with his 10-6-8 bull huss, while the Le Cocq's Trophy for the best woman angler went to Naomi Hall, the second year in succession she has won this award.

Prior to the festival, hopes had been high that tope would provide the superb sport experienced in the 2004 event.

However, now that two years have gone by without them reappearing, it would seem that 2004 was a one-off.

Nevertheless, it was an excellent festival, the entry of 115 anglers being only slightly down on 2005.

The one disappointment was the weather. The competitors must be congratulated in enduring the high winds and outbreaks of rain and managing to catch so many great fish.