What Fish UK Sponsors Charity Species Boat Competition.

The What Fish UK Smartphone App recently sponsored a fishing competition that was almost tailor made for the App. 

The competition was the 2013 Dog-fish-dave Marina Developments Ltd, Cobbs Quay’s own Species Boat Competition in aid of the Ocean Youth Trust South, MDL’s charity of the year.

15 boats carried a total of 60 fishermen out on July 13^th to fish the 8 hour species competition.

What Fish UK sponsored the competition with various rods and reels and other prizes. The 4-man first and second place teams won a rod each and so did the top female and top junior anglers on the day.

The competition started with coffee and bacon sandwiches and each skipper collected a pack on the morning that consisted of various goodies including feathers, zip sliders, sweets and of course your boats personal ID tag to put in the photo when taking the shot of the fish you have just I.D using the what fish UK app.   

Ass soon as the skipper had collected the pack the teams set off into Poole harbour and beyond and the competition began. The rules were simple each angler in the 4 man team were allowed 1 rod with three hooks and there were no restrictions on bait. The aim of the game was to catch as many different saltwater species as you can in the 8 hours of fishing. Each species was worth fish points and depending on how easy it was to catch that species, points were awarded, i.e. pout was 2 points but a Tope was 25 points.  On top of the fish points you were awarded bonus points for the number of species the team caught i.e. two species was an extra 20 points and ten species 100 points the team with the most points wins the prizes.

26 species of fish were caught they were Bass, Tope, Smooth Hound, Black Bream, Red Gurnard, Tub Gurnard, Mackerel, Pollock, Poor Cod, Pout, Scad, Weever, Whiting, Ballan Wrasse, Cuckoo Wrasse, Dab, Plaice, Turbot, Thornback Ray, Undulate Ray, Garfish, Blenny, Goby, Corkwing Wrasse, Goldsinney Wrasse, and Rock Cook Wrasse.

So onto the results:

1^st place with 19 species was ‘Double Bubble’ skippered by David Doig with 426 points

2^nd place with 17 species was ‘Court Jester ‘ skippered by Neil Sturt with 386 points.

 3^rd place with 17 species was ‘Wight Magic’ with 342 points

 4^th place with 17 species was ‘Kingfisher’ 340 points

The 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th placed boats all caught 17 species however with the way the scoring works they all had different point values and that unique scoring method sorted their placing.

A big congratulation to Emma Mumford who was our top lady on the day and Bradley Toms, aged 9, who caught 5 different species to take home a prize of a rod and reel.

The competition raised £555.00 for the Ocean Youth Trust South, MDL’s charity of the year 2013.

After speaking to Dave Wilson (Dog-fish-dave competition organiser) he said:

“It was a great day with great weather and the fishing was spot on, it was great seeing the anglers using the What Fish UK Smartphone App to help recognise the species of fish that they had caught. We are looking forward to hosting the competition again next year and we will be looking to What Fish UK for continued support.”

For the What Fish team it was great to hear of the App being used for exactly the reason that we invented it for. Incidentally I have heard rumblings that next year the entire What Fish UK Smartphone App team will be taking part in the event so we will be sponsoring a very good prize for last place ;-)

Many thanks to Dave Wilson (MDls Regional Director)  for organising a great event and we were very pleased to see the Ocean Youth Trust South, MDL’s charity receive £555.00.

Well done to all involved.

www.whatfishuk.co.uk