When I first came across the angling blogs, some of my favourite reading was of the blogger's challenges, which the Warwickshire lads used to participate in. To my knowledge, there hasn't been anything of the like for the last couple of years at least. So, together with Jeff Hatt and George Burton, we have formulated something that we hope will be taken up by a good number and stoke some friendly rivalry and information sharing.
The aim of the game is to gain as many points as possible by catching any number of twenty different freshwater species from river, lake and stillwater, over the course of a year. The bigger the fish you catch of each species/venue type combination, the more points you get. The proposed start date for this is May 1st 2015.
The scoring works thus; a point for every percent of the record that your best catch of each species/venue type combination weighs. So, that means there are 60 categories where points are up for grabs. There will also be 10 bonus points awarded for catching the biggest fish of the entrants, in each category. Highest number of total points wins.
We have drawn up a spreadsheet which will work out all the points for us. All competitors have to do is update the lb and oz columns with their best catches in each category, as they go along. This spreadsheet will be hosted by Google Sheets and is very easy to use, so once you confirm your entry, and the challenge begins, we will give you access rights so that you can edit it with your details.
The species that earn points are; barbel, bream, carp, chub, crucian carp, dace, eel, grayling, goldfish/brown goldfish, grass carp, ide/orfe, perch, pike, roach, roach/bream hybrid, rudd, silver bream, tench, wels catfish and zander.
The records are those that stood as at Jan 2015 (including closed records for wels catfish and grass carp - you can not earn more than 100 points for these two species.)
The only rules are that you have an established blog (more than a year live) and report your catches through the challenge via that channel and the spreadsheet.
If you would like to join in, drop me your email address via the "Contact Me" widget on the right hand side (you may need to view the web version if you are using a mobile to read this), or drop any questions in the comments box below.
Many thanks
Russell, George and Jeff