THIS year’s West Bay Sea Angling Club Juniors versus Parents Open escaped the wet weather forecasted earlier in the week, although competitors faced a brisk south westerly wind with rough seas.

In total, 28 competitors signed on to fish the match, including 14 junior members and 14 adults.

Reigning champion Frances Kit-chin took an early lead with a sizeable shore rockling and, despite plenty of fish coming to the scales, her catch looked hard to beat with mainly undersized specimens landed.

Species included shore and five-bearded rockling, bass, weever, flounder, whiting, pollack, shanny, sea scorpion and tompot blenny – all fish were returned.

Senior competitor Mike Hall-ett landed the most fish in the match with a remarkable eight different species, but unfortunately the catches were all undersize so Kitchin maintained her lead.

Junior member Ewan Cham-bers slipped into second place with two sizeable rockling, while president Dave Cornick caught a decent five-bearded rockling, which put him in third.

Weever fish were still predominant and one particularly large specimen was landed by junior Eden Lynham – it turned out to be a new club record of 46g.

As the match progressed it looked unlikely that the leading competitor would be beaten, but with just 15 minutes remaining, Chambers landed a third rockling which put him in the lead.

Kitchin caught a second rockling with five minutes left but it was not quite enough to regain the lead.

After the match, all the competitors and their families returned to the Salthouse for refreshments, including a buffet provided by the Punch and Judy Bakery.

The presentation featured the first match of the Jurassic League, Junior Shore Festival and Juniors v Parents Open.

Cornick started proceedings by thanking junior secretary Roger Guppy for organising the event and Hilary Smith and Richard ‘Tiny’ Daw for preparing the Salthouse.

Thanks were also given to Steve and Sally Lawrence of the Punch and Judy Bakery and Tracey Marley of West Bay Water Sports for supporting the event.

The junior match was comfortably won by Chambers with a catch including three rockling.

Meanwhile, the overall match and the Juniors versus Parents trophy also went to Chambers, and as best junior he also secured the Junior Shore Festival trophy.

Chambers became the first junior to win the Juniors v Parents trophy since the event began.

The wooden spoon prize went to Jason Salvador-Swords.

James Lawrence was the overall winner (weight and points) of the Saturday Junior League, which is fished from April to October.