WEST Bay SAC’s annual Specimen and Species Shore Festival took place over nine days for club members only.

Only 12 members signed on to fish this year, which may have been due to an unfavourable weather forecast for the week.

Most competitors chose to fish mainly from the Dorset coastline but some fished as far afield as the Mountbatten Breakwater in Plymouth to try and boost their species total.

This proved a good move for Ollie Mears as he landed a rare topknot flat fish from the breakwater, which took his species total to 19 and secured him the John & Frances Hunt Trophy.

PJ Wheeler finished a close runner-up with 18 species and, in third place, was Paul House with 15 species (won on a tie-breaker with Phil Maggs).

The David Cornick Specimen Trophy went to Craig Horton with a dogfish of 1,095g (96.56 per cent).

Lesser-spotted dogfish featured in the top three of all the specimen winners, with Norman Stokes (95.23) second and Gerry Reed (89.94) third.

Top junior was Aaron Chambers with seven fish points and the golden fish pool (longest dogfish) was won by Horton with a specimen of 66cm.

The pairs’ pool was won by House and Maggs who managed to land 20 different species between them, giving a total of 70 fish points.

A total of 32 different species were landed by anglers during West Bay’s annual festival.