Hawkridge Competition 

4th March 2026

  Report from Jim McLaughlin

We were greeted by a beautiful, cloudless day for our first outing of 2026, with all 15 paid-up members present plus of course Pat, our “honorary member” for these competitions – so 16 in all present on the day.  This is the first time I’ve known everyone to turn out for a competition.

The competition started at 9:30, and Steve Coles caught his first fish, allegedly at 9:31! (memo to Bob, synchronise watches next time!).

The usual hot-spot, in front of the cabin, didn’t yield much on the day, and members needed to travel, to the Lay-by area, and around onto the far bank, to find the fish, but they were found. Nevertheless – By lunchtime Steve, & Terry both had 4 each, with others trailing by a fair bit. After lunch, members decided to scatter to all parts of the reservoir, with Dave P walking all the way round the top-end to the far side where he found a good head of reasonable sized fish, and Terry & Jim to the Lay-by where Terry bagged up quickly despite one freeing the hook and jumping a yard off the bank and back into the water out of the landing net.  for a long time Jim couldn’t buy a fish despite throwing everything at them, but he eventually had two,

The fish were not as big as last year I thought, but the old adage of “quality will out” came true again – the top 4 from the 2025 competition (Terry, Steve, Dave P & Bob) all bagged up, and were joined by Dave Glen who ended up the eventual winner of the heaviest bag on the day and earning himself a day ticket from Wessex water for his efforts.

In total we had 37 fish, weighing-in at 91 lbs 6oz, compared with  93 lbs 11 oz in 2025, so very comparable from year to year, although fewer people fished in 2025.

"Lucky" Steve Coles received the bottle of wine was for the biggest fish, with a fish of 3 lbs 12 oz, and the leaderboard at the conclusion of the competition appears as follows: