THE 2017-18 BLOGGER'S CHALLENGE CONCLUDES

At midnight on Monday the biennial Blogger's Challenge came to a close with the conclusion of the 2017/18 competition.

Challengers had generally been seeking as many species, to as great a percentage of the British Record as possible, across all three water types; river, stillwater, canal.

That's not to say everyone had the same plan. Far from it. The 16 competitors, as it happens, drawn from all over the southern half of England had their own ideas on what appealed to them.

Some sought everything, everywhere. Some just the rivers. Some everything except the venue type they didn't like and some simply wanted to catch the biggest of certain species; barbel or carp perhaps. Then there was the more complex tactic of attacking a certain type of water but also achieving preferred species sizes, or trying to; followed by contestants who entered their fish as a by-product of their everyday fishing without changing anything.

The rules were very much similar to 2015/16 but with added smaller species - gudgeon, ruffe, etc., and anglers had to post pictures of the fish before claiming the catch. The small fish however proved more difficult to track down for the more northerly of us than one might have anticipated.

The early months and through to Christmas proved very productive for most but the continuously unsettled winter and early spring weather made the latter half of the active year very hardwork. I can't recall a more difficult winter's fishing simply due to the fact that fish respond to steady weather and water temperatures but we barely experienced any such circumstances.

So the pre-race favourite at unbackable odds was James Denison, based in South London, and, as previously, his skill and venue knowledge proved decisive in the quality and regularity with which he was able to tempt big points scoring fish. If it wasn't a 6lb river chub it was a 25lb canal carp.

James proved a runaway winner of the river competition by quite a margin and this proved the difference in the end taking that and then the overall title by over 200 points.

Brian Roberts, unusually for him, being a pike nut, took the year rather seriously and really went for it with a variety of methods and species he wasn't used to. Travelling with James from time to time, he emerged in a very much worthy overall third place, but also won the Stillwater category and came second behind James on rivers. To my mind, the performance of the past year.

Other performances such as Mick Newey doing his level best to get 2nd in the river category behind James but getting pipped at the post by Brian, and Dave Williams seeking out and landing the biggest carp and barbel of the whole competition stand-out as other highlights.

The fish of the year though will surely be James' 10lb 4oz canal bream. I would not have believed such things existed, but it seems they do, or, at the very least, it does!

So there we are, no prizes, no competition this coming year and certainly less communication...the WhatsApp group a small bunch of us joined certainly took a battering, at times I feared my phone would melt!

Personally I look forward as positively to the year off between challenges as the competition itself, as it makes for a perfect contrast, and, along the way, seeds of ideas for maximising opportunities for 2019/20 will be sewn.

Well done all and thank you for a great challenge, and I very much look forward to a purely amateur locking of horns next time around.

[Final scoreboard takes a few seconds to.load]