Damian Murtagh, Competition Secretary and his assistants provided a full competition programme in 2022.
The competition programme attracted all the usual competition anglers and a few newcomers. The competitions were extremely competitive and as enjoyable as ever. There was a good spread of individual competition winners with a number of anglers in the running for Angler of the Year right up to the end of the season. However in the end Roger McClements once again took the accolade of Adult Angler of the Year for the third consecutive year with Kevin Conwell who had a great season in the competitions finishing in a very close second. Roger is a fantastic angler who rarely misses a Club competition. He is also a perfectionist in studying the water and the conditions and he catches fish when other good anglers struggle. This is the fifth occasion that Roger has taken the prestigious accolade of Adult Angler of the Year. His previous successes were in 2014, 2017, 2021 and 2022. He is the first angler to win the Adult Angler of the Year title in three consecutive years. Roger was also the Club’s Juvenile Angler of the Year back in 1984 and 1987 and he is one of only a handful of anglers who have been both the Club’s Juvenile and the Adult Angler of the Year.
Unfortunately In the Juvenile Angler of the Year competition there was no winner in 2022. A number of the juveniles have now moved on to the Adult category and there is a bit of a gap to the Junior anglers. Hopefully there will be some new juvenile anglers fishing the competitions in 2023.
The Club’s junior competitions were primarly fished over the summer months and there was a good turn out of juniors in 2022. Elijah Parks took the accolade of Junior Angler of the Year 2022 for the third consecutive year. Elijah is the first angler to win the Junior Angler of the Year title on 3 occasions and he has many more opportunities to get even more success.
Congratulations to Roger and Elijah on their great success in 2022.