MEMBERS of the Hamble club stole the show during the second heat of the Wessex Division of the National Federation of Sea Anglers Champion of Champions' boat competition held out from Poole.

The club, in the shape of Tony Spridgeon and Rob Shattock, won two of the three places up for grabs for the finals, to be held in Alderney.

Action was generally pretty good with a fair number of rays, dogfish, smoothhound, ballan wrasse, black bream, garfish, pouting, gurnard, scad, pollack and rockling caught.

The Hamble duo will be joined in the finals by defending champion Ken Froud, representing the Christchurch club.

With an eye on conservation, the match was fished to the points system with all the fish being returned alive.

Anglers heading afloat from Hampshire ports have been finding brisk sport, with black bream and smoothhound the main target species.

Adrian Farley, who lived in Southampton for many years, went afloat from Langstone on Torbay Belle, where he boated smoothhound up to 17lb 8oz. Best fish of the day was a 3lb 9oz specimen black bream bagged by Mike Cole, using a strip of cuttlefish bait. Local anglers figured prominently during the Gale Force Open shore competition along the Ferry Bridge section of Chesil where the expected smoothhound put in an appearance, along with doggies, pout, poor cod, plaice, tub and red gurnards and wrasse.

Dave Chedzoye was overall top performer with a 27lb 4oz haul of smoothhound, doggies and gurnard. He was also the winner of A section.

Second overall was Chris Clark from Lymington with 23lb 1oz. Third in the A section was Ben Assirati with 22lb 8oz, ahead of John Van Crugden with 21lb 6oz.

Action in the second section was also pretty good, local ace Pete Hegg winning with 21lb 15oz to narrowly nudge out Reg Clough from East Woodyates with 21lb 1oz.

Clough had a pretty eventful match. Only a few minutes after getting himself settled on the beach, a unexploded shell was found nearby by a group of youngsters.

When the police arrived, an exclusion zone was set up, with Clough having to move several hundred of yards along the beach, away from his favoured mark, until the bomb disposal unit exploded the device.

Clough reckoned he was using some explosive ground bait!

Third in the section was Brian Fooks with 20lb 1oz, ahead of Nigel Green with 13lb 12oz.

Latest round in the Andy Manning Junior League was fished from Ryde Pier, where Erica Williams landed 19 fish worth 575 points for a clear victory. Her catch included a 3lb 2.5oz smoothhound landed a on a small size six hook.

Runner-up was Sarah Basham with eight fish worth 201 points, ahead of May Cunningham with 62 points.

Also on the Isle of Wight, a cracking undulate ray has been beached at Chale, along the western Wight, by Nigel Valla, a local postman. After weighing and photographing, the specimen was returned alive.

Smoothhound are expected to dominate the all-night Chesil Open on Saturday evening and early Sunday morning (fishing 8pm-7am). Apart from the hounds, plenty of doggies are also expected, along with pouting and some nice sole. The occasional decent bass could also put in an appearance.

The pegged event will be fished at Cogden. Tickets, strictly pre-book only, have been priced at £11, inclusive of all pools. Eddie Painter has details (01308 425925).