You are the organiser, - what is your decision?

[bill yards]

I have nothing whatsover against any organisers running their own matches to their own rules but to follow a set of model match rules is beneficial to all.

I could set lots of examples on this but this is one I well remember as I was there on the day.

It was a NFA National on the Great Ouse Relief Channel.
The match went as normal but to one guy something quite unique (at the time) happened. This competitor hooked and landed a good tench of over the 5 lb mark. It was stone dead when he hooked it and he kept it in his keepnet. At the end of the match the scalesmen came and they didn't know what to do so they did the sensible thing and weighed it in and reported the incident to the NFA for a decision. At that time there was no ruling on this. The guy that 'caught' it was quite an amiable fellow and never kicked up a fuss he was willing to accept the decision whichever way it went. There was quite a row between some of the other competitors, should it count or shouldn't it, some got quite hysterical about it?
To sum up it was eventually disallowed (sensibly in my view) and there is now a Rule to cover it.

This is how Rules are come by in all sports.

My question is quite simple. If you are not running matches to NFA Rules what decision would you make? Point two, do your Rules cover this incident and many others that could well happen.

I am not saying the NFA Rules are perfect but they are all we really have on a national scale. They may not be perfect but not fishing to them could well put any organiser in all sorts of problems not just with this incident but many others.

Surely the easy option is to adapt to NFA Rules.