Competition Terms

The promoter is Down The Cove Group Ltd, registered in England & Wales, company number 16784991, VAT number GB504551223, trading from Cornwall. You can reach us at support@downthecove.com or on 01326 735017.

These terms apply to the photo competitions run inside the Down The Cove app: Catch of the Month (a photo of a fish you caught), Smoke of the Month (a photo of food you smoked) and the Cove Cup (a final between Smoke of the Month winners). Each competition runs on these terms unless we publish something different for a particular competition in the app.

Apple Inc. and Google LLC are not sponsors of these competitions, are not involved in running them in any way, and are not responsible for them. Any questions or complaints go to us, not to Apple or Google.

You must be 18 or over and resident in the United Kingdom.

Employees of Down The Cove Group Ltd, their immediate families, and anyone professionally connected with running the competitions cannot enter.

You need a free Down The Cove account to enter or vote, because a prize has to reach a real person and one entry or vote each has to mean something. The account and the app are free.

You must agree to the community rules in the app before you enter. We do not tolerate offensive content or abusive behaviour, and we remove entries and accounts that break the rules.

There is no purchase requirement and no paid entry route. Buying anything from us does not increase your chances, and not buying anything does not reduce them.

Entry is through the app, which is free to download and free to use.

Catch of the Month: open the app, go to Community and choose Catch of the Month, then enter a photograph of a fish you caught yourself. You can add the species, a length or weight, and a short caption.

Smoke of the Month: go to Community and choose Smoke of the Month, then enter one of the smokes in your app journal that has a photograph of food you smoked yourself.

The Cove Cup has no entry form. Its finalists are the winners of past Smoke of the Month competitions, added by us when the Cup opens.

One entry per person per competition. Once you have entered you cannot swap your entry for a different one. Each competition shows its opening and closing dates in the app; entries received after it closes are not accepted.

The photograph must be one you took yourself, of a fish you caught yourself or food you smoked yourself, and it must not have been substantially altered beyond ordinary adjustments like cropping or exposure.

Catches must have been made legally and treated properly: within the rules that apply where you were fishing, respecting local minimum sizes, closed seasons and protected species, and with any fish you return handled carefully and returned quickly. Smoked food must have been prepared safely.

Entries showing unlawful fishing, cruelty, unsafe behaviour, other people who have not agreed to appear, or anything offensive will be rejected. Members can report an entry and block other members in the app.

This is a competition of skill, not a lottery. Every entry is checked by us before it appears in the app gallery, usually within a day. An entry that is rejected is not judged.

In Smoke of the Month and the Cove Cup, members can vote for one favourite entry each (and move their vote), but cannot vote for their own entry. The votes are shown in the app and we take them into account.

The winner of every competition is chosen by the Down The Cove team after the competition closes, judged on the quality of the photograph and how well it captures the catch or the smoke. Our decision is final and we do not enter into correspondence about it.

The prize for each competition is shown on that competition in the app. Where the prize is a Down The Cove gift card, it is of the value shown and is emailed to the address on the winner's account.

There is no cash alternative and the prize is not transferable. We may substitute a prize of equal or greater value if we have to.

The winner is contacted by email at the address on their account, usually within seven days of the competition closing. If we cannot reach a winner within 21 days we may choose another entry.

Everyone whose entry was approved is emailed to say who won.

You keep the copyright in your photograph. By entering you give us permission to show it, along with your first name and the details you gave, in the app gallery and on the leaderboard, and to use it in our own marketing of the competitions.

Your email address is never shown publicly. It is used to contact you if you win and to tell you who did.

If you want your entry taken down, email support@downthecove.com and we will remove it.

We handle entry and voting information as described in our privacy policy. In short: your account email is used to run the competitions and issue a prize, your photograph and first name are published in the app as above, votes are stored against your account so each member votes once, and entries are kept so the gallery and past winners stay meaningful.

We may disqualify an entry or a vote that breaks these terms, is not the entrant's own work, or is made through a means we did not intend.

If circumstances outside our control mean a competition cannot run as described, we may change these terms or cancel or suspend the competition. If we do, we will say so in the app.

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction.

Please do not take risks for a photograph. Rocks, harbour walls and rising tides account for far more trouble than fish do, and smokers and fires need watching. Nothing in these competitions is worth being cut off by a tide, going into the water, or leaving a fire unattended for.