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 Catch of the Month photo competition run inside the Down The Cove app. Each monthly competition runs on these same terms unless we publish something different for a particular month.

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 competition cannot enter.

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

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.

Open the app, go to Catch, choose Contests, and enter a photograph of a fish you caught yourself. You can add the species, a length or weight, and a short caption.

One entry per person per monthly competition. Once you have entered you cannot swap your entry for a different one.

The competition opens on the first day of each month and closes at the end of the last day of that month, UK time. Entries received after it closes go into the following month.

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

The fish must have been caught 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.

Entries showing unlawful fishing, cruelty, unsafe behaviour, other people who have not agreed to appear, or anything offensive will be rejected.

This is a competition of skill, not a lottery. We judge the entries on the quality of the photograph and how well it captures the catch and the day.

Judging is by the Down The Cove team at the end of each month. Our decision is final and we do not enter into correspondence about it.

Every entry is checked before it appears in the gallery, usually within a day. An entry that is rejected is not judged.

The prize is a Down The Cove gift card of the value shown on the competition in the app for that month.

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, and the gift card is emailed to the same address. 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, the species and any measurement you gave, in the app gallery and on the leaderboard, and to use it in our own marketing of the competition.

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 information as described in our privacy policy. In short: your account email is used to run the competition and issue a prize, your photograph and first name are published in the app as above, and entries are kept so the gallery and past winners stay meaningful.

We may disqualify an entry that breaks these terms, is not the entrant's own work, or is entered 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. Nothing in this competition is worth being cut off by a tide or going into the water for.