The UK Champs is back up and running after being taken over at the 11th hour.

Nigel Harrhy (pictured above left), who owns and runs Barston Lakes in Solihull, has taken over the reigns of running the UK Champs from former world champion Tommy Pickering.

The UK Champs has been successfully run for the past 8 years by Tommy, who has decided to step down from the role and let someone else take over.

The two meet regularly at matches, and the subject had been mentioned a couple of times before Nigel decided to take over to save the competition from folding.

He is also the chairman of the Professional Coarse Fisheries Association, whose member’s fisheries will be hosting the rounds.

All the matches are on Wednesdays and are two weeks apart. The first round kicks off in 6 weeks time at Lindholme lakes in Yorkshire on 12th August 2009, and then moves across to Larford in Shropshire on 26th August, before moving south to Gold Valley on 9th September before ending the series at Barston on 23rd September.

The one change to the series is a universal set of rules which is to be used at all four fisheries, rather than fish to fishery rules. This set of rules has been agreed by all the fisheries.

John Raison, Phil Briscoe and Neil Grantham along with Nigel Harrhy have agreed that all the matches will be fished to Angling Trust rules – plus two nets for carp and one for silvers, no braid, no cat or dog meat, fishery pellets where applicable, no self hooking rigs and no catapulting groundbait.

The 80 anglers who are registered and have fished last year, will be getting the opportunity to enter by receiving an entry form in the coming days.