Breakfast is served early in Hotel Pristav, for the anglers to be ready at 6:00 for the morning briefing. There is a chance at some fog early morning, but sun will come through later to stay the rest of the day. Everybody is excited and ready to head off to the water to get the day started. By 7:00 everybody is patiently waiting for the national anthem of Slovakia to be played before the familiar starting music blasts from the speakers!
All anglers have their plans and start to execute them immediately. Alexander Vandekendelaere, last year’s Hobie Fishing European Champion, continues right where he left off last year and records the first fish of the event. Not long after more submissions begin coming in and the leaderboard is taking shape with more and more anglers collecting centimeters.
Another former champion Edi Brader (AT) pedalled straight towards his first spot. “I caught my two Zander quickly. I tried upgrading but had to move on to fill my card. Onto the Pike and Perch now.”
It seems all anglers have a different approach and all species come up on the leaderboard. Pike, Zander and even the Perch want to play today. At mid day Sammy Huygens (BE) leads the field with 4 out of the 6 fish on his card. He just needs the Pike to fill it up and strengthen his lead.
Sammy manages to remain in the lead for the rest of the day. Something he didn’t expect as well. “I just wanted to get some fish on the board quickly to be able to say I’ve been in first place. I certainly did not expect to stay there, however the fishing felt pretty good.” According to Sammy. Some anglers decided to upload their submissions late in the afternoon, to shield their performance. Alexander Chovan being on of them. Just before Check In, he uploaded his bag and jumped straight into second place.
When all anglers returned safely back to the shores of Hotel Pristav, the top 10 looked like this:
- Sammy Huygens (BE) – 176CM
- Alexander Chovan (SK) – 115CM
- Edi Brader (AT) – 146CM
- Veronika Kolajová (CZ) – 132CM
- Alexander Vandekendelaere (BE) – 131CM
- Mahmut Arslan (DE) – 118CM
- Sebastian Sommermann (DE) – 110CM
- Noah Prehn (DE) – 106CM
- Armend Lekiqi (DE) – 102CM
- Torge Schindler (DE) – 89CM
Big Fish of the day was the 67CM Pike from Mahmut Arslan.
We can’t thank all our sponsors enough for their support of the event. Without them all of this would not have been possible. Big shoutout to: Lowrance, CMAP, Molix, Hobie Eyewear, Nocqua, Traascustoms, ONEDESIGN, BerleyPro and especially 3Fish for their incredible on site support!
Check out some of the images of Day 1.
