Stian Slora from Norway is the fresh 2023 Hobie Fishing European Champion. Fishing Lake Asunden, he left 43 anglers behind him, winning the title and qualifying himself for the next Hobie Fishing Worlds. After a heavily moving leaderboard on day one, Stian managed to claim first spot early on. Tournament standings blacked out around 12:00. By that time Stian was still leading, before Robin Ekwall and Martin Breuer.
Florian uploaded his fish not long after the standing blacked out, and immediately claimed the top spot. The judges saw something very interesting unfold. A similar situation as the Hobie Fishing Worlds 2022 happened. With less than an hour to go into the competition. Stian caught his pike that jumped him back on top to stay there.
During the early morning, it felt like every competitor had its own tournament arena. A foggy Lake Åsunden made for a great scenery. Anglers changed spots on the leaderboard non stop during day one, but Florian Linner was the angler that took the lead into day two. The fog and lack of wind made the pike fishing tough early morning, but the zander made up for that. They came in quick after the start and fish was being uploaded steadily after.
Once the wind picked up some and the sun burst through the fog, pike came out and started to play along. After noon, the biggest fish of the event made its way to the measuring board of Jonas Michelberger. He recorded. 103CM pike and crushed the standing record of 91CM.
The first anglers checked back in around 2:30 and by 3:00PM all competitors reported back safely and ready for the Prize Ceremony. We want to thank our sponsors once more for making all of this, including the prize table, possible. A huge shoutout to: Okuma, Lowrance, Rapala, Sufix, VMC, Power-Pole, BerleyPro, Hobie Eyewear and our organising partner Kayakstore.se. A special thanks go to Jani Kaski from Lowrance, Felix and Emil from Kayakstore for being on site and helping out where necessary!
Here is the top 10 of HFE9
- 10th place – Chris Butler, UK – 383CM
- 9th place – Axel Villemagne, FR – 395CM
- 8th place – Daniël van der Post, NL – 417CM
- 7th Place – Alexander Vandekendelaere, BE – 422CM
- 6th Place – Linus Ekwall, SE – 463CM
- 5th Place – Jonas Michelberger, DE – 487CM
- 4th Place – Martin Breuer, DE – 588CM
- 3rd Place – Robin Ekwall, SE – 621CM
- 2nd Place – Florian Linner, DE – 645CM
- 1st Place – Stian Slora, NO – 647CM
The big fish award goes to Jonas Michelberger who caught a 103CM pike on day 2.
Check out full standings here:
