Last weekend, a total of 57 anglers travelled down from 10 different countries to Vinkeveen to participate in the Hobie Fishing Euro´s 2017. What was on the line this weekend? Well, the European title, 2 Hobie Fishing Worlds qualification spots, and lots of great prizes provided by our amazing sponsors: Lowrance, C-MAP, Power-Pole, Mustad, Daiwa, Westin, Hobie Polarized, Gerber, High 5 Lures, Storm Lures and Aftco.
Competitors had the opportunity to pre fish on Friday after which there was a Hotdog dinner before the Captains Briefing took place that evening. Everybody was welcomed and the tournament procedures explained.
Competition day 1 was a wet day. Quite some rain came down in the morning before it cleared up in the afternoon. BY 3:00PM all anglers returned safely to the check-in and it was clear a lot of fish was caught this day. The Judges went to do the scoring and the results were announced in the evening after a delicious barbecue at VVP verhuur. Felix Frey, for Sweden caught the most centimetres (300) during day 1. Albin Falk was in second place (243 cm) and the top three was finished with Tomasz Kunrik from Poland with 218 centimeters.
What would the second day bring for the competitors? At least it started out beautiful. There was almost no wind and a beautiful sunrise when the competitors crossed the starting line onto the Vinkeveense Plassen. The wind started to pick up at noon, with a surprise storm coming in around 2:30 PM. All anglers returned safely in time and got themselves ready for the award ceremony held at The Plashoeve later that night.
Everybody found a place on the terrace of the Plashoeve when Gero Priebe started the award giving ceremony. He stood before a table full of great prizes he was going to give away. Starting with the Biggest Fish award, a 100 centimeter pike caught on day one by Mike Hendirks (DE).
The top 10 looked like this:
- Mike Hendriks – 248 cm
9. Mads Søe – 251 cm
8. Ronald Traas – 260 cm
7. Piotr Wojnowski – 269 cm
6. Dennis Skou – 276 cm
5. Helmut Schoddel – 290 cm
4. Tomasz Kurnik – 295 cm
Daniel van der Post from the Netherlands made a enormous leap in the ranking with his superb second day placing him 3rd among this strong competitors field. In total he caught 345 centimeters of fish over two days.
Felix Frey from Sweden finished in second place. He managed to get a total of 371 centimeters of fish combined over the two days. After his great first day, he just couldn’t get the fish aboard on the second day. Finishing second place, he qualified for the Hobie Fishing Worlds 7.
The winner and new Hobie Fishing European Champion of 2017 is Albin Falk from Sweden. Fishing two solid days on the hard waters of the Vinkeveense Plassen he measured 458 centimeters of fish!
“Wow! This is so cool! I’m European Champion! It is so cool that I was the best of all these amazing anglers this weekend.” Albin says. “I’m proud to represent my country during the Hobie Fishing Worlds held in Sweden, my home country, together with my best friend.”
And that were the 4th Hobie Fishing European Championships powered by Lowrance & C-MAP. This event was not possible without the amazing help of our great sponsors and partners: Lowrance, C-MAP, Hobie Polarized, Westin, Mustad, Gerber, High 5 Lures, Power-Pole, Storm, Aftco and Daiwa. Thank you all for providing prizes and goodies for the competitors!
Also a special thanks to Irma and her team from VVP Verhuur for your hospitality and amazing help during the event!
And last but not least. Thanks toeverybody who travelled down to Vinkeveen to be a part of this wonderful group of people and compete in the 4th Hobie Fishing Euro’s. We had a blast! We hope to see you guys again!