Even if the prognostics for the winners were all for the Romanian teams, well, the Pike World Cup was won by a French team. It’s all about chemistry between Danube Delta and the citizens from the country of Baudelaire. It’s not something new, one of the fishing guides from Holbina Trei Bibani, Sylvain Remetter, it’s french, and he fall in love with Danube Delta about 13 years ago.
The lake enclosure at Holbina with a total surface of 1.276 ha has all the qualities of wild waters in the Danube Delta. Aquatic ecosystems of this lake offer the ideal environment for sport fishing enabling the growth of a sensational pike population, with regard to density as well as size of the capture. Frequently, captured pikes are longer than 1 m and some days a fisher can bring to the boat more than 100 pikes. On top of that, fishers are surrounded by unique landscapes, they can watch thousands of birds, all of this making the place a true natural sanctuary.
The Pike Fishing World Cup was a competition for teams of two fishers in Best Five system (in final it count all centimeters of the 15 fish caught in 3 runs) - the largest five pikes - and contestants fished in boats with outboard and trolling engines. These boats were equipped with livewells having aerators that allow to keep pikes for measuring as well as special devices where captured fish can be measured in order to continuously update the Best Five list before official measuring. The contest had 2 runs of 9 hours each, and one more of 5 hours and every run begun at 5.30 am. Arbitration was ensured by six boats with referees who assured a smooth run of the contest within regulations as well as fish measuring. 20 teams from 7 countries were in this year fight for the World Pike Trophy at Holbina Trei Bibani.
Let’s meet the winners and theirs secret lures:
First place and the biggest pike 110 cm – 7000 euro
Team Daiwa France – Alain Marragou/Nicolas Delebare
Second place
Team Rapala Romania – Emil Grecu/Lucian Constantin
Third place
Team Strike Pro Romania – Andy Arif/Bogdan Doncea
VIDEO
Special thanks for www.skycam.ro for photos and video.
Soon a movie about this competition on F&H TV and an article on the next issue on Pescuitul pentru Toti fishing magazine. Stay close to www.rapitorimania.ro!