5th Leg H.O.F.C Angler Doubles League 2016.
Today was the 5th & last leg of this year’s HOFC Angler Doubles League coming which took place at Valletta limits of ’il-Foss’. The weather conditions were quite favourable just a moderate breeze which did not tamper the fishing.
The competition started like usual, with the participants arriving around 05:30hrs & two members of the committee started placing the pegs to not loose any time for placing everyone on their designated pegs that were drawn at around 06:00hrs. At the same time the H.O.F.C Jackpot number was drawn & this was number 8 which meant if the team fishing at peg 8 managed to win on the day they could walk away with no less than 240 euros. The Anglers made their way to the locations slowly as this venue is quite a rocky area so ensured everyone arrived safely & started preparing the gear, tackle & ground bait. The signal was sounded as expected at 07:00hrs as everyone was ready. This venue was quite a productive one with a good amount of fish caught. Very nice sized Derbio were caught which are not that common during competitions also there was some parrot fish which is not the time of year that you would catch them neither. For the rest apart from bouge, blotched picarel there was bottom fish caught with them being various species of wrasse. As usual & awaited by the anglers the marshals prepped something to eat which was a burger this time & went down a treat.
The Signal sounded at 11:00hrs to end the competition & the weigh in process started. You could see all the anglers quite keen as this was the last leg every point was a prisoner and there was a few teams with equal points which were waiting how the classification was going to end.
As usual when all gathered around for the presentation everyone was discussing & sharing their experiences of the day & what they could of done better also eating cake that Sandra Agius Darmanin made for everyone. Once the weigh in process was complete it was time for the presentation of the vouchers sponsored ‘Fishin Fever tar-Rabat’ & Angler Centre. There were also raffle tickets available for an Okuma reel which was sponsored by Tubertini Malta & this was won by Josef Cassar.
The winners of this fourth Leg were in 1st Place Josef Cassar & Miguel Grech with an impressive weight of 4 Kilos 560grams in 2nd place Brian Farrugia & Sandro Zammit not too far off with 4 Kilos 390 grams & in 3rd place Luwk Borg & Luke Bonnici with 2 Kilos 910grams.
Section Wins: Raymond Farrugia & Rodrick Dimech , Peter Paul Azzopardi & Adrian Nelson , Paul Sammut & Brady Sammut.
Biggest Fish Raymond Farrugia : Parrot Fish 500 grams which was caught on the day & overtook the 460 gram Gurnard that was caught by Brady Sammut.
Wish to emphasize that all the fish caught where all released were possible with the anglers ensuring minimum harm done to the fish when handling the fish. The Club practices catch and release in order to ensure sustainability and to avoid overfishing of fish from our waters.utcome for Malta.