When we arrived the day before, we quickly spotted two spots with sea bream and sea bass. This is all we have to start the competition. These next two days will be decisive to prepare the fishing strategy of the competition.
First spot: towards the pits
We start by fishing the bass spot we spotted the day before. First drift, first bass. We remove the little doubt about the lures to use and the tide times.
We go directly to the next step: the search for the ha-shark. We sail on the pits likely to shelter the ha-shark, called by the Anglo-Saxons school shark or tope shark. Here, the locals systematically call it "tope".
We sift through the trenches with the Simrad sounder. By the way, the Airmar transducer in Chirp saves precious time since I am sounding at 15 knots with the same clarity as when drifting.
I could pass at 25 knots, but the information on the bottom is less precise at this speed and I do not want to miss some nice specimens without seeing them. After a good hour of prospecting, we leave for more targeted spots: the ridins.
Second spot: the ridins
Sandbars are easier to tackle. The fish are holding on the sand dune or behind it, downstream from the current.
We find directly the sandbanks. I sounded for 20 minutes at 20 knots in order to distinguish the reliefs, which are usually not exactly as drawn on the charts. Then, we make our first long drift which passes on 3 ridges successively. We fish with a tenya and a slider.
The third drift reveals the presence of a mast. A small mesh tope that counts for the competition.
This catch is probably not the only one and we try to prospect more in detail this series of ridins. Another ha is present, we decide to prospect another area to find the emissaries.
Unfortunately the latter is late and we do not manage to find the right spots.
We return to the port for the opening ceremony of the competition. The organization parades at the head of the procession with the competition trophy, followed by the orchestra and the participants carrying the flags of the event. Impressive!
