A two-round competition
The two rounds were initially scheduled for Friday September 22 and Sunday September 24, but changing weather conditions forced the organizers to postpone the first day of competition to Saturday September 23. A residual and strong swell will not allow to go out on the initial fishing zone, it's on the fallback zone that the 32 crews will have to go to fish from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm as many mesh bass as possible (42 centimeters being the legal mesh).
A promising first round
Despite the difficult weather conditions of the last few days, the 32 boats set off for 5 hours of non-stop fishing. Different strategies and techniques are employed to try and catch as many fish as possible. Scratch fishing, fly fishing or surface fishing, the competitors brought out many fish, but unfortunately not all of them were hooked and therefore validated.
On the return from this hard-fought first round, the Yamaha Navicom team, winners of the 2022 edition, came out on top with 5 fish counted, including a 61-centimetre bass for a total of 250 centimetres. In second place were Suzuki Fishing Team 1 with 4 fish for 187 centimetres and Suzuki Fishing Team 2 with 3 fish for 138 centimetres. During this first round, 18 boats will record at least 1 mesh fish.
A bouncy second round
Initially scheduled to take place in the main area, it was only this morning that participants learned that the second round would once again be held in the back-up area. The south-easterly wind, combined with a swell of over 1.5 metres, which tended to increase with each passing hour, made it impossible to reach the main area in complete safety. So it's off again to the areas we'd explored the day before.
As a result, the fish are no longer in the same areas, so you have to look for them again and adapt your fishing accordingly. Only the Shimano France team managed to fill the quota by fishing near oyster beds or on rare hunting grounds. Of the 32 crews, only 33 meshed fish could be counted, although there were plenty of smaller bass to be caught. Of particular note was a very fine 67-centimeter fish, the biggest of the competition, caught by the Nautique Services team from La Rochelle. A difficult second round, which will change the final rankings.
A podium worthy of the event
Suzuki Fishing Team 2 (Tony Palermo, Claude Jubert and Damien Pichon) took first place with a total of 333 centimetres. Yamaha Navicom Suzuki (Xavier Rigollet, Boris Moreau and Benjamin Moreau) with a total of 300 centimetres took second place. And Suzuki Fishing Team 1 (Sébastien Mongruel, Jérôme Taboulet and Sébastien Gaillard) completed the podium with 231 centimetres of bar. Over the two legs, 25 crews caught at least 1 mesh fish, for a total of 63 fish equivalent to 2979 centimetres or 29.80 metres of bass caught and released.
See you in 2024
The Grand Pavois de la Rochelle, an event not to be missed by boating and fishing enthusiasts. The dates for the 2024 edition are already known, from Tuesday October 1 to Sunday October 6, 2024. The Grand Pavois Fishing competition will take place on Friday October 4 and Sunday October 6, 2024. We're already looking forward to it.
