First stop Verdun
27 pairs met on Sunday May 26, 2024 on the banks of the Meuse, in downtown Verdun. The weather was cloudy, but the atmosphere was good for this first meeting of the season in three stages: Verdun, Tours and Toulouse.
After a carefully attended briefing, the competitors take to the town and spread out over the competition area. A rather varied area, alternating between fast rivers, slow currents and canals.
Pretty fish
In this game, the ROJO-DIAZ/FOURCADE duo did wonderfully well and came through with flying colors! After a solid catch of perch and a quickly closed quota, they managed to lure a pike and several chub to add to their tally. Despite this, they fall short of second place, overtaken by the BINET/VIDEAUD duo, who confirm their good performance of 2023 (3rd in the French championship) and land a huge 71cm barbel! Watch out for "just meshed" catches!
Rounding off the podium was the redoubtable VERGER/JEANSON duo, once again putting in a solid performance. The 2023 French champions once again asserted themselves with a fine catch of chub and their signature success with a pike that barely passed the mesh, for a podium finish snatched from their grasp by a mere centimetre!
Behind them, the SEGUIN/BONTEMPELLI duo took a solid 5th place, and perhaps deserved better in view of their good performance.
Without success, but with a hard-won quota, BECKER/GALLET and LEGGERI/DREVET take a fine top 10.
A missed opportunity for the CALU/GASNIER duo, who finished 18th. The 4th-place finishers in the 2023 French Championship, always very consistent, were unable to make up the quota and were out of time and unsuccessful.
Hostilities are therefore underway in a hotly contested championship where mistakes pay dearly (no bonus date!).
Feedback from competitors was that fishing was mostly on micro jigs and light texas. Pike were caught on perch lures, chatterbaits or spinnerbaits, and it's worth noting that a few locals caught some big fish on bigbaits!
The full ranking can be found on the MyFFPS app.
Next stop Tours on September 8, 2024.
