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Hello Jordan, it's great to see you again at Grand Pavois Fishing. You and your crew finished 7th last year, and this year you're back with Honda Marine. Let's start with the prefishing day, can you tell us a bit more about it?
In fact, we made two prefishing trips. But unfortunately not really in the conditions of the weekend's competition, since we went out in the afternoon and on a rising tide, the exact opposite of the two competition rounds... We did manage to catch a few fish, including a nice 60 cm bass. The fishing was particularly tough and we mainly fished with soft lures and surface lures.
Now let's get down to business: the first round?
We had determined precise spots to prospect in order and on the first drift (quite long) Manu pulled out a 78 cm fish! The biggest fish of this first round. We were in the Antioche area and Manu used the Kerfil Kerry Shad to lure this magnificent fish. The competition started well for us and we were confident. However, the rest of the morning was more complicated... A long desert with a few unmeshed bass and some nice old ones, enough to have fun all the same! At the end of the morning, we finally brought out our second mesh fish, a 44 cm bass caught above the kelp in 4 meters of water.
Given the conditions and the water level, we fished mainly with soft lures, preferring whites.
A fine second run and a podium finish, can you tell us more about that?
For the second heat, our strategy was to get in five fish of 42. Having finished seventh in the first heat, we had a small hope of staying in the top ten and why not in the top five. We're not looking for a big specimen, just a quota.
We decided to stay in the same area as the first run, fishing shallow to find two small active bass on the downrigger. We still wanted to try the drift that had produced the competition's Big Fish on Friday morning, but with no results after an hour, we decided to look for more activity on the edges. In an area we knew absolutely nothing about, a very shallow zone, about 2 to 3 m deep, but which I liked in terms of cartography and bathymetry.
And immediately we landed a dozen fish with only three meshes. A combination of fast line fishing and surface fishing brought in two fish measuring 43 cm and one measuring 45 cm. Two nice-sized fish were unhooked from the boat. This was followed by a long period of inactivity.
Arriving at the end of the run, we decided to prospect the surface in 1 m of water for our last drift and three casts later, a superb surface attack for my colleague and a massive 64 cm fish. Once we'd returned to port and chatted to the other crews, we knew that the top 10 was a foregone conclusion. And why not third place?
And it was with great joy at the prize-giving ceremony that we put one foot on the podium for third place.
Congratulations, a great edition of Grand Pavois Fishing for you?
Our goal of doing better than last year was achieved. It's an enormous source of pride to be taking part in Grand Pavois Fishing, surrounded by all the big names in French fishing, and to be able to make our mark.
It's also a source of pride for our partner brands, Honda Marine, which I've been representing since the beginning of the year as an ambassador, and Kerfil, which Manu has been representing as an ambassador since this year too. To be able to give them a podium is magnificent. I think this is just the beginning of a long story.
It's already a privilege to be able to take part in the Grand Pavois Fishing de la Rochelle, which is a truly splendid show. The atmosphere is great, with competitors becoming good friends over the years. I'd like to thank Pierrick and Marie-Pierre, and all those around them, for organizing the Grand Pavois Fishing, and all those who contribute to the success of the show in La Rochelle.
I would also like to thank all the participants for their joie de vivre and constructive exchanges. Congratulations to the podium finishers, who flew through the competition from the first to the second round. We'll be back next year to try and do even better. In any case, our team's motivation to give it our all is already there.
For me this year, I had to do four competitions, the Sailtica, the Open du Havre which were cancelled due to bad weather. And the Open de Jade, which is very well known for its big bass quotas, where we took first place with a big score of 630 points. Two competitions this year and two podiums, which is a pleasure, and even more motivation to do more next year and try to be consistent, which won't be easy.
