Americana Outdoors E-Magazine - September 2019

At the close of the day one session, Jack Gammie (AUS) led the championship on 2.16kg, followed by Andrew Death (AUS) on 2.08kg and Edi Brader (AUT) on 1.99kg. Five Australians Tyson Hayes, Richard Somerton (2013 world champion), Simon Morley and Kris Hickson made up the next five places. While two USA anglers followed, Nate Gloria in 8th and Tyson Peterson in 9th, with Dan- ish angler Finn Sloth (3rd in China in 2015) in 10th place. Over all 37 anglers brought a total of 84 fish back to the scales on day one of the world championship. Their ac- cumulated weight was 44.35kg at an average of 530g an impressive average for the species in any waterway. OnThursdayas thesun rosecompetitorsonceagain tookoff in superb conditions for the second day of the world cham- pionship. With late threatening winds predicted to blow from the south, themajority of anglers headed in a souther- ly direction, only a small group of nine or ten pedalled to the north. Fortunately, the wind didn’t blow up as forecasted. Like each day prior, a group of ten plus anglers head- ed for the trawlers where two fish were caught by Nate Gloria (USA) and Eric Seddiqi (USA), once again with- in 20 minutes of the start. The rest of the anglers had little luck, most leaving within 15 to 20 minutes. The morning wasn’t far gone, and a large slice of compet- itors had fish. Anglers who had struggled the day before sucha France’s PatriceGotti hadmore luck onday two, while for four others there remained the frustration of no fish, including 2015 world champion Xiaohong Ma from China. At the end of the day it was another impressive performance by the Australians. However, the Americans showed a great ability to adapt to the new species, making up a quarter of the top twenty. Nate Gloria flew the highest flag for the USA sitting in 6th place, equal with 2013world champion Richard Somerton (AUS). Gloria bagged 1.78kg on day one and 1.77kg on day two giving him a two-day total weight of 3.55kg. Edi Brader from Austria, who sat in third position at the close of day one, dropped back a place but remained the best placed European. Brader had a day two bag of 1.59kg giving him a total of 3.58kg. Finn Sloth (DEN) the next best European was in 11th place followed by Felix Frey (SWE) back in 19th. Lars Lundberg became the second Swede to catch the Power-Pole Big Bream, which weighed 910g. The Chinese were having a difficult time adapting to the new species. Lai Wang, their highest placed competitor, was in 16th, while the remainder of the team sat among the

Angler weigh-ins his catch and talks about his first day of competition.

Anglers begin launching their Hobie Pro Angler 14s at the start of Day 2. All kayaks were equally equipped when it came to gear such as the Power-Pole Micro Anchor.

Nate Gloria (USA) tempts a fish between two trawlers in the early hours of Day Two of Competition.

Tyson Peterson (USA) nets a bream while his Garmin Virb was getting it all on camera.