Photo: The winners of Mammadaba Open Angling Championship 2019 – Aivars Smilga and Māris Smilga
That historical moment in the Mammadaba Open Angling Championship 2019 has arrived. Already at the break of dawn, guided by geese calls in the cloudy sky, participants of thirteen teams that compete in the overall competition, get into boats to fight for points, victory and prizes. Jānis Ezerlīcis, who worked in the boat house of LVM Lake Kaņieris, used to have only one answer to a question is it a good time for fishing – “Who know how to fish, that catches something”, and I think that there is a big truth in his words. That was proven also in this, final competition of championship. Even though all LVM lakes where these exciting and very popular angling battles take place are considered shallow lakes, fishing in them, or better to say, selection of lures favoured by fish are completely different. Of course, it all to a very large extent depends on a weather of specific day, water clarity and temperature, but when drawing parallels of fish behaviour in LVM Lake Kaņieris and LVM Lake Lielauce, where competition took place a week before, also almost in similar weather conditions, there were very few correlations.
Photo: 2nd place in the Mammadaba Open Angling Championship 2019 – Jānis Gaborecs and Māris Efners.
But that did not trouble those teams, who have participated in this competition for many years, to find the right approach to fish, and to select the right lures for catching pikes. Also, the catcher of the largest pike in Lielauce competition, Edgars Kukutis confirmed that he is on good terms with the large ones, managed to get into boat an 84 centimetres long pike, and won the LVM prize for the longest fish. But that was not the only pike that Edgars together with his teammate Matīss Ruša (“Kubera”) managed to catch in the vastness of Kaņieris, men added six more valid fish and triumphed in Kaņieris competition. The overall leaders Aivars Smilga and Māris Smilga (“Čuš”) demonstrated leader worthy, stable performance, caught five pikes and ranked in the second place of last competition, after them with four pikes Artūrs Veidemanis and Uldis Veidemanis (“Pils2”).
Photo: Winners of the last competition and 3rd place in overall of Mammadaba Open Angling Championship 2019 – Edgars Kukutis and Matīss Ruša.
It seemed that everything is simple, that it was enough with the second place in the last competition for Aivars and Māris and they became the winners of Mammadaba 2019, but it was a bumpy road afterwards. It turned out that members of “Kubera” with their excellent uprise in Kaņieris, and with the poorer performance of the closest competitors, in overall had collected equal amount of points as Māris Efners and Jānis Gaborecs (“X-Fisher”), and computer had to be used to count the sum of points of both these teams, and the result was that Edgars and Matīss lacked only one 54 centimetre long pike until the second place, this time the third place in overall, but Māris and Jānis were happy about their second place. Behind the victory stand and without medals stayed Mārtiņš Kampāns, Dmitrijs Kručinskis („DM EAM”), Artūrs Veidemanis and Uldis Veidemanis („Pils2”), Aigars Līdumnieks and Kaspars Grablovskis („Komanda”). The first place in overall received prize from “Salmo” Ltd. www.salmo.lv with “Lucky John” product line, fishing stores „Gold Fishing, www.sargofish.eu and “Fisher”, second place from „Dole Marine” Ltd., www.boats.lv, third place from “Laivu depo” Ltd. www.laivudepo.lv, but the fourth place were happy about prizes from journal „Copes lietas”.
Photo: Expert of large pikes Edgars Kukutis.
Next year the Mammadaba Open Angling Championship will celebrate its ten year anniversary! We will welcome all enthusiasts, who will register in April to participate in this competition, there are fish in lakes managed by the LVM, this year it was 90 fish caught more than previous year.