COMPETITION REPORT: 2nd. Regional Division - Tournament I
After some training and serious rigging I believed I was prepared for the first real challenge of the season. Looking to weather predictions on Windguru and Portuguese Meteo Institute for Feb. 26, things didn´t look good at all, heavy rain and wind would hit the Consolação (Peniche, Portugal) beach exactly when fishing would take place. Wind would come N-NE and waves would grow from 1m to 3,2m during the tournament. I prepared hard cover and strong rigs for the day.
Arriving there I saw how dificcult things would really be. Cold water and harsh conditions would make everything a gamble where resilience will also play an important role. In the end I was heavily rained upon during 3 of the 4 hours of the competition and wind raging from 10km/h to 45km/h which is very hard when you are also trying to have some fun.
The competition itself didn't go as well as I expected. I was assigned the most horrible spot on the beach, really! My side partner amd I were shaking our heads in disgust from the start. We got a big sand bank in front of us, preventing us from getting a reasonable water level in the first hour of fishing and making both of us to power cast right from scratch which is not always successful. I ended up getting a small Spotted Bass on my second cast, by then still believing things would flow nicely. Unfortunately good fish wasn't supposed to come for me that day. Things went exactly the opposite from training day.
I was very disappointed since the Weaver fish and Turbot I was ready to catch weren't there. I was exhausted in the end, and came in 8th place which was worse news. Better days will come, hopefully this following Sunday.
