The 3rd Trout Area World Championship took place in Lithuania on November 4-5. It was the first time a world-class competition was held there. The championship was attended by 11 national teams. The Ukrainian team was represented by a delegation of 8 people, including 5 athletes (4 main and 1 reserve) and three coaches.
The location for the competition was not chosen by chance, as the picturesque lake in the town of Vasaknos is a popular venue for lake trout fishing tournaments.
“Lithuania is a very beautiful country with more than 6,000 lakes in a relatively small area. The pond where the competition was held is a complex with good infrastructure and several lakes that are stocked with fish. The lake where the World Championship took place was previously stocked with rainbow trout,” Kyrylo Bezverkhyi, head of the Fishing Sport Federation of Ukraine, said.
According to the competition rules, all caught fish are immediately released. Competitors might use only spinning tackle and only hard artificial angling baits such as fishing lures and various wobblers.
“The competition lasted two days, each day consisted of 10 rounds of 20 minutes each. The competitors move around the pond, changing sectors. Accordingly, in 10 rounds, the competitor conducts 10 “duels”, meeting an opponent from another country in each subsequent sector. The competitor’s task was to catch more fish than his opponent using a spinning rod and lures at his disposal,” Kyrylo Bezverkhyi added.
The Ukrainian national team finished in the top five of the Championship. The hosts of the competition, the Lithuanian national team, won. The Italian, Latvian and German national teams took 2nd, 3rd and 4th places respectively.
“We lost just a little bit to the teams ahead of us,” Mr. Bezverkhyi explained. “We had a minimum gap of 1-2 points with Germany, Latvia and Italy, the prize-winning places were decided by just one or two fish. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get into the prize zone, but we gained a lot of experience.
Aurora multimarket chain was the general partner of the 2023 National Team of Ukraine, and we are grateful to the Company for supporting fishing sports on the world stage. Aurora strongly supports the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lithuania is actively helping Ukraine in the fight against the aggressor; we also held live broadcasts on social media during the World Championship, and our viewers donated to the needs of the unit in which one of the strongest athletes in Ukraine in this discipline, Andrii Pavliuk, is defending Ukraine. In this way, we contributed to raising funds for the repair of three combat vehicles.”
We thank our national team for the development of fishing sports and for representing Ukraine with dignity on the international stage.