Day 1 Saturday
The EHFC kicked off Friday night with a solid crowd attending the briefing which was held under normal crowd conditions with no masks, no social distancing and no reduction in capacity. How things were to change.
Saturday greeted competitors with skies that threatened a little rain but failed to deliver anything substantial. A couple drops were not enough to put off the competitors. There were reports of a tough few days of fishing before the competition actually started but a record of close to 600 fish images were taken and sent in for verification.
Saturday was also the first day for the Junior and Cadets two-day expression session. 111 juniors and 86 cadets signed up for the kids comp chasing key species Bream, whiting and flathead.
JUNIORS
Some quality fish were caught with Makai Oldfield catching the largest Bream for the day with an impressive 432mm fish. The flathead day one winner was Amali Martin with a 480mm catch. Remarkably, the day one winner for whiting was Brody Symonds with a 280mm fish. The most meritorious prize was awarded for a snapper of 625mm.
CADETS
In the cadet category, Makai Oldfield also took out the Bream cadet category, having entered in both Juniors and Cadets. Hamish Souter landed a 584mm flathead to take the win for day one and Leah Jackson Gapps won the whiting category with a teeny 220mm model proving you don’t need a huge fish for a win.
ADULTS
Some notable adult catches for day one included a 1038 AJ/Sambo to Tahlee Robson, a 1212 mulloway for John Wraight and a 945mm snapper for Alex Campbell. So close to the holy grail of a 1m fish.