RAPALA TEAMS VICTORIOUS IN THE WORLD PREDATOR CLASSIC FISHING TOURNAMENT

Rapala VMC Corporation Press Release June 26, 2014 at 4:30 p.m. Rapala Teams Victorious in the World Predator Classic Fishing Tournament Rapala Finland-France team wins WPC Team Competition, biggest fish of the tournament caught by Rapala Team Russia. Rapala Team Finland finishes third in the overall competition. 50 boats of top European predator anglers competed against each other in Hellevoetsluis, Netherlands on June 20th-22th in a three day tournament...
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Rapala VMC Corporation
Press Release
June 26, 2014 at 4:30 p.m. 


Rapala Teams Victorious in the World Predator Classic Fishing Tournament

 

Rapala Finland-France team wins WPC Team Competition, biggest fish of the tournament caught by Rapala Team Russia. Rapala Team Finland finishes third in the overall competition.

 

50 boats of top European predator anglers competed against each other in Hellevoetsluis, Netherlands on June 20th-22th in a three day tournament. The World Predator Classic (WPC) tournament can be considered to be the European predator fishing championship event.

 

With only a day and a half of practice on the venue, Rapala Team Finland consisting of Finnish Rapala Pro Guides Markku Tiusanen and Antti Anttila took the seasoned locals and other competitors by storm by winning their sector on two out of three days and also taking the overall win for day three of the tournament. In the Overall Standings for the tournament Markku and Antti finished third - a very respectable achievement showing their outstanding fishing skills and ability to adapt quickly to the fishing conditions.

 

Teams of two boats also competed in the WPC tournament Team Event, and Rapala Team Finland along with Rapala Team France won the WPC Team Event by catching fish consistently during all three days. Arnaud Briere and Laurent Vrignaud of Rapala Team France finished eighth in the Overall Standings.

 

Out of the five Rapala Teams that competed in the tournament, four got to go to the podium during the event, some of them repeatedly. Rapala Team Russia - Alexander Katkov and Andrey Donskov - caught the biggest fish of day two: a 116 cm long pike that fell for a Rapala® Rattlin' Minnow Spoon®. It was the biggest fish caught in the whole tournament.

 

Rapala Team Sweden captained by Rapala Pro Guide Mathias Holgersson caught a 115 cm long pike on day three on a Storm® Pro Minnow soft bait rigged with a VMC® BigEye jig head. It was the biggest fish of the day and the second biggest in the whole tournament. That secured the top two largest fish of the tournament for the Rapala Teams.

 

Giant Perch, Huge Pike

 

The World Predator Classic 2014, based in the historic town of Hellevouetsluis, was battled out on the Haringvlet inlet in the south of the Netherlands. Haringvlet is a major estuary of the Rhine-Meuse delta and it's known for its large pike, zander and perch. And in this case large means really large. The largest perch caught in the tournament reached over 50 cm in length and would have tipped the scales at over two kilos.

 

The tournament was based on the fish's length alone, and all fish caught were released unharmed after they were measured and photographed. The anglers could enter three zander, three perch and one pike into the count each day, the combined length of the fish being their score.

 

Some of the larger perch of the tournament were caught on traditional perch lures like the Rapala® Jointed Shad Rap®, which the Rapala Team Sweden and Russia competitors used successfully when fishing fairly shallow hard bottom spots. The deep diving Jointed Shad Rap® with its loud rattling action fished right on the bottom was what was needed to get the sluggish perch to bite.

 

Active perch that were feeding on baitfish concentrated in the weedy spots fell for spinnerbaits fished through or over the vegetation. While a lot of the perch caught by Markku Tiusanen and Antti Anttila took "normal size" Blue Fox® Ti-1 Titanium Spinnerbait, some of the perch hit large Blue Fox® Super Bou Spinnerbaits usually thrown for pike. That's some huge perch with attitude.

 

Although most of the big pike caught during the tournament ate large spinnerbaits, the largest pike caught by Rapala Team Russia's Andrey Donskov hit an 8 cm long Rapala® Rattlin' Minnow Spoon®. Andrey was fishing the spoon with a single weedless hook on very light tackle using Shimano gear and thin braided line, and had to really carefully coax the fish through the weeds to make sure he landed the huge monster.

 

Zander were caught mostly in the deeper water with soft plastic lures. Rapala Team Finland fine-tuned their Storm® Pro Shads rigged on VMC® Pro Jig Heads to exactly match the size of the local bait fish and used them successfully to catch zander on all three days of the tournament.

 

Sensitivity and reliability of the tackle is very important, especially when fishing deep with light tackle, and Antti Anttila pointed out that high quality Shimano and G.Loomis® rods and Shimano reels rigged with Sufix® line gave the Rapala Team members a clear advantage in the tournament.

 

For more information visit: worldpredatorclassic.com

 

For further information:

 

Teemu Mäkelä

Marketing Director

Rapala VMC Corporation

[email protected]

tel. +358 (0) 9 7562 5413

 

Distribution: Main Media

 

Rapala VMC Corporation ("the Group") is a leading fishing tackle company and the global market leader in fishing lures, treble hooks and fishing related knives and tools. The Group also has a strong global position in other fishing categories and it is one of the leading distributors of outdoor, hunting and winter sport products in the Nordic countries. The Group has the largest distribution network in the industry. The main manufacturing facilities are located in Finland, France, Estonia, Russia, China, Indonesia and the UK. The Group brand portfolio includes the leading brand in the industry, Rapala, and other global brands like VMC, Sufix, Storm, Blue Fox, Luhr Jensen, Williamson, Dynamite Baits, Mora Ice, StrikeMaster, Marttiini and Peltonen. The Group, with net sales of EUR 287 million in 2013, employs some 2 500 people in 39 countries. Rapala VMC Corporation's share is listed and traded on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki stock exchange since 1998.


Copyright GlobeNewswire

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