Angling professionsal league casts off with Breakwaters leading the way

The Angling Professional League casted off with the VME league one at Sandford on August 21. The five clubs started the season with great anticipation. New affiliates, Ladysmith Angling Club, fielding a full squad, were determined to make a mark and set the angling scene ablaze. It was day characterized by some poor catches as anglers tried persistently to lure the illusive fish. Initially, the few keep nets of Breakwaters seemed to dampen the spirits of their contingent while the three other club’s keep nets began to increase.
However, closer to the cut off time, the arrival of more keep nets of Breakwaters seemed to tip the scale in their favour. Breakwaters finished first with 29 points, followed by Challengers (26 points) while Stillwaters scored an impressive 23 points and Ladysmith Angling Club had to contend with fourth position on 20 points.
The “Angler of the Day” was Ebrahim Mia of Challengers who scored 8 points, to don the orange and green cap, an outright trophy and R200. It was also characterized by some usual catches.
Suvyn Budhoo of Stillwaters earned himself R500 in the “rare catch” category having caught a bass of 1,090kg. Veruschka Boodhoo landed a scaly of 510g, Vicky Dass caught an eel of 1,010kg while Omar Paruk caught a barbel of 4.875kg in the last half hour of fishing. The heaviest carp was caught by Vernon Naidoo of Stillwaters which tipped the scale at 3,375kg.
The APL prides itself on setting new standards and introducing new innovations which seems to be copied by another old organisation in order to resuscitate itself however the APL would continue to set the pace and standard in the angling fraternity hopefully these officials would be more creative and innovative in their approach.
The top five anglers for Breakwaters/Stillwaters were Fanie Els (5 pts); Terrence Chetty (4 pts); Ashveer Singh (4 pts); Tiaan van Wyk (4 pts) and Kobus van Wyk (4 pts). Fanie Els is the early pace setter in the race for top honours with 13 points, followed by Wayne Oosthuizen (8 pts) and Mark Ince on 6 pts.
The next competition would be the VME League 2 at Richgate Park. Ladysmith Angling Club would be on gate duty.