Preparation

My preparation for this year’s tournament was the exactly the same as my previous years. As usual, the Organization Committee (Oleg Driamov, Haikin Gennady, Poluksht Roman and me) met at "Sportfishing" tackle shop, and after a long discussion arrived at a decision regarding dates and various administration functions (budget, referees, etc.) Alex Zaidiner helped us out a lot in communicating with different government organizations and their local police regarding permissions and zoning for conducting our competition.

Regarding the competition rules - we left it as is except for removing the allowance of boats during the competition – there was no sense to allow boats just for feature finding if all teams knew these beaches like the back of their hand.

After handing out jobs, the Committee started its work - getting permission from different organizations, conversing with sponsors, printing flyers, rules, etc. In short, this part is really routine and I don't want to go into too much detail, but wish to begin immediately with the few days prior to the start of the Championship.

On second thought, I’d like to add a special thanks to Oleg! Because of him we have a new sponsor. This dealer brought to Israel many well known brands such as Shimano, Sensas and StarBaits. He paid for all expenses from t-shirts and certificates to stickers and posters. And also gave really good prizes, but I’ll discuss this later - at the end of this report ;)

T-Minus two days and counting, 18.12.2009, Friday.

As the clock winds down before moving to Kinnereth, we (me, Michael from Eilat, Sergey from Eilat, Cesha and Slava from Nathareth) met near my home warehouse and started to load all our necessary tackle and supplies. It took longer this time due to fact that we have some additional things such as: old, but working refrigerator given me as a gift by my company and a microwave - gift from my mother. Also I wish to speak about one gift from Oleg - especially for referees - 3 new weighting tripods and slings. Believe me - they did their job for 100%!

Next stop - super market - we needed to purchase food for 5 people for at least for 3 days.

After filling our cars with all kinds of food, we moved forward and reached our destination ‘almost’ without any problem. Why ‘almost’? Because just before we got there my right headlight went out… so we had to search for a gestation to repair it… this took some time.

We entered the beach about 2pm and started to set up the referee's camp. It was looked like it was going to rain so we wanted to get everything setup quickly so we could protect the expensive equipment. And when you have 5 strong men the job can be done in just minutes :-). And in just half an hour we had 3 tents - my administrative one, kitchen, and sleeping tent for referees. In front of my tent we set up the kitchen – it was packed wall-to-wall with food.

The rain began that evening. We had supper with 'Belarusian Kitchen' from Slava, and checked over the list of things we needed to do for the next day and then promptly went to sleep. Well, at least I thought we were going to sleep. We discovered that at night this place welcomes large gangs of cats; about 8-9 different species of different age and sex. From my understanding and listening to them, the animals were really angry for a very long time, because presents clear evolution, as described by Darwin. These 'nice' animals succeeded in opening the kitchen tent, but since there wasn’t anything editable, they decided to destroy everything instead. They rolled down all the boxes and tore to tatters all the nylon bags.

But this isn’t the end to the story! When we finished our supper and came back to camp we found them everywhere! They snuck into our tents, made homes in our sleeping bags; they were sprawled out with their dirty legs on the carp beds… all occupied. And they did not want to leave this lovely place and they protested and snarled at us!

Finally we gave up and allowed them victory, and in the middle of night, half of the referees ventured out like zombies, cursing, all the while looking for cobbles...

But again - as approval to my evolution theory – the cats reacted very peculiar - they lurked under the car of person who did try to reach them with cobble - if you are normal men you will not shoot in your own car!

Anyway, we finally all fell asleep; it was just noisy as snoring could be heard across the beach.

T-Minus one day, 19.12.2009, Saturday

After a quick breakfast early in the morning I found one very big problem – I forgot the pegging for sector marking at home... After brainstorming the issue, Alex gave me an idea and we agreed that this was the best solution - he owns a small locksmiths business, so he offered to drive to his workshop and cut new pegging.

When he came back, Jury, Michael and Sergey started to mark sectors, armed with laser range finders, map of sectors, sector nameplates and maul, we set out! Except for Alex, he went to sleep after his hard work cutting the new pegging.

Apropos & Slava, being careful to not to be disqualified, cast out one rod with a very old tiger nut - for so called 'out of the blue' carp. And with not thinking much of it and not expecting a bite were surprised when they snagged something! They struggled with the creature for awhile and finally, this carp had been put on the bank by big team - rod and bait from Slava, playing with fish - Alex, netting - Eduard, which just came to visit us.

To me this looks like a VERY good sign!

The last evening came before starting the competition. Part of teams already here, part on the way to Kinnereth.

On our side all is ready. Guys sitting around tables, conversing, telling fishing fairy tales. Some of anglers are already sleeping, because tomorrow will be a hard day. Near the referee's table sat our friends from Moskva, Eugeny and Tatiana. This was definitely the right decision about meeting before the competition - it is so good to see and speak with friends, some of them you see very occasional.

I went to sleep well after the midnight, despite the need to wake up early in the morning... But there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Day one of Competition, 20.12.2009, Sunday.

The referees woke at 6 am. Though 'woke' is not correct word. For example, I was not able to sleep at all, because teams arrived constantly and they were very noisy, and Alex did not want to wake up and I was forced to pull him from his tent. And of course I have heard some 'sweet words' on three languages from him till I gave him a cup of hot coffee.

We moved our 'dinner' table to the place of the ceremony, but were not able to start the ceremony, because Oleg and David, our general sponsors, had not arrived yet. Also we were awaiting the packets from Shimano with gifts for all participants and flags with posters from the sponsor.

We finally saw them enter through the gate and we started to organize the packets with the maps of sectors and phone numbers of referees.

Of course since we started the ceremony with a delay, I made my speech a little shorter. Our sponsor David said a few warm words, and all participants and referees got as a gift from him. A Shimano's warm hat, Sensas towel, beautiful car sticker and t-shirt with our competition logo.

Then Roman conducted the captain's briefing and Alex did the same for referees.

And finally - sector drawing. After all teams got their sector number they moved to prepare the camps.

There were also some misunderstandings, like two exterior anglers that for some unknown reason appeared in sector 12, despite the clear directions given to them by security at the beach gate where they can sit (we allocated some dead end bank pieces along all our beaches for such anglers). But Alex solved this problem in a simple way - he took them with all their tackle in his car and moved them to another place on the beach.

Below you can see the table of sector drawing and also the map with teams locations.

Coutry	Sector	Team	Team Members	Team photo
	1	"Kid and Karlson"	Poluksht Roman | Milman Hanan | Zhigaliuk Michael (runner)
	2	"Aligator"	Makedonskiy Mitko | Alik Li | Makedonsky Georgy (runner)
	3	"Joker"	Mindin Slava | Bunkin Igor | Luskin Andrey (runner)
	4	"Royal Carp"	Sorokovoy Alexandr | Zaidiner Alexandr | Shapiro Igor (runner)
	5	"Crazy Carp"	Langevitz Assaf | Amir Russo | Noam Aizenberg (runner)
	6	"Big Fish"	Milcho Kirov | KItaitzev Sergey | Lachlov Vova (runner)
	7	"Karpolov"	Kuznetzov Evgeny | Savikina Tatyana
	8	"Pompy Fish"	Pompy Tant | Roman
	9	"Fishinspectors"	Kantor Sasha | Vexler Dmitry | Atamanov Dmintry (runner)
	10	"SportFishing"	Bereza Vlad | Driamov Oleg
	11	"JCarp"	Dan Shuster | Alexey Lifshitz | Durov Daniil (runner)
	12	"Classic"	Kopilevich Stanislav | Kalitvyanskiy Oleg | Kopilevich Vika (runner)
	13	"Aquarium"	Braitman Piter | Rokitskiy Vitaly
	14	"Neman"	Tanzura Peter | Price Alexander
	15	"PilGrim"	Makarov Oleg | Kolokoltzev Dmitry
	16	"GN-Carp-Attack"	Haikin Gennady | Markov Nikolay | Valera (runner)
	17	"Basic Instinct"	Golender Leonid | Gurevich Michael
	18	"Gold Team"	Tzodikovich Igor | Solomonov Pavel | Fudim Alexandr (runner)

So, all teams are now ready and the competition is started. Referees are now waiting for first results from the field.

And their wait was not long - literally after 3 hours after the start of the competition we got a phone call from the Big Fish team - they caught the first fish - and referees ran to weight it (we have a special prize for the first fish and I guess you will understand why - the first fish usually is very important and gives a great push to all teams). And here is it - the first fish of our Championship!

The Big Fish was not the only team with fish on this day - at the end of day 3 teams captured fish:

Day Two of Competition, 21.12.2009, Monday.

Early in the morning I received phone calls from several teams and received word that more than 10 teams with fish were waiting for referees. Despite the fact we decided to start weighting at 10 am and 16 pm, and it was now just 09:00, I sent referees to the sites, because this is the first day of fishing and for all of us the results are very important, for me more important than referee's breakfast ;-)

Sergey was assigned to Zone 1 (sectors 1-5), Michael - Zone 3 (Sectors 13-18) and Yury to Zone 2 (sectors 6-12)

After I got all the results from this morning’s weighting, I updated the table and here it is:

As you can see, already during first 24 hours of competition more than 11 teams captured fish. I don't remember such a successful start during last 7 years!

The air pressure is falling down from 1020 to 1015... looks like rain. But currently it is sunny and hot and referees are basking in the sun.

After dinner I decided to visit all the teams, a so called 'visit of politeness'. I can tell that most of the teams are ready to fight very seriously. "Classic" working really hard, "SportFishing", "Neman", "Gold Team" and others (well, maybe just "Pompy Fish" was in his tent and I guess sleeping) going to surprise all. At least this I took from our conversation. – we’ll see :-)

All in perfect mood, even those who still waiting for his first catch, and as we know - just 5 teams in this situation.

Main catches were registered from 6 till 10 am. A few teams did catch something during the night hours - for example "Classic" team.

My walk took a bit longer than planned and finished at "Karpolov" camp, in sector number 7. They caught their first fish today - beautiful carp for 7 kg.

Referees again on their way to teams and I'm waiting for reports. Got a message that the "Big Fish" raised to the top again! They caught the carp of 12.240 - the biggest fish till now during this competition.

And here is the evening table of results:

Two more teams escaped the 'zero fish' status!

Here a couple of photos that were taken during the day:

Well, first day is behind us. I can say that the start was very encouraging. I guess results of 160 kilos for the 24 hours - really not that bad!

Weather starting to deteriorate, I can see lightning in the distance, no wind, but lull before the storm. I gave directive to all teams to cover up anything that can fly and be ready to stop fishing (one of the rules demands that we stop fishing in case of bad weather since the carbon rods are very dangerous in such weather and can be deadly if somebody holds the rod up and lightning hits it).

I wish to all good night, and see you all tomorrow!

Day Three of Competition, 22.12.2009, Tuesday.

08:00

Morning... Referees got their coffee and prepared the morning weighting. I'm printing the result table to deliver to all teams.

At night the rain was strong, but our tents survived it, just on one there was four big "tummies" full of water :-) When attempting to dispose of one of them our referee Yury got his morning shower :-)

Cloudy, but not cold...

10:59 Referees reporting from the sector number 5, that "Crazy Carp" (Noam and Assaf) got their first fish! I'm really happy for them!

11:30 Recently got fresh info from referee - "Joker" also gone from zero and how! The big common of 13.420! Milcho and "Big Fish" team are crying :-)

13:50 Well, here is the table posted by me on the forum at about 12 pm:

I wish to add that even after the referees left the place I still continued to receive calls from teams about new catches. Milcho caught 3 new fishes, in the Zone 1 also we see some activity. Situation changed every few hours, none of the teams caught enough fish to have a serious gap between them and the other competitors. Teams moving through table up and down constantly.

"JCarp" calling with complains regarding the seagull that got stuck in old marker lines in middle of his swim and scared away all fish... To me it sounds like a joke but this shows the tense anxiety of people...

"Cop" (Royal Carp) has a lot of lost fish... And as far as I know it wasn’t just him. Again this just proves my previous thought about nerves....

Parparon and Ko ("Kid and Karlsson") took beautiful a koi-carp! But where did it come from??? This fish was acknowledged as a 'most beautiful fish of competition'.

And here the evening table - only one team without fish!

And of course - a couple of pictures....

Day Four of Competition, 23.12.2009, Wednesday.

11:41 Wow...passions ran high! From Zone 1 I received reports about very good catches, something like 20-25 kg per team, but from 3rd Zone I got information about sector #15 and 13 carps from 2 to 6 kg each. And just now Alex reported to me that he can see two runs at the same 15th sector and one fish definitely more than 10 kg!

Whats happening in 2nd Zone? I do not know. The battery in the radio is empty, but from the referee's camp I can see them weighing something. So - watch for results but I guess the table will be ready in one-two hours because I need the protocols and then enter the data into the table.

Meanwhile Slava is cooking dinner - rise soup with chicken and yesterday's buckwheat porridge with mushrooms, by Roma Bikov.

The sky is blue and sunny, air pressure raised up and reached 1023 Mbar. Now its decreasing slowly.... Calm, Kinnereth looks like glass.

During the night it was a bit cold: +9 and seems that there was a slight rain too.

Yesterday was a really hard day for referees, due to lots of work they ate just once! At 20:00... Sad :-(

13:06 New data entered to the Excel file and here are results:

Please pay attention to the boards- there are no teams without fish! Such a situation has happened just once in our history, about 5 years ago....

16:39 Referees preparing to the evening turn, and I did my visit of honor to Zone 1. Spoke with potential a champion, and he understands that he has really small lead and he must work really hard to keep his lead.

19:36 Refreshing the table:

Teams are tired... A lot of guys are fall asleep. Bulgarians are watching TV in the restaurant. Royal Carp missing just one fish for reaching the 100 kg sign.

With info received from my 'secret service' "Sportfishing" and "FishInspectors" found that they have one pit with fish placed exactly between two sectors. Almost all catches were from this spot. So after negotiations they agreed to join their efforts and feed with the same baits.

Haikin lost the fish from the landing net and was kicked by Niko :-) Joke, of course...

In the referee's camp the smell of crepes and strawberry jam... I'm afraid I wont get any because the cook is eating something every time...

I was right... I got two miserable crepes, but very tasty :-)

01:30 Day 4 is coming to an end, referees are going to sleep, Alex and I are sitting with PhotoShop and creating the posters for all teams. As usual went to sleep after 3 am...

Day Five of Competition, 24.12.2009, Thursday..

Here the morning table:

We know, that the last 24 hours of competition is much more interesting, than the first 24. With the difference between second and third place just 900 gram - no one can rest. It is almost impossible to reach the "Royal Carp", because the "Pilgrim" should catch more than 40 kg, and do not forget - this is only if "Royal Carp" will stop catching, and they wont. Even the referees were not able to leave their sector because they have bites and catches every few minutes. Finally I gave an order to the referee to leave because I need the protocols.

I don't know about Zones 2 and 3, but seems they also working well.

Sunset... Going to be cold.

16:22 Getting info from Zone 1 again.

17:33 Referees from Zone 2 and 3 reported a delay in coming back. The issue was we allowed to feed the swim during day light time only. And darkness just hit half an hour ago. If referees start to weight the fish, teams will lose the feeding time, so I decided to give them these 30 minutes and then start to weigh.

In the referee's camp just me and Roman. Roman is cooking a stunning supper for us and also for our Moscow team.

Few pictures:

Heres the table at 18:00.

The Royal Carp team was punished 0.5 kg due to a referee's offense. We understand all teams are under high pressure and very tired but this is not a reason for such behavior in regards to referees.

Later referees brought me some 'spicy' pictures from "Kid and Karlsson" sector. One of them became the hit of the day!

Alex and I finished the poster and printed it:

About 1 am Michael Finarsky told that we should change Oleg Makarov in 'Pilgrim" team because Oleg is feeling very sick. I have heard this earlier but did not know it was so serious. Even if this is a bit against our rules, we allowed this change.

Last Day of Competition, 25.12.2009, Friday .

After waking up early, Alex and I started to prepare the final ceremony and all the referees were sent to zones where they will be till the final signal.

Looking at yesterday's table and comparing it with information from time to time coming from referees, I understand the "Royal Carp" held firmly on to first place, but second, third and fourth places are under big question. And finally this was decided - last night made a serious change in the table. The "Classic" team hoick and throw down two teams at once! And now they are in third place!

Looking at our watches; 10:55. Telling referees via the radio - be ready, 5 minutes to final sign. We immediately got a reply from first zone about a run in 5-th sector. Accordingly to our rules this team may play and land this fish even if it will be after the final. And this fish raised them from 12th place to 10th! Well done!

And as usual - a few pics...

"Competition finished!"

Teams staring to pack the tackle and referees came to me with last protocols. Calculating the results:

Map of teams with their places in final table .

So, Aex Zaidiner and Arkady ("Royal Carp") with serious lead - on the first place, Milcho and Sergey ("Big Fish") - second and Oleg with Stas ("Classic") - third. The biggest fish at Joker (Slava and Igor), first fish - again at Milcho team.

More than 900 kilo of carp! Can you believe it!! More than 230 species, a lot of big ones - 8 kilos and up. Almost no small carp were caught. The same with catfish (our head ache) and this is really odd!

Starting to prepare certificates for participants, meanwhile teams gathered at the referee's camp.

Finally, about 2 pm I announced the award ceremony. Before starting the bestowal, we conducted inauguration of new Club members. This is our good tradition - giving member's ticket after big competitions. This time we had 6 candidates at once! Also we honor a membership card for Vicont (dog, who protected our camps against the cats during almost 7 years)

Vicont’s owner Oleg, felt so sick he couldnt stay for the ceremony and left us. The next day we were information that he had open ulcer andhe might have died during the competition. Thanks to God all ended OK, he passed surgery and now feels much better, but as told by one of team members - Dr. Bounkin - in a sport there is no victory which can be worth the life of men and no need to make hero from yourself, just for mentioning your name in necrology... We all wish quick recovery for him!

Gave special thanks to all the referee's: Sergey, Michael, Yury, Slava, Roman and main referee - Alex.

Gave extra special thanks to our sponsors - fishing tackle shop "SportFishing and personally Oleg Driamov, to David from "PL FIshing Ltd" - distributor of such big brands like Shimano, Sensas and Star Baits, to Shlomo Bachiar, to the store "Fish and Fun". The prizes given by them are really wonderful!!

And then started to announce to the teams in order of rank from last to first. Separated prizes given to the following nominations:

"Big Fish" Team, for the first fish

Assaf, Amir and Noam ("Crazy Carp") - for the last fish

Slava and Igor ("Joker") - for the biggest carp of championship - 13 kg 420 g . They got nice cup, tackle and money bonus.

Roma and Hanan ("Kid and Karlsson"), prize for the most beautiful fish of the championship

All participant got participation certificates, winners getting cups, medals, valuable tackle and money bonuses. And the champions also two bottles of champagne which is used immediately for sluicing all present!

Here the final winners table:

Place /Nomination	Sector	Team	Total weight	Team photo
I	4	"Royal Carp" (Sorokov Arkady | Zaidiner Alexandr)	135 kg 510 g 36 carps, average weight 3.764
II	6	"Big Fish" (Milcho Kirov | Kitaitzev Sergey)	115 kg 400 g. 26 carps, average weight 4438
III	12	"Classic" (Kopilevich Stanislav | Kalitvyanskiy Oleg)	106 kg 550 g. 35 carps, average weight 3044
Nominations
"First Fish"	6	"Big Fish" (Milcho Kirov | Kitaitzev Sergey)
"The Biggest Fish"	3	"Joker" (Mindin Slava | Bounkin Igor)	13 kg. 420 g.
"The Will For Win"	13	"Aquarium" (Braitman Piter | Rokitsky Vitaly)
"The last Fish"	5	"Crazy Carp" (Langevitz Assaf | Amir Russo | Noam Aizenberg)

And here the final table of all teams and places:

Place	Sector	Team	Total Weight (kg)	Fish Count	Team Photo
1	4	"Royal Carp" (Sorokov Arkady | Zaidiner Alexandr)	135.510	36
2	6	"Big Fish" (Milcho Kirov | Kitaitzev Sergey)	115.400	26
3	12	"Classic" (Kopilevich Stanislav | Kalitvyanskiy Oleg | Kopilevich Vika (runner))	106.550	35
4	15	"PilGrim" (Makarov Oleg | Kolokoltsev Dmitry)	101.180	29
5	3	"Joker" (Mindin Slava + Bounkin Igor)	90.560	21
6	1	"Kid&Karlsson" (Poluksht Roman| Milman Hanan)	89.040	19
7	11	"JCarp" (Dan Shuster | Alexey Lifshitz)	87.820	14
8	2	"Aligator" (Makedonskiy Mitko | Alik Li)	42.200	9
9	16	"GN-Carp-Attack" (Haikin Genady | Markov Niko)	35.400	6
10	5	"Crazy Carp" (Langevitz Assaf | Amir Russo | Noam Aizenberg)	34.160	6
11	14	"Neman" (Tanzura Peter | Price Alexander)	31.746	9
12	10	"SportFishing" (Bereza Vlad | Driamov Oleg)	30.760	8
13	9	"Fishinspectors" (Kantor Sasha | Vexler Dmitry)	20.120	7
14	17	"Basic Instinct (Golender Leonid | Gurevich Micael)	12.100	5
15	7	"Karpolov" (Kuznetzov Evgeny | Savikina Tatyana)	7.300	1
16	18	"Gold Team" (Tzodikovich Igor + Solomonov Pavel)	6.560	2
17	8	"Pompy Fish" (Pompy Tant | Danny)	6.220	2
18	13	"Aquarium" (Braitman Piter | Rokitsky Vitaly)	2.100	1	<
Total			924.726 kg	238 carps
Average weight			3,885
Biggest fish			13.420	sec 3

Catch/Time distribution diagram

Catch/Sector distribution diagram

Moon phases during competition

20	21	22	23	24	25

What I can say - the results are amazing! All teams show high class, and achieved maximum from their swims. Of course some weak points also were presented like lot of fish lost and this demands research and checking - what was wrong. Either end tackle, or fish playing...

The weather was just perfect. Mostly sunny, with temperatures +16 +21 during day time and not less than +9 nightly. What is really odd - the weather was not so different from the last year and when I got preliminary forecasts I even started to lose my optimism. I don't know what was the root of success this year - moon phases, water and air temperature, good feeding mixes based on ready made mixes from Sensas and StarBaits - but what can I do with fact that the total weight of all catches exceeded 900 kg and in 2008 it was just 200+ kg.

The number of teams was less than we expected but this was our fault - we took in consideration our local holidays but totally forgot about others, like - Christmas and New Year. Well, next time we’ll be smarter and possibly will move the dates to early January, in order to accept teams from Europe and Russia.

And now I wish to add some personal words of thanks:

I wish to thank to Organization Committee, and personally to Driamov Oleg, Haikin Gennady, Zaidiner Alex and Poluksht Roman. Thanks to our referees - Zhirniaakov Alex (main referee), Michael, Sergey, Anatoly and Yury (zones referees). Big thank to our cooks - Yanenko Slava and Bikov Roman! Gratitude to Dmitry Yuzefovich for the amazing design of our championship logo, certificates, stickers and other things, that give to all celebration atmosphere!

Again - personal appreciation to David from PL Fishing. His contribution with bringing to Israel such leading brands like Shimano, Sensas and StarBites was immeasurable, because as we know the winners used these ready mixes in their baiting tactic and this proved itself in our waters! Also the prizes from Shimano were perfect! I hope next year we will work together and will achieve the even better results!

And now some results interpolation based on 3 years experience:

Take a look at the graph of catches - even if we keep in mind that the competition in 2007 was in November, 2008 - early in the December and 2009 - at the end of the December - peak points are almost the same! Look at the green areas - their height and width is proportionate to catches and time of the day. Actually from 5 pm till 5 am is dead. Single catches can not ruin this picture. From 10 am to 11 am we see a dramatic decrease of catches. Then from 11 am to 2 pm - recession every 2 hours and duration of catches starting from 9 am - also 2 hours. Like 2 hours bites, 2 hours recession. Most productive period - from 4 am till 10 am, but if we take a look at graph closely - we see the same 2/2 system, funny heh?

Pictures taken during the competition you can find here and there

later we will see more pictures uploaded by teams. Also currently I'm working on movie shot during the competition.

But anyway - here are a few perfect photos from Artur Martirosian, enjoy!

A. Mazlin, December 2009

Corrector: Scott Conklin

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