Bairnsdale angler Leon Leong took out the opening round of Hobie Fishing Series 16 held at the Eagle Point last week.
The event which was originally scheduled Lake Tyers, attracted a quality field of 75 anglers, with a plentiful supply of magnificent fish landed over the two-day event.
The tournament is a cast and retrieve, lure and fly only event, and involves an angler returning to the weigh-in area, with their heaviest bag of their live and legal fish (three per
day), which are released after weigh in.
Leong, in just his second event, scored a sensational victory weighing in six quality fish for a combined weight of 6.17 kilograms (kgs).
The smiled couldn’t be wiped off his face and he had obviously taken plenty of benefit from his initial Hobie kayak tournament fishing experience at Mallacoota in October last year.
Leong conceded he covered many miles in search of bigger fish.
“I like to fish around wooden structures, I headed up the Tambo, which is an 18-kilometre round trip, but thats where I’m comfortable, comes from plenty of bank fishing,” Leong said.
New South Wales angler Simon Morley (6.15kgs) and Rosedale’s Tony Pettie (6.03kgs) finished second and third respectively.
Another Bairnsdale-based angler, Ruth Beeby (4.24kgs), won the women’s section and finished 29th overall.
Beeby also caught the biggest fish of the tournament, an impressive 1.55kg species.
Western Australian angler Greg Cooper (5.41kgs) was winner of the masters section, finishing in eighth place overall.
In the youth’s division, East Gippsland’s Riley Whelan (4.43kgs) was the winner, placing an impressive 27th overall, a great result for the teenager in the infancy of his fishing career.
After two days of fishing the Gippsland Lakes the Hobie convoy headed to the Bemm River for round two.
