(Text and photos Valentina Prokic)

Mate Baresic, Luka Fatovic and Antonio Buratovic win

On the 22nd of June the Croatian Spearfishing Championship for Teams has been held. The competition has been held in the sea of Zadar with the organization of SRD Harpoon.

Croatian Teams Spearfishing Championship Competition field

Winners of the Croatian Spearfishing Championship for Teams have been the spearos of club Periska from Ploce, the current champion of Croatia Mate Baresic and Luka Fatovic, and former national team member from island Hvar Antonio Buratovic.

 

Fish caught

During the five hours fishing Baresic, Buratovic and Fatovic caught 22 fish- one conger, four forkbeard, one seabass, six brown wrasse, a scorpion fish of 1805 grams and ten white seabream of which the heaviest had 1473 grams.

Periska Ploce – Mate Baresic, Luka Fatovic and Antonio Buratovic

Second place in the Croatian Spearfishing Championship for Teams between 15 teams has been conquered by the spearos of club Luben from Rijeka – Boris Reinic, Aleksandar Tomic and Dario Babic who brought 14 fish worth 19529 points on the weighing. On the wire there were a conger, three brown wrasse, a forkbeard, five white seabream – the heaviest of which was 1543 grams, seabass and three gilthead seabream – one of them was 1466 grams.

Luben Rijeka – Boris Reinic, Dario Babic, Aleksandar Tomic

The third place in the competition went to the Istrian club Pjescana Uvala, with Dejan Micković, Matej Njavro and Manuel Sirola.

Pjescana Uvala – Dejan Mickovic, Manuel Sirola and Matej Njavro

The Istrian team had only 20 points less than Luben. They had 19509 points for the 15 fish: a conger, a forkbeard, three brown wrasses and ten white seabreams.

Interview with Boris Reinić

Luben Rijeka – Boris Reinic, Dario Babic, Aleksandar Tomic

“For one day and a half we were in preparations. We don’t know this zone very well because for Dive In Cup we usually hunt on positions outside Dugi Otok. But I did have one point that I found during preparations for the state championship on the island Ist 19 years ago at 12 meters, where there were a lot of white seabreams and brown wrasses and we based our tactics on it. We decided to go on shallow spots, because we saw that the current would have been strong in most part of the competition and diving at points in this area would take too much time”, said former national team member Boris Reinić, who emphasized one interesting fact:

“For all those spearfishermen who claim that there is no fish in the shallow, and they are a lot, I can say that the white seabream of 1172 grams was caught in two-meters depth, a large gilthead seabream at five meters. Dario took three white seabreams also in a point two meters deep, and Alexander’s seabass was caught from the surface”, said Reinić.

Sea conditions and best catches

The conditions for spearos were not too good because the strong current prevented fishing in some parts of the zone, but in the end there was quite some nice fish and all the crews had a valid catch on weighing.

Among other fish, one grouper of 4300 grams was caught (Slaven Cubrić), then a forkbeard of 3124 grams (Danijel Babin) and gilthead seabream of 2451 grams (Oleg Vlahov).

Slaven Cubric’s grouper
Oleg Vlahov gilthead seabream