Winter Fishing World Championship to be held in Kazakhstan for the first time

Kazakhstan will host Winter Fishing World Championship at Kapshagay lake on February 6-12 for the first time, Tengrinews.kz reports. The strongest and most highly-awarded teams from ten countries will travel to Kazakhstan to compete in winter fishing with an ice jig (a sort of fishing lure). Teams from Ukraine (three-time world champion), Russia, Belarus, Latvia (three-time world champion), Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Poland and the U.S. will take part in the Championship. 9 people will represent Kazakhstan: two coaches, six sportsmen and one representative of the country. There are two sportsmen from Semey, three from Pavlodar and one from Almaty in the team. However, there are no women in Kazakhstan team unlike Sweden, Latvian and Russian teams. The safety regulations come first at the Championship, according to Roman Botabekov, Kazakhstan Federation of Sport Fishing president. Kapshagay lake meets all the safety requirements. There is a sufficient amount of fish there and the ice is 40-50 centimeters thick. It guarantees safety of the fishing. The Championship will be held in two zones (in the area of 590x140 meters each). According to the rules, each of the participants will get not less than 400 squared meters for fishing. Participants will change the zones in different days of the Championship and this will allow all the teams to be on an equal footing. The jury will include 13 Kazakhstan referees along with 5 representative from other countries. Besides an International Fresh Water Sport Fishing Federation (FIPSed - Federation Peshe Sportive) representative will become the main observing referee of the tournament. Doping tests for sportsmen will be introduced in the World Championship for the first time this year. Winter Fishing with an ice jig generally involves catching of only small-sized fish. There is a complicated scoring system in the tournaments. Referees count not the quantity of the fish, but its weight. It is difficult to strike a small-sized fish. For example, the biggest fish caught in Ukrainian Championship weighted 132 grams and the champion caught 215 fish (three kilograms). Kazakhstan sport fishing team participated in many international tournaments. Kazakhstan won the first place in Southern Korean Championship in 2003 and came second in Australian Fishing Championship in 2008.