To kick things off for the 2017 Season there are some changes to the way the Hobie® Bream Series is going to handle Angler of the Year, Rankings and Hobie Fishing Worlds Qualification to simplify the process and better reward anglers for competing in the series.
Rankings
Rankings have been officially discontinued. The benefits of this decision are two-fold. Firstly there has been ambiguity around rankings for a while. This is due in large part to differences in the number or rounds in each season and how many rounds are counted as part of each anglers top 5. Secondly it will streamline the process of maintaining the scoreboards.
Now the good stuff
As a result, Angler of the Year is going to play a larger part in the 2017 series. The qualification process for Hobie Fishing Worlds 7 will now be run based on Angler of the Year points. In a similar way to 2016 where anglers qualified for Worlds using their best 3 scores out of 5 qualifying rounds, anglers will now qualify using their best 5 scores across the season to qualify. This will even the playing field and open things up across the board.
The second major change to Angler of the Year is that we want to reward the anglers for their fishing and their participation in the series. As such, we are going to take the top 10 anglers based on AOY points and head North to go fishing for Barramundi and Sooty Grunter in a Hobie, Tandem, Teams Competition.
Anglers will be paired in Hobie Mirage Pro Angler 17’s fitted with Lowrance Fish Finders, Power-Pole Micro Anchors and MotorGuide Trolling Motors and head out for what are likely to be some real Hand Grenades on the end of the line. To avoid the top two anglers ending up on the same team, anglers will be paired 1st & 10th, 2nd & 9th etc. to keep things fair. Everyone will stay together in the same camp and get to experience some truly unique fishing.
Now with more chances to qualify for Hobie Fishing Worlds 7 and the added incentive of an awesome trip North there’s even more reason to head to as many rounds as possible.
Remember, Early entry for Round 1 at Marlo closes tomorrow at 1:30pm AEDT and entry is now also open for what is expected to be the Biggest round of the year, Round 2 at Bemm River in Victoria presented by Atomic.
There’s never been a better time to get involved in the Hobie Bream Series.
Bring it on!
