KARACHI, Oct 8 The 18th TAS 2009 - The Arabian Sea Sportfishing Tournament concluded at the WWF Wetland Centre at Sandspit, where angler Ali Anjarwala was declared tournament champion for landing a 27kg Cobia.

Before the break of dawn anglers started gathering at picturesque Mubarrak Village to lock horns for the first big offshore fishing event of the season and as many as 99 anglers on 29 boats finally set off for the event.

The main areas that were scanned by the competitors were Nancowry shoal (Talar), Bauchamp Reel (Gund Boo), Charna Island, Hubco, Kaio Island (Chotta Charna), Hayat ka Pathar and Kachiani.

At the Wetland Centre, 6 species of gamefish were reported for the day. These included Cobia, Mackerel, Grouper, Barracuda, Trevally and Snapper.

The fish species were then identified and weighed and angler Ali Anjarwala of team no 15 landed a 27 kg Cobia to earn the top prize.

Runner up was angler Agha Azhar of team no 2 who landed an 16.25 kg Grouper while third position was grabbed by angler Wajid Ali of team no 13 for landing a 10.5 kg Mackerel.

The chief guest for the day was Capt. Imran Qureshi who along with the sponsors from Getz Pharma, Tournament Director Aziz Agha and representative from W.W.F Wetland Centre handed over the prizes to the winners at a grand trophy presentation ceremony.

Chief organizer Syed Aziz Agha later strongly condemned the reclamation of wetlands and the wanton cutting down of mangroves by land grabbers and developers, the massive scale illegal fish-netting in the Sindh waters for over 3 decades by the greedy unethical commercial fishing boats and finally sea pollution and the massive scale sewage and untreated waste that is being pumped into open sea.

“The damage to the marine eco-system and food-chain is phenomenal and some of it is irreparable as some marine species are going extinct,” said Agha. —Agencies