WORLD FEEDER CHAMPS WON ON BLEAK? HOW RIDICULOUS!
Fair play to the Italians, but no shame in England’s result
IHAVE had a sneak preview of Steve Ringer’s report on this year’s World Feeder Champs (see page 32).
I wonder if Steve will be subjected to the same level of ridicule as Shakespeare Superteam boss Ken Giles was, many years ago, when he wrote along the lines that ‘even putting all my shot down by the hook, I couldn’t get through the bleak!’
Comments from the worldlywise who had never been closer to a World Championships than reading about it suggested that the team should have fished for bleak back then, bearing in mind that, just as in Portugal 2017, the flipping Italians won the event fishing for the slippery silver fag-papers.
Of course, the facts are similar today to what they were then – England would have been in completely alien territory fishing for bleak. Forget that the wheels fell off for Steve and others in the team, but I doubt that any of the squad have ever even fished deliberately for bleak for years, and never ever with a leger rod!
I also think it is somehow violating the spirit of the event to fish an empty feeder, whether it saves time or not. Did the sneaky Italians take the lead off? Did the feeder in fact float? It won’t be long, in pubs frequented by anglers, before this version of the story in Portugal will be told.
Well done to Mick Vials for mitigating a dreadful England result with a silver medal that shows our squad’s plan wasn’t that far out – we just needed a few more good pegs!