A CLOSE CALL...
ONE FISH WAS ALL THAT I NEEDED My lessons from World Feeder Champs
AM I really just home from the seventh World Feeder Championships? It seems only yesterday that I was fishing the very first event back in Italy in 2011!
But it’s true, and I’d love to be sitting here now writing about another success for Preston Innovations England.
Sadly, this year it wasn’t to be. The River Raia in Cabecao, Portugal, proved disappointing as we could manage only eighth out of the 22 teams.
One bright spot was a silver medal for Mick Vials with an awesome three points, and while things didn’t go our way over the two days of competition it was still a very interesting venue to fish.
Bonus fish were carp and barbel, but not lots of them, and in most sections just one or two of these would provide mega points for the team. There were also millions of bleak, and the big decision was whether to gamble for a bonus fish or play safe and target the small stuff.
As it turned out, we adopted a two-pronged approach, but it’s how we fished for the carp and barbel which I am going to talk about here as this has more relevance to UK fishing…
FEEDERS
The secret here was to keep chopping and changing to try and make a bite, but my main feeder for the far side was a 30g Preston Innovations distance feeder with sticky mag. Because the feeder has a tapered lead at the base it slowed the release of maggots which was perfect, bearing in mind the hordes of bleak present.
The second feeder was a Matrix Dome, and again this was picked primarily due to the bleak problems. We could plug the dome with hemp and corn or even a little chopped worm and then cap it with the soil so it didn’t attract tiny silvers.
HOOKS AND LINE
Although bites were few and far between, when you hooked a fish, you had to land it! Not only were the pegs very tight, the venue was also weedy and snaggy so hooking a fish was only half the battle.
You had to be aggressive in the way you played a fish, without suffering hook-pulls. I eventually settled on a size 12 Gamakatsu A1 hook to a 0.19mm hooklength for down the middle and the same hooklength but a size 10 hook for across. It never seemed the fish were line or hook-shy.
HOOKBAITS
Sweetcorn was safest but worm was a good back-up bait, particularly down the middle for the barbel. Maggots just got obliterated by the bleak.
BAITING
During the 10-minute prebaiting period we introduced a bed of hemp and sweetcorn along the middle for a barbel or carp, while leaving the far bank untouched.
With the water being so clear and the fish easily spooked, this gave us a good chance of a bite first cast, as fish would settle in front of us in the undisturbed water.
So instead of trying to build up a swim right across, we were looking to just nick a fish. With so few fish to go at, building a swim was pretty much impossible.
After this it was a case of trying to set the middle line up. This meant fishing over the initial feed for around three hours, at which point we would put two more big feeders in and then let the swim rest for 15-20 minutes.
First cast back on this line gave us a good chance of a bite, but the problem with setting the swim up in this way was that you got only two or three chances at it. It was important not to go on to it too early, since the bulk of the fish tended to feed later in the match.
MY TWO DAYS
My two match days were frustrating. On day one I found myself on C9 which, on paper, was an okay area. My problem was that I didn’t get an early fish and as a result I was always playing catch-up.
I ended up having a look for bleak but I couldn’t get them to settle, then in the last two hours I needed a bonus fish which just never came.
Could I have done things any different? Quite possibly, but that’s always the case in fishing and had I managed one bonus fish I’d now be writing a very different story.
I ended up with just 840g and a hugely disappointing 18th place in my section.
Day two saw me head to D5, a decent area for our by now ‘bonusfish-or-bust’ approach.
My match started badly, as on the third cast across I had a proper pull from what I’m sure was a carp, only for it come off almost immediately.
I then spent the next four and a bit hours chopping and changing lines, trying to get another pull, before getting three bites in the last 25 minutes.
These resulted in two small carp and another lost.
The two small carp went 1kg 502g, which gave me eighth the section. The lost fish cost me third in section. So near but so far!
WELL DONE TO ITALY
On the team front it was Italy who took a well deserved gold medal. They targeted the bleak on day one and took the field apart.
Then, on day two, they mixed it up to to maintain their lead.
A great performance, as it was also from Romania and Serbia who came second and third.