South Spotlight on the best matches

England Ladies struggle with an alien species

ENGLAND Ladies struggled to quite literally get to grips with the small catfish in this dead arm of a river.

Fin spines left many of the team with blood streaming from sore hands and fingers.

As a result, the team – Emma Pickering, Sam Simm, Helen Dagnall, Kayleigh Smith, Julie Abbott and Abbie Kendall – finished a disappointing ninth on 90.5 points as Spain took gold and Dutch angler Anja Groot was crowned World Champion.

Manager Joe Roberts said: “Spain fed stickymag, which we didn’t know about, and that seemed much better for the cats. Our plan was to catch skimmers with groundbait and joker but as the week went on the skimmers fell away and the cats got stronger.”

“That said, the girls were great, fishing in 40-degree heat for alien fish.

“We’ve learned a lot, but the truth is that if we went back there next week with the same team, I don’t think we’d do much better simply because we don’t know enough about the catfish.

“On the flip side, if many of the teams that finished above us came over to the UK and fished bloodworm for roach we would excel and they would struggle – but that’s just the way it is.

“Teams are getting stronger and stronger at all international levels now and where England used to dominate, it’s not like that now.

We have to keep pace and be on our toes. We need more ladies fishing matches to give me as manager more anglers to pick from. I’ll be holding trials and am looking to get something similar to the Angling Trust Talent Pathway exclusively for ladies off the ground,” Joe added.

Team result: 1 Spain, 47.5pts; 2 France, 55.5; 3 Hungary, 56.5; 4 Netherlands, 59 (56-383); 5 Czech Republic, 59 (55-787); 6 Croatia, 64.5; 7 Slovakia, 80.5; 8 Poland, 82; 9 England, 90.5; 10 Slovenia, 92; 11 Russia, 107.5; 12 Italy, 108; 13 Portugal, 111 (43-301); 14 Belgium, 111 (43-086); 15 Serbia, 115; 16 Germany, 126.5; 17 United States, 164.

Individual result: 1 A Groot, Netherlands, 2pts (14-790); 2 I Hawryhuk, France, 2 (13-019); 3 H Kovace, Hungary, 3 (14-139); 4 P Pongrac, Croatia, 3 (13-684); 5 J Dragas, Poland, 3 (13-579); 6 O Tosta-Villino, Spain, 4.