Steve Ringer reports from a fascinating week in Hungary
Steve’s Team Daiwa UK come cold to a restocked rowing course
ANEW event in my calendar this year was the WalterLand Feeder Masters on the Szeged rowing course in Hungary.
I’d fished float-only events here, and the odd feeder match, but things were very different this time – not least because the venue had been dry six months earlier!
Restocking took place with more than 45 tonnes of carp from 500g to 4kg plus lots of small fish, mainly carassio, small carp and skimmers. No-one really knew what to expect.
I was representing Team Daiwa UK alongside Adam Wakelin, Will Raison and Martin Greene. Overall, 27 teams were taking part from 10 different countries, and standards were sure to be high.
The event was to be fished to World Champs rules – 50cm hooklengths, free-running feeders and no pellets or hair-rigging. A truly Continental match, in fact.
PRACTICE AND TACTICS
The venue was very different from previous years, with a lot more small fish and not as many carp feeding. Having targeted carp for three days in practice we didn’t feel they were reliable enough to go all out for on match day one – we didn’t want to blow out early!
If we fished for carp to a man, though, practice suggested that while we might have two really good results, there was also the potential for a disaster. A small fish attack meant we might not win day one but we would surely be in the mix going into day 2.
We ended up fishing three lines
– a carp line at 29m just before the rowing rope, then a small-fish line
at 11-12m and finally another carp line at 7m. We had sweetcorn for the carp and single red maggot for the small fish.
TACKLE
To target carp on the long and short lines I set up three 11ft Tournament Quivers with 4012 TDR reels loaded with 8lb Guru Pulse Pro reel line. I then fished simple running paternosters with 50cm hooklengths of 0.17mm N-Gauge to either a size 10 or 12 Feeder Special hook. This might seem a big hook but remember, hair rigging isn’t allowed, and with sweetcorn on the hook I wanted plenty of the point showing.
For the small fish I had two 10ft Tournament Quivers, again matched with TDR 4012 reels and braid, which has no equal when speed fishing for small fish.
Hooklengths were 50cm of 0.13mm N-Gauge to size 14 Tubertini Series 18 hooks.
THE PLAN
For day one the plan was to feed the long carp line and the smallfish line in the 10-minute baiting up period. On the long line I put in eight capped feeders full of corn with a little chopped corn to hold it in place. Feeding groundbait on this line would attract too many small fish.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this line was that we found it best to feed at 27m and then fish at 28m and 29m. The carp seemed to like to sit off the back of the bait, rather than on it.
If we started getting line bites we would drop back on to the bait, but this hadn’t happened thus far. For fishing past the bait we found an empty feeder was best, so I opted for a Guru mini 20g window feeder. This was almost like fishing a bomb which is, of course, not allowed under the rules.
On the small-fish line I simply introduced five Guru four-hole X-Change feeders worth of groundbait, the plan being to fish a three-hole cage feeder over the top of the feed.
DAY ONE
Peg B13 was my home for day one, and while I fed my carp lines I pretty much fished for small fish all match, ending up with 254 fish, mainly carassio, small carp and some tiny catfish.
My 8kg 100g was good enough for fifth in section with three of the first four pegs beating me.
When the other lads returned it was clear that our 11-point total had put us in the lead by two points.
DAY TWO
Today I was off to C27. After the success of day one we decided to stay with the small fish as a team but keep our eyes out in case more carp decided to feed. This is exactly what happened. First, I couldn’t really line the small fish up, and after an hour I had just 36 fish. Worst still, at least seven anglers in my zone had a carp.
As a consequence I had a short look for a carp after an hour but I didn’t get one. It was then back to small fish for 20 minutes, but I knew it was decision time. There is nothing worse than chopping and changing all match, as you end up doing nothing properly. So, with just 90 minutes gone, I decided it was carp for the rest of the match. I felt I needed four for a top five and I now had three-anda-half hours to do it.
I fed the long line and let it settle for 10 minutes while I caught a few more small fish. I then cast out to 29m with the empty window and a single grain of corn. Six-minute casts had been best in practice and on the second cast the tip went round and I let out a sigh of relief as 1.5kg common went in the net. Next cast I dropped shorter to 28m and nicked another carp.
From this point my match went pretty much perfectly and I ended up with five carp and 70 small fish for 10kg 150g and second in the section.
On the team front another steady day saw us return 16 points, and with just one match to go we were leading by four points.
DAY THREE
I was happy with A17, and teamwise we saw no need to change the plan, but this was my most difficult match so far. I couldn’t really see most of the anglers in my section and it was really tricky to know exactly what was happening.
I started well enough with small fish, but I could see the odd carp being caught. The problem was that I couldn’t really tell if it was the same anglers catching them, which made making a decision really tough.
With this in mind I decided to stay on the small fish for pretty much four hours, at which point I had 200m of them.
Into the last hour, and I felt I needed carp. So I set the long line up and, with 30 minutes to go, I got two in two casts for two kilos – but that was it.
I ended up with 7kg 450g which, after a tense weigh-in, was enough for third.
The important part now was the team, but the news wasn’t as good as we’d hoped
We suspected our 20-point total would be too many and so it proved, with Van den Eynde Slovakia totalling a miserly five penalty points to beat us to the title. Better luck next year!