SO NEAR YET SO FAR FOR TELFORD FEEDER SQUAD
Second behind Dutch side on Spain’s River Jucar
ENGLAND’S initial foray into the fledgling World Feeder Club Championships resulted in a silver medal for the Preston Innovations Telford side.
They finished behind Holland’s Sportvisserij Preston Innovations squad on Spain’s River Jucar.
Our team – England Feeder boss Tommy Pickering plus Mick Vials, Adam Wakelin and Will Freeman, along with Neil McKinnon and Tommy’s daughter, former Ladies World Champion Emma – bounced back from an indifferent opening day to finish four points adrift.
“I’ve always said that provided we fished to win but ended up in second I’d be happy,” Tommy said. “I don’t think we could have done much more. The squad performed brilliantly on what is an alien venue with very different fish to catch. The carp were wild, fit, hard-fighting fish and the river very snaggy, plus you needed a lot of patience waiting for a bite.”
In seventh after day one, Tommy’s team were only seven points off the leaders and they were confident of clawing back those points. The same approach was used on Sunday, stickymag feeders fished to the far and near banks just over marginal stones. Strong 8lb mainlines and 0.17mm hooklinks to a size 14 hook weren’t always strong enough!
“We learned a lot through fishing the Iberian Masters on the river a few weeks before, mainly how to get the carp away from the snags safely,” Tommy continued. “We were looking to get 10 bites in the match, but it was then in the lap of the gods how many you got out. Every team was in the same boat!
“Going into Sunday, we were seven points behind and that was most important – points not position. The team pulled it out of the bag a little to get into second. We hope to be back next year when there will be more teams fishing.”
England had a second team competing, but Drennan Barnsley Blacks ended the weekend in 19th place.