Exclusive report from Steve Ringer at the World Feeder Champs.
Steve reveals the tactics behind England’s bronze medal-winning ‘Italian job’
IAM just back from this year’s World Feeder Championships, held on Italy’s fabulous Ostellato Canal.
This is what I’d call a ‘proper’ canal, being 80m-90m wide with depths ranging from 4ft in the edges to 7ft-9ft down the middle.
Main target species were bream and skimmers, but other species were present too in the form of carrasio, zander, catfish, and carp.
After five days’ practice our results had been mixed, but by Friday, the final day, we felt we had a plan to give us a real chance.
This involved fishing two lines – a main line at 42m, which was around the middle of the canal, and a short, resting line at 17m casting distance.
On the bait front, we had joker with us but the plan was not to feed it, which is amazing when you consider how effective the bait is!
One problem we faced was that the canal was full of tiny zander of around half-an-ounce apiece, and feeding joker attracted them in hordes, stopping skimmers and bream from settling in our swim.
So we relied solely on groundbait – a mix of Sensas Magic and Black Magic – and small amounts of chopped worm to try and attract and catch the skimmers.
Fishing bloodworm on the hook was difficult, so single red maggot became our go-to bait.
It seemed the skimmers held on to a live maggot better than a dead one, meaning there were fewer missed bites.
TACKLING UP
After chopping and changing a lot in practice I eventually settled on 12ft Daiwa Tournament Quivers and Castizm 25QDA reels for the long line, and 11ft Tournament quivers with 4012 TDR reels for the short line.
Mainline for both set-ups was 0.10mm Daiwa Tournament Evo braid to short shockleaders of 10lb Tournament ST to improve bite detection and encourage the fish to hook themselves.
Hooklength choice was 60cm of 0.12mm Pure Fluorocarbon to a size 16 Kamasan B512 hook – I felt its red colour helped, as it matched the hookbait.
FEEDER CHOICE
This was something I didn’t settle on until Friday, just one day before the start of the Championships.
I had been fishing rocket-type feeders most of the week, but once I’d worked out the tactic it became apparent that I needed to plug the feeder hard to get my bait to the bottom. So I switched to 20g three-hole, Guru X-Change feeders which allowed me to determine how hard I plugged the feeder. In shallow water 20g would minimise disturbance on the cast, but if the canal began to run I could easily switch to 30g.
WORLD CHAMPS – DAY 1
On day one I was on peg 8 in C section. I was happy enough with this, as it was in the middle of the match length with no end pegs to contend with.
As per the team plan I opted for two lines, 42m and 17m, and in the 10-minute baiting period I put in three small feederfuls with just a pinch of finely chopped worm in each. I then did the same on the short line, with the addition of a few dead red pinkies to try and attract some small skimmers.
At the starting hooter I went straight out to 42m with a single red maggot, hoping for a quick fish to settle the nerves. I didn’t have to wait long... within 15 seconds the tip went around and a nice 6oz skimmer was in the net!
The first hour was then pretty steady, with skimmers and one bream of around 1lb 12oz. Word on the bank suggested I was winning the section, a good start!
As expected, though, the 42m line started to die so I topped up the inside line with one feederful and another baiting-up feeder on the long line with a bit of chopped worm added.
My first 20 minutes on the short line produced two small carp of around 3oz and a 12oz skimmer, so I was ticking over nicely. All this time, though, I was itching to go back on the long line as I felt the rest would do the swim good.
Amazingly, though, when I switched back I couldn’t get a bite. Eventually, by upping the worm, I had another good run of skimmers plus a bonus carrasio around the pound mark, and with two hours to go I felt all was going to plan.
Then the 42m line died and I couldn’t buy a bite there. The short line produced the odd fish
but I really needed the long line to come back to form.
In practice, when it died we started a new line 3m past the initial area, but even this didn’t work and I managed just six fish in the last two hours.
That cost me, as the Austrian lad in my section had two late bream to take the win and I came second with 7.5kg, just 900g behind.
On the team front, though, the news was good. Adam Wakelin second, Mick Vials fifth, Lee Kerry third and brother Phil second, giving us 14 points. We felt this might give us the lead overnight, but Russia scored an incredible nine points to win the day.
WORLD CHAMPS – DAY 2
Day two dawned and I was off to E7, which again I was happy with as it put me in the lower half of the split. Again, I didn’t have any end pegs to worry about.
As per day one the team plan was to fish two lines. I kicked them both off in the same manner and again was rewarded with a skimmer in the first 30 seconds!
Better still, my second cast resulted in a bream of around a kilo and on the 10-minute mark I managed a second around 1.5kg.
Bearing in mind I was fishing for 4kg for good points, match starts don’t really get any better! But as expected, it began to slow down and on the hour mark I felt the swim needed a rest.
Word on the bank was I was clear in the section, so I felt time was on my side. One 10oz skimmer caught short was a welcome bonus but again, when I went back out to the long line, nothing happened.
I had put another feeder in before I came off it and the alarm bells were starting to ring. For two days on the trot I’d had no response from this swim.
In hour two I nicked the odd skimmer, but it was getting harder and harder. A switch to bloodworm on the hook produced five tiny zander in as many casts and I felt I was starting to struggle.
I didn’t want to force the peg, so I decided on a couple of 10-minute casts where I would plug the feeder rock-hard so the contents would come out far more slowly.
On the first of these casts, after seven minutes, I had an indication which I was sure was a liner. Sure enough, on the 10-minute mark round went the tip and a proper bream of 1.5kg was in the net. This was huge as far as my section went and bought me time to have a tactical rethink. I felt my swim was blown, so I needed to reset it. Worms, while having an initial impact, seemed to be making it worse so I decided to take them out of the mix and rest the swim for 30 minutes. I wanted the zander to mop everything up, then I could start afresh.
After 30 minutes I went back out with just groundbait in the feeder and nicked two more skimmers. Suddenly I felt back in control of the peg and I plodded along until 90 minutes to go, when I decided to reintroduce a bit of chopped worm to try and restart the peg.
Rather than hit the original spot, I did it on the ‘reach’, which entails holding the rod further forward after the cast so the feeder goes just past the baited area.
I also plugged the feeder so hard the bait wouldn’t come out. It was bait in the swim that was pulling in the zander, but if they couldn’t get at it the skimmers would be able to move in.
It worked a treat, and I had a bite a chuck till the end. More often than not the bait was still in the feeder when I landed a fish, I’d pushed it in that hard! My strong finish saw me put
8.5kg on the scales which was enough to take the section win. Just 4kg was second.
While I was pleased with a section win, I can’t help but wish I had worked things out that bit quicker on day one, as I’m sure that would have resulted in two section wins.
On the team front the news wasn’t so good. We’d amassed 22 points to slip to third and bronze medal position, just two points behind Holland but a long way behind Russia, who were comfortable and worthy winners.
My section second and first were enough to give me fifth overall in the individual stakes.
Roll on February, 2019, when we’re back in South Africa for the next event!