England defend World Feeder Champs team gold medal in 2015
Half-a-point sealed title in Holland as a crazy last hour saw Tommy Pickering’s boys home
IT MAY not have been Preston Innovations England Feeder team’s most commanding performance, but their victory in the 2015 World Feeder Champs will arguably be their most remarkable, as it was won by the tiniest of margins in a crazy final hour of fishing.
Held on the vast Terneuzen Canal in the Netherlands, England looked on course to follow up their win in 2014’s event with a repeat performance. However, going into the last 60 minutes of the weekend, it seemed as though the old enemy, France, were going to gatecrash the party!
“It was madness at the end,” recalls team manager Tommy Pickering. “I thought we’d just missed out but people were congratulating me. There was a tie in one section, big fish were being caught elsewhere, and it was impossible to get a clear picture. Then I got news that Adam Wakelin had caught a bream with just seconds to go.
“So many things went our way that I don’t think a match like that will ever be repeated. I know you can say that you can’t influence what’s happening elsewhere in a match but when every point counts, you need favours from other teams and a bit of luck. We had the lot that weekend and it left me drained
and very emotional. We won by half-a-point in the end! That’s one missed bite, one lapse in concentration – small margins.”
Pre-match favourites
“After winning the World Champs in 2014 and then the Euro Feeder Challenge on the Terneuzen Canal just before the 2015 event, we were seen as one of the favourites. It adds pressure, but we never saw ourselves as a favourite, because we knew how tough and changeable the canal could be.
“Going on previous form, the team picked itself. The Ringer brothers Steve and Phil, Mick Vials, Dean Barlow and Adam Wakelin were fishing, and it meant Rob Wootton missed out again. I can’t tell you how unlucky Rob has been under my management and the only reason he never made the team was because we were winning medals. There was no reason that I could see to change anything. Rob was brilliant with it all, though. He never moaned, he cracked on in practice and played his part on the bank.
“From the Feeder Challenge a month beforehand, we knew it was going to be hard. There weren’t a lot of fish to go at and they always seemed to be on the move so you couldn’t talk about good and bad areas, because their form could change overnight. In practice every day was different, so nailing down a plan was a real head-scratcher for myself and my right-hand man Glenn Lawrence.
“We all felt that we could catch small fish like roach and perch on a long cast but on the final day of practice I asked a few of the team to feed and fish a throwaway line at 25m using leam with joker and casters in it. This was there solely to catch bream from, and I felt we had something up our sleeve that no other team did.
“Day one was hot and sunny and we got on with our two-line plan. The first swim was at around 40m to 45m where the canal began to shallow up and there was a ledge. This was where we’d found the most roach, so we focused a lot of effort here using a groundbait mix with joker and pinkies. The 25m line had a full bag of leam put in with joker and caster, and if the lads could catch a bream apiece from it, that’d do nicely.
“The pegs we drew meant nothing to us, but we noticed that when a boat came though (they were enormous ocean-going things), they pushed the fish to the bottom. This was a key time to focus for a bite, and on the 25m leam line, the first couple of casts there seemed to get a bream.
“It worked brilliantly with Steve, Phil and Mick winning their sections, Dean taking fourth and Adam seventh with a late roach. He lost a fish too that would have won him the section! Scoring 12 points, I felt we’d have a good lead, but France matched us.”
Making changes
“Big changes happen on Saturday night when you can reflect on the match, but I felt we had to alter nothing. I asked the lads and they were equally happy, so it was as you were. All I wanted was to draw pegs that hadn’t produced that well on day one. We’d seen in practice that when you caught a few fish off a peg, it was abysmal the next day.
“The next day Mick Vials drew Phil Ringer’s peg from day one and Steve Ringer
drew Mick’s previous peg. It was far from ideal and the plan was to catch a fish, even a little bullhead, and then target the 25m line.
“We had French anglers not fishing in four out of the five sections we were in (owing to sections being spilt in two). This meant we couldn’t take points from them and had to rely on other anglers to do that. We were looking at a silver medal as I had France down as being six or seven points in front of us. Then, a crazy series of events happened…
“From catching nothing, Phil Ringer landed two bream in two casts, Steve Ringer caught two perch, Mick Vials nobbled a bream and Adam Wakelin landed a bream with seconds remaining. All those fish pushed us up in each section, but the French team wouldn’t give in. We needed other teams to steal points from them.
“A zander was caught somewhere that did that and in Phil’s section a Danish lad caught a massive mullet to take a point off a French angler. There was also a tie in one section that gave France half-a-point instead of one.
“Even with all of this going on, I had a gut feeling we’d be robbed at the death. When I tallied it up, though, I had us as winning by half-a-point. I wasn’t sure until the French manager walked over and shook my hand. I had to apologise to him as it felt like we were robbing him! ‘How the bloody hell did we win that?’ I said.
“To this day, I still don’t know.”
RESULT: 1 Preston Innovations England, 27pts; 2 France, 27.5; 3 Hungary, 39; 4 Russia, 40; 5 Portugal, 45;
6 Belgium, 46; 7 Ukraine, 51; 8 Moldova, 59; 9 Netherlands, 63.5; 10 Czech Republic, 65.5.