The NFA Carp Team England went to the World Championships in Portugal with high hopes of success but fell short even though they caught the most fish. With the England squad finishing so low in the rankings it is only fair to point out that the team was recognised as the highest fish catching squad.

All the fish that could be weighed had to be over 1.5kg. On most venues around England and Europe this would not be a problem but here on the Barragem in Portugal it proved costly for the English. On the 1^st night alone, Dean and Smith waded through the night without sleep to land well over 65 fish and loose just as many with only 3 of these fish barely tipping over the 1.5kg mark. Both Holehouse and Huntington were also experiencing the same outcome with large numbers of small fish.

It was evident in the 1^st 24hrs that the method of catching small fish in quantity was going to be a lottery but it looked like this would be the best way forward. Unfortunately these tactics did not prove as successful as England would have liked. They kept the spod working constantly, feeding the usual style particle / pellet mix into the swim. It was often the case that as the 1^st few spods hit the water the take rate would increase dramatically, quite often with all four rods having takes at once. After expending all that effort in overcoming multiple takes the team was found with a net full of fish all weighing about 1.4kg, not a weighable fish in sight.

By the last night the team could see that the event was lost and that although they had put on a spectacle of how to catch more fish than anybody else in the world they did not catch the right fish.

England Manager, Mitch Smith stated,

“With hindsight we fed every small fish within 100 yards either side of us into our pegs and once there you could target absolutely anything at them and get a bite. The winners and the other high scorers of weight knew that if they fed large boilies into there areas that eventually the carp would come and feed. More often than not the bigger fish would come first as they are usually bigger because they haven’t moved with the shoal and had to fight for food. Therefore by feeding mass amounts of shoal feed into these areas actually allowed the winners to have a greater success rate of catching bigger fish!”

The venue itself was fair to all being a long straight lake of about 10 miles. The pegs were pegged in 3 sections with 13 pegs in each running consecutive. The fish sizes where always going to be small in the match because the locals constantly long line the lake for food fish. In addition the constant warm weather creates multiple spawning times which increases the biomass of small carp and with the limited feed available to them will stay stunted probably for there entire life span. With the water at its lowest during the match, all the small mass of carp are concentrated into what’s left.

England manager Mitch Smith stated on the teams performance,

“Please don’t think that all this is an excuse for a poor finished performance from the squad because quite frankly it’s completely the opposite. We were taught a large lesson in humility and shown that the English carp angler is not this great messiah of carping our own magazines would have us believe and that we still have bundles to learn from these other nations. I can assure you we learnt loads and will be more than ready for the next instalment but with all that said I still cant help feeling we gave the winners the title.”

This report was written by Mitch Smith, Manager.

Results

13 Teams 39 pairs

Section A … Chris Rose & Steve Spurgeon

Section B …..John Dean & Mitch Smith

Section C…..Peter Holehouse & Ian Huntington.

Section A Result.

1^st Portugal 65.1kg

2^nd Romania 64.4kg

3^rd Italy 59.9kg

8^th England 10.5kg

Section B Result

1^st Serbia 80.8kg

2^nd Portugal 70.1kg

3^rd Croatia 38.3kg

10^th  England 15.3kg

Section C Result

1^st Romania 52.2kg

2^nd Serbia 42.7kg

3^rd Italy 25.6 kg

9^th England 6.8kg

Team Placing (On point’s value from sections)

1^st Portugal 153kg 9 points, Placing 1,2,6  (decided on weight total as points same and placing.)

2^nd  Serbia.  146.1kg.  9 points placing 1,2,6

3^rd  Italy 112.7kg 11 points Placing 3,3,5

10^th England 32.6kg 27 points 8,9,10.

Individual Placing. (on weight total)

1^st Majkic &  Nemcov, Serbia 80.8kg

2^nd Fernandes & Oliviera Portugal 70.1kg

3^rd Penedo & Cardena Portugal 65.1kg.

22^nd  Dean & Smith England 15.3kg

25^th   Rose & Spurgeon.  England 10.5kg

31^st Huntington & Holehouse England 6.8kg