Ringer’s Roundup - A Difficult Year on the World Stage

Italy and the World Feeder Championships

Well, it's safe to say that, as far as years go, this one has been a struggle.

It's been a while since my last catch-up, so I'll concentrate on a couple of events. Firstly, Italy and the World Classic Feeder Championships on the Ostellato Canal with the Drennan England Feeder Team.

By now, you'll all know about the bitterly disappointing result at what was a rock-hard venue. Personally, I suffered my first-ever blank on the world stage, something I hoped would never happen.

Looking back, yes, the venue was incredibly difficult, with numerous blanks, but as a team, we didn't get it right either. With the fishing being so hard, we fished very negatively, using small feeders and keeping everything neat and tidy in an attempt to create a bite.

In fact, the teams that did well fed large amounts of bait just to catch one fish. Feeding half a kilo of worms for a single fish was one example of this—something that simply isn't normal in England.

It was certainly a lesson learned.

We changed tactics on day three and fished much more positively. This worked to a degree, and we had better results. Personally, on day three, I had one bream and one catfish, which was enough for third in the sector—a huge improvement for me. It showed there was a way to get that one bite; we just hadn't been on it.

I must add a big congratulations to Holland on an incredible win, and to Benny Mertens on becoming World Champion once again for Belgium.

Overall, it was a really difficult World Championships that won't live long in my memory, given more than 100 blanks across the event.

Hungary and the World Method Feeder Championships

From there, it was on to Hungary for the World Method Feeder Championships in Szeged—the world-famous rowing course and a venue I had always wanted to fish a World Championships on.

You'll all have seen the results by now. Fifth place wasn't where the Ringerbaits England Team wanted to finish, and being just 6.5 points away from gold makes it all the more disappointing.

Personally, I'm always honest, and my results have been very average. I set high standards for myself, and on this occasion, I couldn't meet them.

As a team, we practised really well. It was obvious early on that Szeged wasn't going to fish as it had in the past. Feeding 30 tins of corn wasn't going to work. In fact, we felt you couldn't attack it at all without blowing your swim apart.

Phil seemed to have the best feel for the venue all week. He was the only one who could make bites consistently, and despite passing this information on to the rest of us, replicating it wasn't easy.

After practice week, we adopted Phil's plan, which basically revolved around pellets—Aqua Garant Uni and Classic in 2mm and 2.5mm sizes. These are very different pellets from what we use here in the UK, with the Uni being much higher in oil content than the Classic. We settled on a 50/50 mix of the two. Every team seemed to approach it slightly differently, with some using 100% Uni and others opting for 100% Classic.

We then worked with two lines: one three metres off the rope on the buoys, allowing us two moves closer, and then a short line.

A Difficult Start

My first two match days were a struggle. The first hour was the most important part of the match, and I simply couldn't catch. Even now, I'm not entirely sure why.

On the second day, I ended up 7-0 and 4-0 down to the anglers on either side of me after the opening hour. Once that first hour had passed, the venue tended to switch off most days, making it very difficult to claw anything back.

Consequently, I ended up seventh and sixth in two 11-peg zones. Simply not good enough. The strange thing was that others—Phil especially—were making great starts every day.

Day Three Improvements

On day three, we tweaked the plan and went straight to the rope line. This worked for me, and I was on pace throughout the match. However, a poor final hour saw me finish fourth, just two kilos off winning.

In hindsight, I didn't get the inside line right either. I definitely overfed it while trying to establish the swim. Looking back, it was simply a matter of fishing for the final 90 minutes and being patient.

Even the rope line was tricky, and we caught a lot of carp on what we called the "pub chuck"—casting as far left as possible where the bottom was clean and free of bait. Often, the first cast there would produce an instant bite. As a result, we sat to the right of our boxes to give ourselves more room to move left.

There was a theme throughout the week: if you built up a significant amount of pellets on the bottom, the fish hated it. You'd get liners, not proper bites. Corn seemed to have no pulling power at all.

We did miss a trick, though, with TTX on the short line. This corn-based groundbait was used by several teams to kick-start the short line, although even then it was fed in very small quantities.

Looking Ahead

Overall, I'm totally gutted.

That said, I must give massive congratulations to Austria on taking the win, with the super-consistent Romanians claiming silver and Poland finishing third.

Individually, Tadej Kocbek took a well-deserved gold medal, Maximilian Eisner won silver, and Marcin Kubalak took bronze.

So that's that. The two biggest events of the year both ended in huge disappointment.

I'm not sure what's next for me on the world stage. When you've been looking forward to events for so long, and they end as these two did, it hits hard. But I've promised myself there will be no rash decisions. I'll let the dust settle and see where I stand after that.