7th Annual FIPSED World Championships, Lure Fishing from Boats

Oh dear, I've been a bit lazy of late and haven't updated the blog for months now. There's been a lot going on this year, but not all of it of note and not all of it entirely good. The tench fishing was a disaster with only two fish caught. That was down from 20 fish last year and 58 the year before and I've come to the conclusion that the fish are just not there any more. We've had trouble with poachers using gill nets at this lake several times and I'm convinced they've finally got the tench, it's a national scourge which the Angling Trust are doing their best to combat but it's going to take years to get to grips with it and our fishing can only get worse in the meantime.

The FIPSED World Lure Fishing Championships came and went in October and we came a creditable 9th out of 16 teams beating last year's world champions, Italy and the highly fancied Polish team. We were dogged by bad luck including a fancy bow-mount trolling motor which didn't arrive on time, a boat which failed on us numerous times and a serious health problem which put our manager, Mike Skipper in a French hospital for two weeks so overall, the result was a good one for us. We learned a low yet again and in future years England will become a serious contender for a podium place, I'm quite sure of that.

We really pushed the boat out for this event and invested in a practice trip a few weeks before the championships. This practice trip, though very expensive, was vital to success as it gave us an insight into the water, Lac du Bourget in Eastern France, and its fish. Lac Bourget is France's largest natural lake, it's very deep, very weedy and with quite clear water. It's also teeming with fish but since the French people eat most of the things they catch, most of the fish are very small. Apart from the predatory species, pike perch and zander, there are lots of other types of fish and it's the tench and the chub which really catch the eye. The tench are very numerous and they are also very large. Double-figure tench swim around everywhere where it's shallow and weedy and the weedy bays are also full of little tench. No-one seems to fish for the tench, which is very surprising but it's tempting to have a return trip to fish for them. We spotted lots of good chub too, indeed we caught a couple of them on lures on the practice trip, mine being a nice fish of 4lb 11oz. Plenty of these fish were five pounds plus and some were a good bit bigger.

The pike and perch are a different story mind. The place must have many millions of perch, they seem to form the main body of the fish in there and the shoals are dense and in every place you look. Trying to catch one of measurable size (25cm as far as the competition was concerned) was impossible though, the biggest we had was 18cm. The pike are a little thin on the ground and if you catch one it's likely to be small, most are under 2lbs in weight. We found the pike fishing very hard, but then so did most of the teams and during the competition itself, we only caught a total of four pike, one each to me, Sam Edmonds, Gary Edmonds and Dan Brackley.

I'm really getting to enjoy this side of my fishing. The French laid on a spread, though it must be said that it didn't compare to the one laid on by the Irish last year and the parades and ceremony are really great fun. It's good too to get to meet anglers from other nations, to see how they go about their fishing and to learn from them. My lure fishing has improved greatly due to this process and my enjoyment of my own fishing has improved too as a result. I've made a ot of new friends too, people who I know I'll stay in touch with for a very long time. We're now looking at entering a team for the shore-based championships as well so watch this space.