Pic: Steve Collett (centre) with Czech anglers at FIPSed World Lure Championships 2019.

European and British champion lure angler Steve Collett has been appointed manager of the newly formed England Bank Lure team. The official FIPSed title Carnivorous Artificial Bait Shore team will be selected during a trials process later on this year.

Having already attended several world championships, Steve will head off to Portugal this year on a reconnaissance mission, and to gain valuable information for the 2021 World Championships.

Steve Collett stated “We are pleased to now have a representation in these events as unlike the Boat team that not only requires the utmost skill, requires a lot of expense, a lot of equipment and can sometimes be interpreted as inaccessible for most budgets especially newcomers to the sport”.

“With a bank team, it gives me a better opportunity to bring in youngsters and newcomers, the venues are more easily accessible, and in general this type of lure fishing is. Hopefully we can start to introduce FIPSed rules competitions into the UK, plans are already afoot to introduce an academy with a joint operation between the Angling Trust and the Lure Anglers Association, it’s a project I’m really looking at getting my teeth into”.

Collett (47) is currently the England lure team manager for the boat squad, and alongside Ian Crook his focus is very much on this year’s World Championships in Poland later on this year.

Already a well-known and respected lure angler, Steve is the most successful competition angler in the UK and holder of the British Lure Angling champs and European titles. Having been involved in the tackle trade as well as the competition scene, Steve brings with him a wealth of experience not only from the bankside but the integral workings of the lure fishing scene in the UK.

Steve added “It’s been a very interesting few years from a management perspective, we are still very much licking our wounds from the World Championships on our home ground, but we have kept together, and we will build on it, learn from it, and as I stated when I took the position on, we will get better, it takes time, to say we will be world champs in a year would be very disrespectful to the already superb teams on the circuit, I have a schedule, a plan, and it will come, I’m sure we will have a lure world champion one way or another in the next few years”.

Ben Thompson of the Angling Trust said “participation in lure angling is growing at a tremendous rate and the opportunity for England to compete in the world championships will be an exciting prospect for elite lure anglers in this country. Steve’s credentials are outstanding, we are delighted with the appointment and feel Steve is the ideal person to oversee the development of the team and lead England into the world championships in the years to come.”

Steve will take up this role with immediate effect and begin planning a number of qualifying events to be held during 2020.