The Angling Trust England Ladies team finished in a disappointing 7th place during the FIPSed World Angling Championships held on the 25/26 of August 2012 on the Van Harinxmakanaal Canal, Leeuwarden, Holland.

The team were hoping to build on their bronze medal win last year in Italy and had high hopes of a podium place on a venue that was expected to produce good catches of roach and bream. Unfortunately the canal did not live up to the type of venue that we have become accustomed to fishing in Holland.15 teams of 5 anglers lined the banks and after 4 hours 30 of them were dry netted making this the worst ever first day result in a Ladies Championship.The result was an absolute romp for the Czech Republic who not only won team gold but also created a record for the Ladies Championships by dominating the podium with their anglers filling gold, silver and bronze positions.During the week long practice more than 100 boats and 20 huge tankers traversed the canal EACH day making a constructive practice almost farcical. The odd bream were caught but most of the few fish landed were small roach and skimmers with many anglers failing to get just one bite.Dick Clegg, Angling Trust International Events Manager said “the first venue offered by the Dutch was not sanctioned and the decision to use this venue was made very late,  and although the fishing improved over the weekend questions must be asked as to why in a country that has an abundance of wonderful fish filled canals such a diabolical venue was chosen. Roland Marcq from Belgium who is on the technical committee of  FIPSed visited the site in March and I can only think that when he was there it must have been during a weekend when boat traffic was at its least.”   “In their defence the organisers did predict that the fishing would improve at the weekend when the tankers stopped using the canal and indeed it did especially on Sunday.  However,  because the waters were still highly coloured from midweek traffic Saturday was very poor with 30 dry nets,  but as the conditions improved Sunday saw bigger fish respond and only 4 anglers failed to catch.”England’s tactics were to ball in a leam and ground bait mix using joker and chopped worm with bloodworm or dendrabena worm as hook bait.On day one England caught 25 small fish to the Czech Republics 8 but finished 13.5pts behind in 4th place.Saturday1st Czech Republic  17 points  8 fish2nd Holland              24.5 points 10 fish3rd  Russia                28 points  6 fish4th  England             30.5 points 25 fishSunday saw a much better competition with not only more fish feeding but quality bream making an appearance. Second day tactics therefore were slightly different for the England team and mid match it was obvious that quality rather than quantity was important. Unfortunately only Helen Dagnall was drawn on feeding fish and the team crashed to 8th place with South Africa taking top spot on the day.Sunday1st South Africa  21 points  31 fish2nd Czech Republic 22 points  42 fish3rd France  26 points  25 fish8th England 43 points  36 fishTeams overall: 1st Czech Republic 39 points                          2nd South Africa 54 points                          3rd Holland 60.5 points                          7th England 73.5 pointsIndividuals:  1st Jana Gresova Czech Rep. 2 points                       2nd Barbara Bacinova Czech Rep. 2 points                       3rd Klara Zahradkova Czech Rep. 3 pointsEngland Ladies positions:                   Helen Dagnall 8thWendy Locker 21stEmma Pickering 29thJulie Abbott 34thSamantha Sim 74th ( fished one day )Samantha Perkins 80th ( fished one day )England team managers Dave Brooks and Joe Roberts were extremely disappointed in the choice of venue, stating that “we realise it’s the same for all the teams taking part , but when it’s almost impossible to practice how can you come up with a team plan. The Czechs chose tactics that worked for them and you certainly can’t take it away from them they were fantastic over the weekend. By fishing for big fish with big baits it could have gone wrong for them, but credit due it worked and we will have to put our thinking caps on if we go to a similar venue in future.”Both Dave and Joe would like to express their gratitude to all the companies who supplied goods to help the Ladies in their fund raising efforts this year. By raffles, race nights and fishing competitions the team raised enough money to cover their expenses for this years championships.Special thanks for the second year running must go to the England Mens team who won the Fish ‘O’ Mania Home Nations Championships at Cudmore Fishery on Sunday 15th July 2012.  The team once again donated a considerable amount of their winnings to both the Ladies and Veterans team to help them to compete in the World Championships.The Ladies, Veterans and Disabled teams are still looking for sponsors to help with the cost of competing at world level and although they finished in 7th place this time the Ladies still retain their second place ranking at world level.