England U18s World Championships – St Justa, River Sorraia, Portugal 25th & 26th July 2009
In extreme conditions of 38C the England U18s team finished in 5th placing this year in the World Championships. The venue had changed dramatically from three years ago when they won a bronze medal on the waggler. This years match was dominated by the pole with mullet and barbel being the main species, but unfortunately lost fish cost the team dearly this year.
U18s Team results:
1st Italy 33.5 pts
2nd France 36 pts
3rd Serbia 41 pts
4th Portugal 42 pts
5th England 49 pts
Under 22s World Championships – Couruche Portugal 25th & 26th July 2009
Corouche has never been a great venue for England Teams. The home side being almost impossible to beat, however, the last time Mark Downes took a team there they managed a team bronze and an individual silver, but that wasn’t to be this year.
Mark Downes, Team Manager U22s stated, “This year it really hit home just how little international style match fishing our youngsters do. To be honest I feel the only medal that was achievable was a bronze, but by trying to find that little edge to possibly get the gold then this might have sacrificed that possibility.
The team I had are all great anglers, but their lack of this style of match fishing took its toll as 6th place is not great, but with a little more luck and AN EXTRA DAYS PRACTISE we could have won a medal. We did reasonably well each day but didn’t get the 1st and 2nds we needed, but that said, we had the numbers in our day two draw that, given the right combination, then bronze would have been easy. Holland had the same numbers and it worked out well for them.”
The methods needed were distance waggler fishing (40 -65 yds) with 16-25 gm floats, diameter 9 to12 lines and tiny sizes 22 to 26 hooks, feeding sticky mag, and waggler rigs that incorporated elastic shock absorbers, olivette sliding back shots and a range of rods and reels, up to 15 in some cases to cover all eventualities.
U22s Team results:
1st – Portugal 16.5 pts – 20.170kg
2nd – Italy 19.0 pts – 15.350kg
3rd – Holland 26.0 pts – 20.280kg
4th Hungary 29.5 pts – 17.900kg
5th Germany 29.5 pts – 15.430kg
6th England 32.0 pts – 10.970kg
