It's tight at the top (and everywhere else)
One of the thrills of match fishing is that we can compete with the very best anglers, each and every week on our own particular match circuit. Not only that, but unlike most other sports, we have a chance to beat them. With their skill, knowledge, experience which comes from hours of preparation and practice we have very little chance of beating them often. But fishing dictates that whoever you are, if there is nothing or very little willing to feed in front of you, you are likely to be beaten.

Yet again this year's World Championships demonstrated that fine line between success and failure, your pegs potential and making the right decision at the right time.

With relatively tough fishing on the gin clear Bloso lake in Belgium, when to target the smaller fish on the pole and when to look for the bonus bream on the slider was the key tactic identified and developed by all the teams that had been able to practice in depth and prepare for this event.

Some of the best anglers from all the competing nations had their say but the final results show this year's Championships turned into a battle between the two best teams in the world, France and England, for that Gold Medal.

On each day, favoured areas were drawn, poor areas were drawn and on each section little battles were fought as bonus fish were sought, sometimes caught and sometimes lost.

This reporter did not witness them all and therefore cannot describe them all but what I did witness was just one example of what match fishing is all about, at this or any other level.

On day two in E section, the five minutes remaining signal was sounded at 13:25 hrs. Pegged on E8 was England's Stu Conroy and on E31 Christophe Gazannois of France. Both men had caught a bonus bream, ensuring good points in a tough section. However the bank-side grapevine suggested the Frenchman was ahead as he had more small fish and had also successfully landed a rare bonus pike, estimated to be around 500g.
Above left & right: Christophe Gazonnais (left) hauls his net towards the scalesmanno sure if he's done enough in the final section. Stu Conroy (right) fires out more balls onto the slider line with 35 minutes to go but he could not have foreseen the way the final 5 minutes would have unfolded!
Right: Polish ace Robert Bednarski looks on as his weight helps draw a wedge further between Gazonnais and Conroy.
At this point the England support team were very aware that the job for their man was to minimise any gap with the French and with five minutes to go, Stu was advised to seek another bonus bream on the slider. To the left on the next peg (E7) was the Spaniard Juan Alfonso, it was very close between them until Juan hooked and landed his second bonus bream and was now clearly ahead of the Stu. With another minute gone, the Polish angler Robert Bednarski on E3 also hooked and quickly landed his second bonus bream, again certainly putting him ahead of the Englishman.

With no more than two minutes to go, Sergio Scarponi of San Marino on peg E5 then hooked, and knowing it had to be in his landing net before the final all-out, rapidly hauled in his only bonus bream, although with no other fish, his final weight did not affect the standings at the very top of the section.

In the final five minutes of the 51st World Championships, over the five pegs from E3 to E7, three bonus fish were landed. Christophe Gazannois weighed 3.750kg for two points (behind the section winner and new individual World Champion Tamas Walter of Hungary). Poland's Bednarski weighed 2.215kg for five points while Spain's Alfonso weighed 2.685kg for three points. England's Stu Conroy could only watch an unmoving slider and weighed 1.495kg for eight points.

There were probably a hundred little stories to tell, all gaining and losing odd points here and there, all played out throughout another exciting World Championships. History has now recorded perhaps the tightest of final scores as the impressive French side took the Gold by just one point, maybe just one fish, ahead of the equally impressive English.

So there's match fishing for you, at any level, an odd fish here or there... it's tight at the top, and everywhere else!