Dave's Diary...
Dave Ewing looks back at the EuroMeet weekend.

The build up to this year’s event was fraught, to say the least. The venue chosen for the first ever EuroMeet, the Pommerouel Canal, was one of the best and fairest looking match venues I have seen for many years. The main problem encountered was that the dates for the competition, the first bank holiday weekend in May, were not only synonymous with the fish shoaling up, ready for spawning, but for some of the worse weather seen for many years.

Above: Pommerouel Bridge... a bridge to soon perhaps?

The weeks running up to the match saw anglers blanking left right and centre. Not surprisingly a high proportion of anglers pulled out of the event at the last minute. What should have been a major 100 to 150 peg match, was whittled down to nearly 60 brave competitors come the match day.

The date allocated for EuroMeet was picked with the best of intentions. The idea was to allow all anglers across Europe the chance to have a long weekend and come and fish this event and May 1st is one of the few bank holidays that span the continent. However, the start of May is always a gamble and as we shall see later this was one gamble that didn’t come off.

Despite the cancellations we arrived on the Saturday before the match to find conditions cold, but bright and breezy. Anglers were catching fish… all bream, and quite a few of them! We had some quality fish showing on parts of the length. In fact, some anglers further down were picking up good size bronze beauties as well, and were coming out on the slider and the feeder. They were using dark groundbaits, and I could understand why looking at the gin clear water in the canal. The bottom was black, being blanketed in a thin silt layer from the rich dark soils that cover this fertile part of Belgium.

Above & right: The Coulters... Dave gives the thumbs up, to what, I'm not sure of as he blanked both days! Son Lucas was more fortunate... at least on practise day and its not hard to see why he's called 'flukey'... that's one of the minority carp which inhabit the water! His luck was to desert him the following day when he lost four fish!

Above: Newcomer Aurel Gavriloaia from Rumania had a fantastic practice session, netting these 14 bream for well over 20 kilos. Aurel is Mark Turner's next door neighbour and by the look of it has has been receiving a bit of instruction judging by his days efforts.

Left: One of our Dutch visitor, Eric Jan Van Lieshot, managed one of the venue's bream on practise day. Unfortunately Eric drew in my section and liked me blanked on match day.

Although these initial weights were from the few anglers practising there was no doubt that once 60 anglers with cars started piling down the bank, these bream could become wary. During our get-together dinner on Saturday night we discussed the possibilities of a hard match. No bites for the first two hours and then maybe the chance of a couple of bream later on seemed to be the concensus of opinion.

Above: The Saturday evening dinner at the Relaise Hotel was excellent and our visitors from England, Poland, France, Rumania and Holland thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

After dinner, myself and my son, 11 year old ‘Little’ Dave, packed ourselves off to bed. We were sharing a room with MadFred, (Fred Smagge) from France, who snores as much as I do. Luckily, little Dave can sleep through anything after a day in the fresh air and he was bright and breezy the next morning, rarin to fish.

By 7.30am in the morning we were on the bank, drinking coffee in the excellent drinks tent set up by the volunteers of the Pommerouel fishing club, under the guidance of Emille Battard. The draw was due for 8.45 and we had to wait for many of the local Belgian’s to turn up and pay their pools money… our pools had been paid in advance via the internet!

9am arrives, draw time, and we start to form up in a line to see what fate had in store for us, courtesy of Emille’s super little bingo machine. Fred draws number 3, little Dave 5, both at the end with seemingly more fish. I line up behind them and look down at the numbers already drawn. There’s not another free peg until the high twenties, so no chance of an early peg! As it turns out, I pull peg 49... unknown territory.

It was time to knock-up some groundbait before we were chauffered off to our respective pegs, by MA.com’s Dave Johnson, as I don’t drive! I’d decided on 2 kilos Rameau Etang, 1 kilo Rameau Canal Noire and 1500g Epeceine Noire, to help bind the mix and make sure it got to the bottom, which was over 4 metres deep! A quick whizz with a power whisk and it was ready, enough for both little Dave and myself. Into this I was gambling on a few pinkies some casters and a little joker which hopefully would be enough to lure any fish willing to have a go.

10am and the signal sounds for anglers to enter the box. Tactical choices varied, some anglers set up the full armoury of pole rigs, while others, like World Champion Guido Nullens, concentrated on slider rigs and the remainder, including me and a number of French anglers, set up one or two feeder rods. With two hours to get your tackle and bait ready we weren’t exactly pushed for time, so I set a second rod up for something to do!

Next to me, on peg 48, sat top Belgian International and thoroughly charming man, Eric de Venti. Eric was concentrating on the slider, but his dad Mario, was fishing just two pegs below him and trying the feeder for only the second time in his life! To my right sat a couple of good Belgian anglers, including Colmic carp ace Dominique Lambert.

Eric and I discussed fishing in general and were having a pleasant time, as the clock slowly crept round to 11.55 and the initial ground-baiting signal. This was a bit of wasted time for us feeder angler’s as many had decided to feed only through the feeder and would spend all of the first hour casting out to the line clip, if that was what they felt their swim needed. On a day with a cold and biting wind I didn’t think the fish would respond to too much feed.

Guido showed his skill at hitting the target area with over a dozen balls of GB!

I must have cast out at least twenty-five feeder’s, full of groundbait, which was what I fancied for an initial dose. Guido Nullens chose to ball it big time with a barrage of at least twelve ‘babys heads’ on his slider line… and all by hand… no feeder for Guido!!!

With the starting signal at 12 o’clock, the feeder was clipped up ready and loaded and I then set about topping up my swim with around twenty-five casts, which I felt was more than adequate on a day with a cold and biting wind… this took about 30 minutes. I used a 30gr Nisa medium flyer feeder and 0.18mm Browning feeder line on my trusty Shimano 4000, my rod was a JVS 4+5 Feeder.

About halfway through this initial feeding, my neighbour was having trouble with his line so I offered him a spare reel from my box, which he was grateful for. However on the next cast I too hit a problem when the feeder snapped on the knot. I think this must have been down to a weakness in the feeder line itself as I’d been using it with the method feeder the weekend before and I’d possibly not taken enough line off the reel to be sure it was all perfect. Anyway with no prospect of a bite for two hours… or so we had been told, I simply got another feeder on and counted the reel turns again to get the feeder set to the same spot, around 40 turns of the handle.

With my twenty-five casts completed I was ready to sit and wait for a bite. The weather was cold but still dry, for the moment and I was actually wearing just a sweat shirt with several tee shirts underneath… I was quite enjoying this. To my left Eric was counting down the 'two hours' on his watch and looking quite relaxed, what could possibly go wrong with our day… read on!

About one o’clock it started drizzling and looming up behind us was a large bank of heavy frontal cloud… and the temperature was starting to fall. What had started as a cold day was rapidly getting colder.

Forty-five minutes later Eric suddenly snaps into action and shrikes… at a liner! There seemed to be some fish moving over his feed! This woke him up a bit from beneath his hood but the weather itself was actually getting worse. The drizzle had turned to steady rain and the temperature was still dropping. It was now nearer 4 degrees than the 8 or 9 it had been at the start!

2:30pm and things were becoming worse. The rain had now turned into persistent bands of hail. I am unable to cast straight because my hands are so numb with cold that they can barely hold the reel! If I was cold… what about little Dave? He must be struggling up there fishing the feeder!

Below: The rain's coming down incessantly, but next door to 'Little Dave' is Malcolm Bond who strikes into his second fish.

2;45pm and I suddenly see a rod bend round… a fish in our section! No, it is not Eric but his dad, Mario, he’s snared a fish on the feeder! No other fish had been caught as far a we could see in our area, but word filtered down that one or two bream had come out at either end.

Half an hour later and things are becoming surreal and I’m shivering constantly… and as a Scot I have fished in hard weather all my life! Being pounded by hail or freezing rain was having its effect on my concentration. Every change of hooklength was taking a long time, simply because my fingers no longer worked in conjunction with my brain! Eric had submerged deeper and deeper into his hood and looked ever more miserable, until that is he got another bite, or should I say liner! These fish were obviously spooky and in no mood to get their heads down, well considering that the temperature on Friday had been 18 degrees and it was now around 4… this was of little surprise!

One of the stewards comes down the bank and asks me if my son is fishing in the canal or not. I look a little puzzled, but when he explains that there is an army of red maggots and pinkies crawling up the bank behind him I understand what he means!

One hour left and I can see a chink of blue sky on the horizon. Sure enough the front is passing over, but the damage has already been done. We are a lot on the bank. Around ten people have caught so far, leaving 50 or so dispirited and fishless, including Eric, myself, Guido etc, etc.

Another half hour passes when suddenly I get a sign of life, a sharp twang on the feeder line. I galvanise myself and wait for this to translate into a proper bite, but nothing. I wind in and inspect the bait… untouched. So I too had had the phantom liner!

The five minute signal goes and the sky is now blue now. The sun starts shining and I slowly warm up, but with only 5 minutes to go it’s all a bit academic.

The final whistle sounds! Eric and I stop fishing with some relief that things are all over! There is a sort of collective recognition amongst the anglers on the bank that we have been through something rather daunting and exceptional weather. This weather had turned so badly on us that we were still a bit numb at what had happened, and also aware of just how mad we actually were to sit like static gnomes through all that crap!

The match was won with just three bream by Johnny van de Merle. Eric’s dad took the coin in our section, not bad for a guy who had only used the feeder once before! The prize giving was first class, stunning trophies, a good drinks stand and…. SUNSHINE! The lad won a cup for the best performance, because he’d sat it out and fished the full 5 hours in those dreadful conditions, which for an 11 year old ain’t to bad… must be some of that Scottish blood!

Far right: Mario de Venti and his section winning fish.

Below: Little Dave with Belgian Team Coach Roland Marcq. That trophy looks nearly as big as little Dave!

Looking back on the match it was such a shame that we came to this venue at the wrong time of year. I love’d Pommeroeul, which may seem strange coming from someone who’s just spent FIVE miserable hours BLANKING, but I thought the venue was fantastic! I hope that the event runs next year, on the same canal, with the same people, BUT… at the RIGHT time of year!

Above: The two men responsible for angling in this part of Belgium, Pommeroeul Angling Club President Emille Battard and Administrator for angling in the Wallonne District of Belgium Jean Pilate.

Above right and right: Dave Ewing makes special presentation to both men without who's help the weekend would have been a complete disaster... we owe them our sincere and grateful thanks for all their hard work.

There will be an overview from MA.com's Dave Johnson coming shortly ....