Gallery Three ... Day 1 continued

Sharing a moment together....

Above: Matchangler's Mark Turner was on running duty for Wales during the Champs, yet found a little time to spend with his team mate Darren Frost on E2. Darren was one of several in the team who scored good points on the day, giving Wales a perfect springboard for the final day, but as so often happens in these situations, some iffy pegs and screwed strategy upset the apple cart and Wales could do no better than to finish in 9th place after day two.

Left & below: French team manager, Henri Durossier, checks on Diego's tip to see if there's any decent fish on, there wasn't so he settles down beside Diego for an update and finds that he's on course for good points in section D. Diego finished fourth in section but couldn't live with runaway section winner Luc Vercammen from Belgium.
France however had drawn some prime pegs and made the most of it to score an outstanding 16pts on the day, well in front of their nearest rivals Belgium... but would their luck hold out for the remaining day?
It's clear, that like so many teams, France got it badly wrong on day two with the feeding strategy which cost them dear!

Above left: Joint England Manager Mark Addy and assistant Richard Connor watch Stu Conroy struggle during the second hour. His first produced just 13 small fish, mostly cats, and he badly needed a bonus. Unfortunately, Stu couldn't get into anything substantial and was beaten all around him and finished in a disappointing 18th place in D section. Above right: England's other Manager, Mark Downes, keeps Steve Hemmingray company as he swings in another small cat. Steve, in contrast, faired better in A section than Stu and although he too was beaten either side, he managed to finish higher up the section in 7th place. It's interesting to look back and see that to Steve's right was eventual silver medallist, Belgian Eric Di Venti, who recorded 6 kilos more at the weigh-in. Perhaps this is what showed Downsey the error of England's feeding strategy and prompted a big re-think for day two?

From 'zero to hero'....
...a few examples of how mullet proved to be the perfect 'get out of jail' fish!

More commonly associated with English coastal rivers and harbours, the mullet in the River Vilaine had no such wish to taste saltwater, being over 25 kilometres from the main estuary. These fish proved to be an incredible bonus, for those lucky enough to catch and land one... I say lucky to land because throughout most of the match length there where heavy weed beds on the inside, which favoured these hard fighting fish and not the angler! Many were lost, but those that were landed propelled their captors many places up the section ladder. The secret seemed to be that if you saw someone close by hook one you'd immediately make as much noise as possible by throwing in hard balls ao groundbait and then hope that one would come and investigate!

Right & below: One such angler was Andre Amorin, from Portugal, who enjoyed a spirited fight on 11 metres of pole with this 2kg fish. His final weight was 4.460kg which gave him a 9th in section. 19th place was 2,5kg... so you see how these fish became quite valuable to any angler fortunate to catch and land one!

Below left & right: Andre eventually tames the 2kg fish and coaxes it into the waiting net.

Below & right: Croatian Dalibor Agbada found this kilo and a half mullet just the ticket for a rise to 15th place in C section.

Left, top, bottom left & below: Polish star Zbigniew Milewski has a tough fight with this near 2kg fish before guiding it towards the safety of his waiting net. That fish alone took rocketed him off the bottom placings into 13th place with 3.360kg. His tactics were based more on the slider, due to depth of water availabale, than the pole.

Poland would always be a force to reckon with in these Champs and started the campaign with a solid 6th team place on day one. Their day two performance was much better which was more than could be said for Zbigniew, who finished further down in section E, in 16th position, ending up lowest point scorer in the Polish team.

Below: Another Portuguese angler, Antonio Grave, played, had a rest, and landed a big mullet to propell himself up section B and into 16th position, without it he would probably have been in last place!

Coming next in Gallery 4... the stars of the show... bream and skimmers...