Gallery Six ... Day 2, a tale of two Champion's....

The last day saw two great World Champions once again pegged in the same section... England's Alan Scotthornes and Belgium's reigning champion Guido Nullens. However, this time it was Alan who held the end peg, while Guido was several pegs down. Both were having contrasting tournaments' in comparison. Alan had been overrun by anglers in the higher numbers on day one, while Guido amassed that marvellous 19kg off E section's end peg. The final day saw Alan on the end peg, could he now reverse his fortune and gain a higher score than the 8pts on day one?

Above & right: Alan casts his slider rig over 30 metres and once settled the float dips and he strikes into a good fish... things are looking up!

Above: Alan plays the lively fish towards the bank and prepares to get his landing net in position.

Above & below: Note how Alan prepares to net the fish as it approaches the waiting net. He guides it first near the mouth of the net before standing to envelop it in the net, his rod is then placed under him as he sits down and pulls the long net handle towards himself... a distinct difference in netting styles between the English and continental method!

Above: A nice Vilaine bream of around a kilo is unhooked and safely deposited in the waiting keepnet at the start of Alan's day.

Above: Guido's style is similar but has an added lift at the end with the help of his foot... many continentals net this way, whereas in the UK we tend to use more of an arm reach followed by lifting the lip of the net above the water once the fish is in, while we drop our pole or rod to the side and then we use both hands to pull in the landing net. However the result seems pretty much the same... the fish gets deposited in the keepnet!

One other difference between the two champions, and it was a major difference, was the bait used. Below: Guido relied solely on worms for his hookbait, which the Belgian's believed was not as attractive to the 'cats' as caster or bloodworm. Their initial groundbait feed only contained small amounts of bloodworm and caster but had heavy amounts of small redworms. For top-ups they relied on a heavy mix with just chopped redworm added. This it seemed kept the cats away and the bream focused on the worm hookbaits!

Left & above: A smiling Guido displays the secret of his success with the Vilaine's bream and skimmers, while he waits for the scales to arrive at the end of day two.

Left & below: Alan's bait, in contrast, is a cocktail of worm and bloodworm. Perhaps this was what the cats had more preference for?

Left, above & below: Guido spent most of the afternoon picking bream out of his landing net!

Below: Guido's next door neighbour, Diego da Silva has a visitor, French coach Didier Guessard, who kept a watchful eye on Guido. "He's got another bloody slab Diego" (rough translation).

Right: It wasn't all bream and skimmers for Guido... he had to put up with the occassional prowling cat.

Below: Just like Guido, Alan picks up more than his fair share of 'cats' but the day will bring little comfort for the 4x World Champ.