SPINADESCO DIARY - FRIDAY
The Heat is On!!!
Friday's final practice sessions leave many teams struggling
In very high temperatures, and bright sunshine, many of the teams used
today’s final practice to refine the methods they’d used throughout the
week. Although it was only over one 3-hour session, instead of the two
sessions of the previous four days, all of the teams caught fish using
different methods, but all on the 13-metre line.
 Image
Swede
Marten Johanson, who is apparently known in his own country as 'End Peg
Billy', nets and displays a plump carassio to one of his team members.
 Image
Dutchman
Christian von Grinkel will have pleased his manager Jan Van Schendel
with this chunky carassio... let's hope he does it tomorrow!
 Image
England's 'backroom' boys are a formidable trio.
Some of the nations who previously fished for carassio, have already
got methods such as the waggler and, in some cases, their short lines
sorted out. These methods may come into play for those countries like
Spain and Portugal who fish for carassio at home, should they need a
'get out of jail free' card.
Today’s final session is also a prelude to the crucial captain’s
meeting and the championship's opening ceremony, which was held this
evening in the Piazza del Commune, and then the main event itself.
 Image
The
Ukranian Denis Zhalyuk, needed to gain height to control a hard
fighting carp/carassio on light elastic in front of one of his team
followers. Unfortunately he suffered the fish got the better of him and
all he ended up with was a 'birds nest' rig!
 Image
Part of the French line-up near the end of section A, featuring Diego da Silva in the foreground.
Generally, the day fished well for some teams and yet poor for others.
Areas which had produced the previous day, were found wanting in the
soaring temperatures with no really big weights. Teams, like red-hot
favourites Italy, and some of the other suspected front-runners, had
mixed results, although they must have answered many of the venues
previous questions and settled on some form of 'attack' plan.
 Image
Belgian
'ace' Hans Slegers shows the technique which earned him the respect of
tree sturgeons everywhere! That IS 11m of pole snagged on the top
branches. He did however manage to net an offending 4kg carp after some
adjustments.
Fishing in, or close to, the practice box that England fished on
Thursday was Belgium’s Hans Slegers, who stood head and shoulders above
his fellow country-men. Hans landed over 8 kilos, which included a
single carp of 4kg+, which needed all of 11 metres of pole!
Final team meetings will plan how each team approaches day one of
course, and all of these will be happening tonight, after the opening
ceremony. Presiding over this will be the FIPS head 'honcho' Claudio
Matteoli.
As you can see from some of the pictures we’ve included today, the main
species was carassio, followed by some big carp, skimmers and the ever
present 'Tommy' ruffe's, which seem to be partial to a cloudy
groundbait mix!
As the real event starts tomorrow, many teams and anglers will be
hoping to avoid the poorer areas, which have materialised over the
week. Some have already fallen foul of these and have become the first
day's runner, like England's Stu Conroy.
 Image
FIPS President Claudio Matteoli gives his administration team an 'eve of battle' pep talk!
 Image
England close ranks in readiness for the weekend's assault on 'gold'.
We’ll be continuing the coverage as soon as possible after tomorrow’s
match is completed, with a full result sheet from the day, and more
pictures.
Finally we’d like to wish every angler competing the very best of luck this weekend, especially the England lads.
Below is Thursday Diary
SPINADESCO DIARY - THURSDAY
England starts to pick up a gear, but home side Italy, loom menacingless!
Thursday saw England in a good area and improve of the previous days
session by posting 45 kilos of carp, bream and skimmers on the the
pole.
 Image
Will Raison with his 9kg haul from opposite the smelting works.
This
followed their first day 36 kilos from their six man allocated box
(area), with a poor draw for Tuesday for just a 14kg+ total. However,
they set this right on Wednesday with a respectable 24.5kg. Obviously
more sensitive details of baits used and methods are restricted at this
point. Joint Manager Mark Downes was happy with how the lads had
performed and said “It's a very difficult venue, straight with
relatively few features. From this outlook you would imagine that it
would be consistent and even... but nothing can be further from it!
There are areas with lots of big fish (carp), there are areas with
quite a few small fish and there are areas with not a lot of fish. The
problem with this situation is that there's 37 team, spread over the
two match lengths, two sections above and three sections below the main
central bridge. This could mean that you could get 3 to 4 areas within
a section that vary greatly. You could be top weight in the first 20
pegs of a section and still end up 15th or 16th in that section!
The bigger the match the more important the draw becomes and over the
two days of competition you just hope you get your fair number of
decent pegs and a few bad ones as possible. Our last few internationals
have produced a couple of bad draws for us and no matter how good our
lads are, they can't get good points from them! We always hope the
situation evens out over the two days but without a doubt one or two
teams will have consistent draws over the period. We just hope that
they're not the better teams because if they do then you can say good
buy to the main medal. But we're not too unlucky and have been known to
pull them out of the hat. So yes, its not too bad for us overall.”
 Image
England's Sean Ashby needs a little lift to get the better of this 2kg carp on light gear!
 Image
Safely in the net, sean adds to his 7kg, day 4 practice weight
 Image
The England 'crew' set about weighing in their day 4 returns.
 Image
The
Spanish were doing well towards the end of the match length on day 4.
One of their anglers poses with this fine 1.5kg carassio, taken on big
waggler... he had a few others afterwards as well!!!
A note of caution: Italy are putting their home advantage to good use
with an amazing effort on the first day of practice. They recorded
between 10kg and 18kg+ for their six man allocated box! Confidence will
no doubt be running high with them.
We'll bring you another Diary update tomorrow afternoon before our main reports start in earnest on Saturday evening.
|
