Source: Angling Trust
The Team England Lure Squad always knew this would prove an exceptionally stern challenge for them, and so it proved. After two days of practice, and much deliberation, the pairs chosen to fish the two days of the Championship were the father and son pair of Gary and Sam Edmonds and Eric Edwards and Gary Palmer. Missing out due to tactical considerations were Matthew Netherton and Evaldas Skablauskas.
At the end of the first day hopes were high as Angling Trust Team England held 6th place after an intense day of competition, with both boat pairs catching pike and perch, though a fair few were undersized and did not count. Gary and Sam Edmonds fared best and were lying in 5th place individually.
On day two the strong current that had been flowing out to sea on the previous days suddenly ceased and the pockets of prey fish England had located disappeared – as did the pike and perch. Not reacting quickly enough to this change of conditions, England continued to fish larger lures for the pike and although each boat pair caught scoring-sized pike they caught far too many undersized fish. Combined with this the team suffered from the additional loss of a few decent-sized pike where the trebles failed to set properly.
At the end of the competition England finished 12th out of the 14 competing nations and the early favourites, Russia, were ‘pipped at the post’ by a jubilant Italian team that had performed well over both days.
Mike Skipper, Team England Manager said:
“Yes we have regrets, but they are few and are mainly due to the mistakes we made, and from the subtleties in equipment and end tackle that the vastly more experienced sides employed. Unfortunately on day two we didn’t react quickly enough to the change of conditions and continued to fish larger lures for pike when we should have down-sized and moved to finer wire gauge hooks. A move many other nations cottoned onto early.
These are all things we will learn from, giving greater consideration to these areas in our future planning for next year. Looking back at our efforts over the entire Championships I could not have asked for more effort from a team that gelled well, worked hard and displayed passion and pride on representing the Angling Trust and England. The attitude displayed by the squad matched those of any of the other participating nations, and bodes well for the future of the sport of lure angling for the future.”
Final Team Result
1st Italy 27 points
2nd Russia 36 points
3rd Romania 44 points
4th Belarus 47 points
(12th England 75 points)
Individual Pairs Result
1st Janas Prialgauskas/Vladas Valukonis – Lithuania 5 points
2nd Alexey Shanin/Alexander Panchekhin – Russia 7 points
3rd Jacek Gorny/Tomasz Kurman – Ireland 10 points
4th Nicola Panareo/Marcelo Sivero – Italy 12 points
