World Carp Classic - Offical Global Website
Lake Bolsena 3rd - 9th September 2012

Pre match - Friday..... 27 August 2009 at about 10.30 a.m. Tom, Sam (our runner) and I set off from my house fully laden, as usual, with more kit, bait, food, water and supplies than you could ever imagine  would be sufficient for only 1 weeks fishing.

This departure day was the culmination of months of endless chatter, planning, arguing and never ending expense in our quest to compete in the 11th World Carp Classic and the 5th time at Lac de Madine (the last 2 years being held at this magnificent 2,500 acre Lake in the Champagne region, near Metz in the North East of France, not far from its more reknown neighbour Lac de Chantecoq).

As any one who has ever had the misfortune to fish anywhere near Tom and I will testify, we had explored every possible avenue of eventuality, we had “discussed” (argued) our tactics, what line or braid –floating or sinking- we might have to use, what bait and what presentation, what rigs and how heavy our leads would need to be, what clips would best serve to shed the leads, how long the leaders would need to be, the menu for the weeks dinners, what breakfast cereals we wanted, UHT milk or fresh milk.... white bread or brown bread, boxer shorts or jockeys ...... . Now I exaggerate just a touch but I make the point that we argue fervently and frequently because of the way we fish.... we fish as 1 angler with four rods to place in the ‘best’ 4 spots we can find  in front of us, with varying rigs and bait combinations between all of the rods, we do not fish in these matches as 2 anglers with 2 rods each doing “our own thing”, and because of this we have got to get to an agreement of everything related to our fishing and both be happy with all four rods. If we cannot agree exactly we will both compromise at different times in equal measures, and this has served us well in past matches we have fished together.

To fully illustrate what is involved in the preparation for these events would justify an article in themselves, suffice to say, Tom and I had done our homework......   In the event held at Lac Amance in 2003 Ross Honey had changed the draw format from  previous years to a “Stick or twist” which meant that you had the choice of keeping your first peg or redrawing an extra time to try and ‘better’ your swim. This method of draw had again been resurrected for the 2009 event at Madine and presented the competitors with a whole new “ball game” , it was no good just turning up and awaiting the draw, We knew we had to have as best an  idea of what we thought would be good or bad sections, and more specifically swims within sections so we had to have a plan to suss out the lake , this was going to be as close to a watercraft draw that you could have on such a huge venue. We made contact with various anglers who had been fishing Madine through the year and especially Jake Langley Hobbs who was posting his blog daily leading up to the match , we researched and pinpointed the sections and swims that produced well in the previous years event , we pestered Andy Chambers for weeks before the match to find out what weed growth there was, what depths of water were in each sections, and we were constantly on the phone to Ross Honey to glean as much information from his team as we could.

Thus it was the Friday morning and we were now on our way, with the whole weekend’s itinerary mapped out in terms of things we would need to do. From Gite (chalet booking) to boat registration to particle cooking and boilie air drying and dipping (hardening) to a reconnaissance of the Lake and swims by way of mountain bikes. Obviously we had to fit all this in with the inevitable social scene that would take place in the evenings before the Monday start, and we couldn’t miss out on that.

The Sunday evening (The draw) arrived very quickly and Tom and I had agreed our tactics, although I was conscious of gambling a “middle of the road” peg for an  “unfancied” one, Tom was adamant he wanted to gamble a “middle of the road” one for a “preferred” one (a peg to win from). Our first draw was a peg in a previously unfished bankspace (ATT section) an area that Leon Hoogendijk particularly liked and Andy Chambers thought would fish well.  I looked at Tom and asked “what do you want to do?”  “put it back” he said, and I had no arguments, I only really like the end peg in this section, no13, so back it went and this time Tom put his hand in the bag and drew the canister with the piece of paper that was then announced on stage over the P.A. system “ PESCALIS SECTION”.  We both knew this section produced carp last year with Mark Bartlett and Kevin Hewitt for our team (Carpworld) managing second place from Peg 6. ......  “PEG 12”......was then announced.  We were happy with this peg on the southern tip of the large Island in the middle of the lake. A swim that we would need to be boated out to from the mainland with our mountain of kit.

Part 2 will be published next week