The journey seemed to take forever and after what seemed like an age we arrived at a sea of (mostly green!) tents aptly named “bivvy city.”  We would be staying here for the next two nights to help with prep work for the competition.  At this point we received our first taste of the cuisine we would be provided with for the rest of the week.  It consisted of a baguette and some fruit. Not realising at the time such bakery products would be our staple diet that week! 

We were then joined by the lads from Shuttleworth College, who were on a course not too dissimilar to our own HND at Sparsholt.  They were a friendly enough bunch and a quick arm-wrestling competition between the best hopes of the two colleges served as a good icebreaker, coincidentally it was Dan Hope who won it for Sparsholt.

The following day was spent on a tour of the lake and in making various preparations, and in the evening we were introduced to the competitors at the opening ceremony. The next morning we again gathered in the competition hall for the spinning of the “wheel of fortune”, which would decide which anglers were in which sections. The atmosphere could have been cut with a machete, but the pointer eventually landed on Dynamite Baits, meaning this was section one and that all the other sections were each given a  number matching with what section number the anglers had drawn the previous day.
Section by section the anglers then left the hall to get their kit to their peg for the 2pm kick off, which was to be signalled by a rocket. We then paired up and were given our section - Andy Loble and I had the Indy Line Section. We were left waiting for what seemed like hours until we were finally ferried to our section, and not before the rocket went off signalling the start of the competition either!  Apparently, many of the anglers who had to boat their kit to pegs were in a similar predicament! 
 

Once set up we decided to patrol our section and introduce ourselves to our pairs of competitors, but it did look like an immense distance (around 2-3 miles at our estimate). The first pair we came across were Romanians and they seemed to be having a problem finding any water over 2.5-3m in front of them.
We then met Martin Locke of Solar and I’m guessing that Andy was the first person to ask him what job he did within Solar, to which Martin replied (much to Andy’s embarrassment) “I own it!”  Next was a trek back past base camp and up a huge peninsula (a trip we’d make many times). On the end were two pairs. One pair was from the Czech Republic and they asked us as best they could how they might contact us if they got a fish.
They asked if they could signal us with a “klaxon” and I can remember both myself and Andy trying to keep a straight face as a Donald Duck squeezy horn was produced, which was from a child’s bike I suppose and sounded like a duck on its death throes! Well considering our base camp was well over a mile away, we tried to explain that we slightly might not hear their signal!
 

The other team we met was Team Carp Addict, who were Steve Howard and Andy Pethick and we again talked of how we might be signalled if they caught. We eventually decided that a red light could be put up in our direction and that we’d also switch on and check our mobiles every two to three hours for text messages. They said they would do the same if the Czech pair caught. We left them and carried on along our section, but there were some number of empty pegs, where anglers had presumably turned up, taken an instant dislike to their peg and not even bothered to set up.

We then introduced ourselves to the Alien Baits team and a very friendly French chap called Frank, who gave us a generous pastis or three and showed us the baits he was using. They looked like clear rubber bouncy balls with a “isotope” glowing in the middle! I must say it’s given me food for thought in terms of my own fishing. Our last pair were Spanish anglers, who showed us some impressive pictures of their captures of carp, catfish and pike from their secret stretch of the River Ebro.
 

We then trekked back and crashed for the night, but Andy awoke me at 5 o’ clock to the sound of “It looks like we have a red light on the point!” So we gathered our weighing equipment and made our way as fast as we could to the end of the peninsula. Indeed, it was Andy Pethick who had caught and we weighed the fish in at 15.2kg (33.5lb). When we let Andy know that this had been the first fish caught and that meant he had won £500, he punched the air for a solid minute or two but not before he had returned the fish to the sack to await the camera crew in the morning.
We stayed chatting with both and Andy and Steve for  hours and I can remember thinking that the fish was well deserved considering the fact that they had only got their kit out some considerable hours after the rocket had gone off.                             

At first light we helped the Sky TV camera crew up with their equipment and got our five nanoseconds of fame re-enacting the weighing we’d done earlier that morning.

Over the following days it all settled down a bit with a total lack of action, not just in our section, but the lake as a whole. Still we continued with our daily rounds to see how the anglers were getting on. In fact, it was the Thursday before any other fish were caught and we ensured our competitors were kept in the loop.
It was amazing how although our section contained many nationalities some things in carp fishing are the same in any language. This was never clearer than when the Spanish guys relayed to us their dismay at catching a bream! The pressure on all the competitors must have been phenomenal, none more so than the Andy and Steve on the point.

The final nights we spent in their company we really saw them going through it! Although throughout this they were the most down to earth people you could meet, generously sparing us from the endless stream of baguettes which were ferried out to us twice a day, in providing us with some proper hot food. I could have been told that Andy Pethick had been awarded a Michelin star and believed it!
It was a surreal combination, the tension of the competition amongst the pure beauty of the surroundings. Some of the sunsets on the end of that peninsula were some of the most enchanting that I’ve ever seen and that I’ll never forget. That final night sitting with them both, the pressure that I thought was at its limit, notched up a gear, with both of the guys pulling out all the stops to produce that second run, which could well have secured them the title. As the dawn broke the following day it was clear that unfortunately Andy and Steve hadn’t caught that vital fish. This was confirmed by the firing of the rocket, signalling the end of the competition. 

The guys remained upbeat and were still overjoyed that they had won the section, the team prize and of course first fish. That couldn’t have been plainer to see when they collected their trophies and prize cheques. I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of pride at that moment. For it was the same guys from our section, who we’d gotten to know over the past few days standing there on that stage.  

Overall, I think I speak for all the Sparsholt students who attended in thanking James Watson, Dave Koss and George Hide for giving up their time to take us. I personally wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but even now I still can’t bring myself to eat a baguette. I now know why the French call them pain!

By Sam Flay BSc.FS2  -  2006 World Carp Class