A Polish barge steams past competitors during the opening minutes of the 2011 event.
October 29th and 30th saw the 3rd International Anglers Meeting take place on the Silo Canal in Brandenburg, Germany. In keeping with the previous years, 2010 proved an even bigger attraction than before, with 48 teams taking part.

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Even at the beginning of 2010, the interest shown was so great that the organisers had to add more pegs to cope with the increased demand. It was encouraging to see, once more, international teams from Denmark, Holland, Poland, Luxemburg, Italy and Slovakia, as well as Germany's men's and ladies National squads in attendance.

Some of the sponsored teams present were, Abu Evezet, Browning, CM Lockstoffe, Colmic, Fishing Attack, Maver Germany, Maver Austria, FTMAX, Geers, Grebenstein, HJG Drescher, Illex, Garbolino, Sensas, Mosella, Mondial, Pole Doc, Shimano, Stipp-Profi, Preston Innovations, Timar Mix Hungary, Top Secret, Tubertini, Ultimate Holland and Verpa Groundbaits.

Bob with his team matesThe German Men's National squad (Team DAV-Herren) of Gunter Horler, René Bredereck, Marco Beck, Harald Windel and newly crowned Shimano Cup winner Lutz Weissig, were led by coach Peter König. The reigning World Champion from Luxemburg, Frank Meis, was present, as well as the bronze medal winner, Italian Feruccio Gabba. Other well known names that attended were Dutch masters' Arjan Klop and Jo Adriolo. The ultimate star of the event was, of course, non other than 4 times World Champ Bob Nudd, who was part of the Browning team. Bob is still a massive crowd puller... and more than capable of holding his own on the banks these days.

During Thursday, the teams were allowed to have a training session on the stretch, where the anglers caught outstandingly well. Even the slightly poorer sections of Grebenstein and Browning were looking good for a weight. But the weather forecast for the following days was saying there was little wind and a cloudless sky... not exactly encouraging for a good mix for fishing. In the evening, the all important first day section draw took place and competitors were then able to decide and prepare their groundbait mixes and how they were going to approach their particular sections.

The normal form of groundbait bombardment consisted of 8 to 10 orange size balls being deposited on the main 13 metre pole line, with slightly smaller balls being thrown on to the Bolo line, a further 10 metres out. Added to this mix are casters, bloodworm and sweetcorn. The main plan of attack is to start on the pole line and then switch to the Bolo line later. It's always interesting to see how the fish react to this initial bombardment although, unusually, the first 20 minutes of the first days contest produced nothing!
There were some rather ancient-looking reels on some of the bolo rods, but they obviously worked OK!

As always, the Silo demanded that the floats were an important part in how you controlled the bait through the swim, according to the flow. So a mixture of round-bodied river, and lollipop floats were employed......as well as those used on the bolo rods.Day One dawns
Without trying to take anything away from the competitors skills, there were a few areas where the fish seemed to be shoaled up more, like in section A (Grebenstein) between pegs 17 and 20 where Team Fishing Attack's Karol Pacyna weighed in just 5.320kg with the best weight. Third placed Bernd Grabowski, from Team FTMAX, on peg 20 and fifth place Claus Müller on peg 17, were smack in the middle of this area where fish were more abundant. 2nd placed Jan-Willi Kuperschmidt (Team Browning) who took 2nd place with his Bolo caught bag from peg 3 being the exception. During last year’s event, the tactic was to top-up with balls of bloodworm and heavy soil, but the groundbait/soil mix had to be cupped exactly in place to congregate the bream into one area. This was a good team plan, so some teams brought quite a lot of bloodworm to the bank, ignoring joker completely. This practice cost a fortune, when you consider that they used nearly 3 litres over the two days.

In the second part of the section, things really looked grim, but Hennie Kruidener of Team Abu Evezet managed to secure first place with a miniscule 1.354kg. Second was Team Verpa's Thorsten Jenke with 1.018kg. This was without doubt, sadly, the worst section, with many dry nets. There were a few fortunate people who caught the odd stray fish, like Team Stipp-Profi's Heiko Schmidt, who managed to 'nick' a 362 gram roach and avoid the dreaded blank, it also earned him a handy 6th place in the section. Heiko's bank runner produced a 'cunning-plan' which saw him to cast his bolo rig as far as he could... and it paid of handsomely with that roach!

The anglers in B section (Browning), faired completely the opposite. From the 'Off', small roach (50–80gr) were being caught on the pole line and were a good start for everyone with plenty of time to build up a decent weight. Some competitors had 15 to 20 of these in the first half hour, so were in a good position.

After the short burst of small fish most changed to the bolo line after the hour mark. Those who had fed small balls with little feed content regularly on this line, would soon be rewarded for their efforts. Martin Zetloff won the section with 1.412kg from peg 6, followed by Carl Vissen of Team Ultimate with 1.031kg on peg 19. The second subsection near the Blue bridge” was a little better. The end five pegs saw more constant catch rates where the Bolo line was to dominate. Stephan Birkle (Team Garbolino) set the pace in this subsection were he sorted out the bigger roach from peg 16 to eventually weigh 6.405kg. Olli Flam of Team Illex, on adjacent peg 17, managed a total of 5.728kg for second spot.

Weights seemed to improve in the first part of C section (FTMax) beyond the “Blue bridge” and again it was the Bolo method which outscored the pole. It was here that England's four time world champ, Bob Nudd, was drawn on peg 12, who showed he'd not lost any of his skill over the years, but it took his 'runner', Uli Prehn, a while to convince the former champ to swap over to the Bolo, as better weights were to be had on this method. After two barges ploughed down the canal, bites stopped and Bob eventually had to settle for a weight of 3.516kg. First and second place went to regular visitors to the canal, Frank Weise on peg 14, who amassed 8.709kg on the Bolo, just ahead of Chris Weiss, of Team Stipp-Profi, on peg 7 with 8.413kg. Whilst the majority of the weights in the first part of the section where in the region of 2 to 3 kilo, these two anglers showed just how much importance there was in knowing the water well. Best baits were a maggot and corn cocktail, or corn tipped with 3-4 bloodworms. Topping up with bloodworm brought the bigger roach but it was important that the baits were big in order to prevent false bites from smaller fish. The bigger the bait, the better it proved to work on the bolo lines.

The second part of C section saw Kingdom of Sports team member Benni Hoffmann in control throughout the match, catching roach and bream constantly from the off. At the final whistle he put 29.745kg on the scales, the highest weight of this years event. This part of the section also saw a return to more of the canal's familiar weights... in the region 20 kilos! Jörg Schwarze's second place with 23.471kg and third placed Björn Bauersfeld's 22.410kg proved just how good this area was. This second half of the section was definitely a Bolo event! It was imperative that you kept the bait running along the deck, using bloodworm for the bream, but not to fish too heavy for them. It needed a slightly lighter float of 6 to 10gr to ease the rig through with the pace of the canal.

It was a similar affair on the opposite side of the canal in D section (Kingdom of Sports), the Bolo, yet again, dominated the first mid-section, with the bigger weights in the higher numbers coming to the pole line. Carsten Röschl took his half section by storm with a winning weight of 25.624kg from the end peg. Second was Arjan Klop, of the Dutch National squad, with 23.667kg off peg 20, third was Andreas Heidmüller (Team Stipp-Profi) 20.387kg. In the second part of section it was vital to draw the high numbers in order to stand any chance winning. There were more bream and roach present in these higher numbersh bream more available on the pole line. In the lower numbers, it was a case of catching on the Bolo. Fernand Schmidt, of Team CM Lockstoffe, on peg 3 won his section with 12.171kg, almost doubling his nearest rival, Dirk Alker, from Team German Masters with 6.420kg. On this section it was obvious that the lucky draw helped more than anything else. As the Bolo dominated here, it was no wonder that expert Thomas Pruchnowski took 3rd place with 5.195kg.

During the training sessions it was apparent that the Bolo would be the first choice of attack as extra water in the canal meant that the 13 metre pole could reach over the inside stoney ground. It's a method that many anglers enjoy these days, due to the new light slim blanks available, which are a joy to handle. Being a traditional Italian method, it was no surprise that Roberto Mazzette, Team Geers (an Italian living in Hamburg!) won the first half section with 10.126kg, beating Germany's national angler Gunter Horler on 9.746kg. Marco (don't have his last name!), from Team Italy, weighed in 8.901kg for third place. In the second half of the section, more fish were in abundance and more than 15 kilos was needed to frame. Again the Bolo attack reaped rewards for Team Browning's Simon Achammer with 16.566kg. Timar Szabolcs (Team Timar Hungary) was in second with 16.003kg and Enrico Pankow (CT-Friends) weighed in third with 15.164kg.

After the weigh in, the organizers set to working out the calculations for the first day positions. Surprisingly Team CM Lockstoffe was in the lead with 20 points followed by Team Geers and Stipp-Profi, both with with 30 points each. The biggest shock was that the German men's national squad finished down in 20th place!

Would day two be a repeat of day one?
The draw for the final days match would be a 'lucky-dip' judging by the first days results. The right peg in the right section would be crucial for overall success in the match. Lower numbers were needed in sections B, C and D. In E section it didn't seem to be that important what pegs were drawn. Team CM Lockstoffe were leading the field and they had three anglers from the first days top 5, who had drawn low and high numbers. This included Daniel Wolsfeld who had drawn peg A2, Romain König on C43 and Claus Müller on end peg D47. Their other two anglers, Ferdinand Schmitt and Mike Thiennes who had both fished a good first round, were situated in the middle of their sections but they are more than used to fishing the Silo, especially on the Bolo.

As the second day got underway it looked throughout the whole stretch like it was set to be a good battle between all the teams, because unlike day one, it saw more fish being caught all along the canal. In A section, Team CM Lockstoffe were dominant, with Daniel Wolsfeld easily winning the section with 18.344kg. Next to him on the end peg A1 was Mirek Laskow who never set up a Bolo had to settle for a lower weight of 5.710 kilo and 7th place. Bob Nudd got to grips with the canal and ended up 4th with 7.087kg from peg A16, proving that even at over 60 years of age he is still a force to be reckoned with. Second in section was Remingusz Zielonka of Team Poland with 8.983kg from peg 5.

In the second part of C section, on pegs 20 and 21, there looked to be some sort of psychological dual going on. “That lass is slaughtering me” complained Romain König on peg 20. The 'lass' he was referring to was none other than Steffi Bloch, the current Ladies World Champion. Whilst Romain had held back hard on the lollipop float, Steffi had opted for a lighter rig which could be 'run-through' the swim and it was paying dividends. She was bagging bream which in the end took her to the top of the section, more than 3 kilo ahead of her nearest rival. Romain eventually fought his way into third place with 24.099kg. Ingo Frerichs of Team Kingdom of Sports, was second with 27.868kg. In this section it was apparent that the feeding rhythm and the pace of trotting the float was crucial to posting a good result.

The majority of the anglers opted to ease the Bolo rig down their pegs and with the right feeding scheme it seemed to reap the best rewards. In E section, this method brought many roach in the 150g bracket. Karol Pacyna of Team Fishing Attack ended with10kg for second spot. There was one angler who fished slightly different to everyone else by fishing 11 meters and feeding short of his rig which was slowly eased through the swim to catch bream and roach to 600g. His name was Ralf Herdlitschke and he finished the match with almost double the total of his nearest rival with 23.357kg.

International star Feruccio Gabba, from Team Italian, fished further out than the rest of his rivals in the first half of C section and was pleased with his efforts from peg 7. German national angler, Heiko Schmitt of Stipp-Profi, set the pace with an all Bolo caught weight of 20.593kg to win his half-section in style, thanks largely to an empty peg 6, due to a competitor falling ill. For next years event, the committee are planning to allow a substitute for such eventualities. In second place was Lutz Weissig with 17.300kg.

The team that was expected to do well in this year’s event was the German national squad (Team DAV-Herren), but after their day one 'blow-out', where they had to settle for a place in the middle of the pack, it was not looking good for any 'silverware'! However, going into day 2 proved a different story and they managed to redeem their staus with a powerful all-round performance. Each angler finished in the top three in each of their respective half-sections, a remarkable result by anyone's standard. René Bredereck managed 3 points from A section, Marco Beck 2 points from B section, Lutz Weissing also had 2 points from C section while Harald Windel and Günter Horler both took first place from the remaining sections.

Some of the harder sections had been a difficult nut to crack. No matter what the anglers tried they couldn't seem to get bites into any sort of rhythm. No particular method of feeding worked properly, neither cupping nor the regular “ball a chuck” worked and none of the usual tricks to induce bites worked either. Harald Windel found out that the method to use was simply don’t re-feed, and he caught constantly to amass a weight of 22.333kg. In D section's second half, it was a case of balling it from the start and strangely no one started on the Bolo line until much later in the match when bigger roach were being caught in excess of 600g each! Another interesting point was that some predator fish had mixed in with the bream, making things a bit awkward to say the least. Claus Müller, from Team CM Lockstoffe, was heading for a 40 kilo weight until he hit periods where the fish had seemed to vanish. Obviously due to the predators that were in abundance. Even so, the end result was a fine weight of 25.552kg for him and second place in his section. The angler who won this section showed a classy approach that most didn't pick up on. Axel Heuser (Team Maver) fished 11 metres to hand and reaped the rewards of a 27.046kg haul from peg 12. This is the second time Axel has won his section since the first IAM in 2008.

E section saw Günter Horler fish a metre past the tip of his pole for the first hour of the match from peg 16, and afterward the Bolo to amass a weight of 21.026kg. Behind this result was a close call to see who got the second and third spot. Andreas Dahlke (Team German Masters) weighed in at 20.213kg, nudging out Oliver Nitze (Team Geers) with 19.674kg.

The overall team result saw Team CM Lockstoffe amassed an awesome points total of 6 points from the first three sections, only to see their remaining anglers in the final two section 'blowout'! 2009 champions Team Stipp-Profi, were once more in top form with three section wins (Chris Weiss, Heiko Schmitt and Ralf Herdlitschke) on the final day.

With a 7 point clear margin over their nearest rivals, Team Stipp-Profi successfully defended their title, followed by Team CM Lockstoffe with 64 points, the German national team (Team DAV-Herren) finished with 66 points while Team German Masters also had 66 points but suffered on a weight count to finish fourth. In the individual stakes there were 3 anglers with 3 points, reigning champ Günter Horler (Team DAV-Herren) managed to win once more, this time on total weight, followed by Karol Pacnya from Team Fishing Attack and third place went to Chris Weiss of Team Stipp-Profi.
Gunter Horler once more shows his superiority on the Silo, and has even produced a video on how to fish it...just to prove it! Whilst amongst the many pole rigs on display, there didn't seem to be much difference looking at them all. What was a surprise was that many anglers never brought any Bolo rods with them! Maybe this fatal mistake was made before they left home... after all, planning and preparation begins there...not on the bank!

From the section sponsors, Browning, Grebenstein, FTMax, Kingdom of Sports and Abu-Everzet, each sub-section winner was rewarded with a prize for their efforts. The evenings' gala banquet also included a German TV celebrity to hand out the prizes (and a peck on the cheek) to bring a fitting end to yet another successful IAM. Champions-team are currently working on the 2011 event and information will be available to view on their website later.