 THE SCANDANAVIAN FISHING MASTERS 2008
Rivers Sege & Lödde, Malmö, Sweden
April 26-29th
by Phil Ackerley
The Masters this year had a new format, which included the weekend within the four days of competition. This seemed to prove popular those anglers not wanting to take too much time off work. However, most anglers tended to arrive on Thursday evening or early Friday, either travelling in from the car ferry ports or flying in, their tackle being sent ahead by van several days earlier.
FRIDAY 25th (Practice day)
Most people headed of to the River Sege in Malmö for their practice and I decided to follow Milo Columbo and his group. This would be a good opportunity to fine-tune all the rigs and kit I had brought.
I'd tied my rigs in the weeks leading up to the event, made up with 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 6 and some 8 gram floats. Most of them were set to be used on a variety of whip between 5-8 metres but there were several pole rigs to 1.5gr. They were also made slightly shorter than the overall whip lengths in order to compensate for the weight of some of the fish being swung to hand!!! Favoured line strengths were 0.19mm Preston Power line hooklengths with 0.22 MAP main line. I also used a serious hook at the business end, the Korum S3 barbed in 10, 12 and 14 sizes. These were tied leaving just have a small tail piece which would stop the maggots sliding back up the line. I also had two waggler rods set up with 5gram floats to 4lb Maxima and two feeder rods.
 The practice seemed to go quite well with a good shoal of ide and roach starting to respond to regular pouch of maggots fed every 30 seconds, my aim being to set a pattern of feed... cast.... catch... re-bait.... feed... etc. After a couple hours of catching and fine-tuning rigs, I decided to stop and watch some of the Italians, headed by Milo, who were also enjoying baggin' up on roach and ide. Most of these fish were in the 250-500 gram (8oz-1lb) bracket with odd skimmers and perch thrown in. Things were looking reasonable for the following day.
SATURDAY 26th (First days competition)
The draw for sections the night before saw me start on the Sege, actually only about 10 metres away from where I practised the day before.
In my section was last years champion Klaus Fix, who'd taken 218 kilos for his 4 day weight and blitz the field! Klaus was rumoured to have brought 10 gallons (50 litres) of maggot over for this competition. In fact, the bait refrigeration van stored at the hotel, was reputed to contain over a 1000 litres of them, with some of the Italians and Swedes bringing more than Klaus! My contribution was only 16 litres and made me wonder whether this meagre amount would be enough for the tournament?
I'd drawn peg 6 on the downstream section on the Sege which I felt confident on. The match started after the compulsory 5 minute pre-bait and saw me deposit five balls of Sensas Bremes 3000 on the 13m line, plus ten pouches of maggot. This was also going to be my 7 metre whip line.
 I caught immediately and put ten fish in the net out of ten ‘put-ins’, these were mostly small ide... then it went quiet as the flow changed due to tide. Two pegs away was Klaus and he was unusually quiet and had resorted to the pole. After the second hour I started to feed pouches of maggot a third across for my waggler line. This then produced my best spell as I started to take good roach and ide regularly. I noticed the Hungarian to my left had also started to catch on the waggler after a productive period on the pole. Further up on the left, at the start of the next section, Calle Rosslin was taking some big bream (he'd had four for 13 kilos!).
In the final 90 minutes I decided to go for a weight booster and was rewarded with a 3 kilo slab, which seemed like a thermolite brick as I lifted it to safety. By the end of the match I managed to put 19,250 kilos (43lb) on the scales, beaten for second in section by local Swede, Lars Erik Magnusson's 19,600kg, just 350 grams! First in our 8 peg section was Hungarian Peter Csomor, on the end peg, with 34,200 kilos (including those slabs!). Klaus was in an unfamiliar 4th place with 15,650 kilos... "bad day at the office mate", I said.
SUNDAY 27th (Second days competition)
I drew peg 5 on the downstream section of the River Lodde, which had incredibly produced only 1.5kgs the day before, and that was with a good Swede in the seat!
Needless to say I was a little apprehensive. I plumbed up and found about 2.5 metres of water at 13 metres. When the match started after the pre-baiting whistle, I immediately produced a flourish of fish for the first 20 minutes, then things got decidedly harder, but I still managed to maintain feed going in, albeit in smaller amounts. It soon became apparent that these middle three pegs, for some reason, were not going to take on the end pegs. I decided to 'chop and pot' and go for a few slabs, but they never showed up. I continued to some nice size roach but not in any significant numbers and I put 7 kilos (15.5lb) onto the scales for a last in section. A very good Hungarian to my right, Bela Sagi, recorded 8.55kg, while the Swede Lars-Erik Magnusson, on my left, came back with 12,450kg. The form of these three pegs really seemed a bit strange and inexplicable... but that’s fishing I suppose! Swede Christer Engvall took the section with 18,05kgs, pipping fellow countrymen Clas Hedström (16,600kg) and Calle Roslin (16,200kg).
 We'd heard the other section on the river had also fished very strange, with an incredible weight of 450grams going to Klaus Fix! The pegs next to him didn't fair much better either, his day at the office had just got even worse, but you always need to keep an eye on Klaus because he’s more then capable of taking 50+ kilos when conditions and peg fall into place. With the competition results done on weight, not points, there were some falling behind already... with two more days to go.
NOTE: Tamas Walter practised the river on Friday and had taken 68kg in 5 hours, but as we know, practising is not the reality of match conditions, but it still gave us encouragement for something similar perhaps.
MONDAY 28TH (Third days competition)
I now pulled a good draw with an end peg on the upstream section of the Lödde. These draws were proving to be winners on most days. The wind was extremely blustery, but at least it was against the flow, and, I had a spare peg to my right! After the initial bombardment I immediately started taking some cracking 'dog-roach' on 7 metre whip, which were swung to hand. However, it was getting noticeably more windy and after the first hour it switched directly at me. I decided to put on heavy floats and found to my horror that I hadn't tied any 6-8 gram rigs!!! Maybe they were still at home on the kitchen table? It cost me a 20 minute break to assembled two 6 gram rigs in between hammering in pouches of maggot. Once I was set up it was a full frontal attack with quality roach really starting to be swung into my eagerly waiting hands, Overcoming the odd fish being blown off course on its way to my hand I managed to count 197 fish by the whistle for jsut over 32kgs (73lb) and the the section win. Some of the other lads were hit hard by the wind and had to fish shorter. Danish rod Mark Holmboe could only manage 17,850kg for second place while Swede Mikael Pernu took third with 16,200kg.
The downstream section also threw up some good weights with double World Champion, Tamas Walter, taking the section with 32kg+, this including a stunning 4.7kg bream! Second place went to Declic Peche editor Nicolas Beroud on the next peg, just a couple of kilo short of Tamas. Even my infamous peg 5 yielded 21kg for a Swede Roger Bengtsson and a fifth in section, despite its previous days form!
Right: Sole Danish rod Mark Holmboe prepares for day three on the Lodde and managed to finish second in section with 17.85kg.
TUESDAY 29th (final days competition)
Back on the Sege again for the last round and I drew peg 5 upstream on the Sege, which was a little short of the mark, pegs 6, 7 and 8 being the fancied pegs as they had thrown up 30-45 kilos weights all week. I had Frenchman Nicholas Beroud to my left on peg 7 who immediately started to take fish consistently with 6-8 metre pole while Klaus was next on peg 8 and the Hungarian, Peter Csomor, on the end.
  Klaus had obviously decided he was on a good'un and started to get into his stride, even though the wind was extremely blustery. The last 3 hours saw him take the field apart with a masterful display to bank nearly 53kg, the highest section weight of the tournament. Next was Declic's Nicolas Beroud, with 34kg and then end peg Peter with 30,8kg. Dutchman Ad Toten on peg 1 took fourth place with 19,35kg, pushing me into fifth spot with 18,9kg. Halfway through the match I tried for the resident slabs, but they didn't show, only for some 1lb skimmers. Maybe if I’d not spent an hour looking for them I might have made third place... oh well, that’s fishing! 
Sege downstream saw Tamas Walter make end peg pay, while Swede Calle Roslin next door, gave him a run for his money being just 5 kilos short of Tamas' 34kg. The average weights in this section was a lot better with everyone having between 20-27 kilos.
We heard that the Lödde had fished well with Stefan ‘Tai-Chi’ Holst taking 34kg out from my previous days end peg.
EVENING PRIZE AND PRESENTATION
Event sponsor, Milo Columbo, graced the prize table with a generous assortment of quality kit, including whips, reels, feeder arms, floats, riddles, jackets etc. Event organiser, Michael Tono, and Sweden's sole distributor of Sensas and Milo products was then ably assisted by gentleman Roger Bengtsson AS they read out the section winners and best weights of each day plus the top places, leaving the crowning of the 2008 Scandinavian Masters till the end... TAMAS WALTER. There then followed the official banquet accompanied by plenty of 'Nordic' ale and, of course, the inevitable hard luck fishing stories!
I forward my sincere congratulation to Michael Tono, Roger Bengtsson and all the Swedish lads for a professionally run competition... I'LL BE BACK!
Full results on Splashfishing site: http://www.splashfishing.com/thescandinavianfishingmasters/default.asp
Finally, well done to Klaus for helping take out some of the many roots in the pegs on the Lödde, which made them fishable, despite getting his arms totally scratched in the process.
Some recommended items to bring with you if you're thinking of attending next year's event:
PLATFORM the water can rise and fall up to a foot.
TROLLEY for the days at the river Lödde, unless your feeling strong.
WADERS OR LONG BOOTS for the rising water and if you want to stand next to your bait platform
STRONG WHIPS in the Milo Tyson class, between 5 and 9 metre and even longer if you want. Sensas also have beefy whips in their collections.
20 WHIP RIGS minimum, as they tend to take a pounding from the continual use of swinging in fish. Some 1.5g rigs for the Sege as its only one metre deep and less, but have up to 3-4 gram floats when the wind hits. For the Lödde, rigs are mostly 2 to 8 grams for the average depth of 2.5 metres.
PLASTERS for your finger tips, as they can get a little damaged by all the un-hooking and dampness.
WAGGLER and FEEDER RODS, plus a 13 METRE POLE (competition maximum). Waggler can be quite productive if the fish have backed off the long whip line. Feeder rods if your out for the resident bream and the pole to hold it steady against the flow if they want a static bait.
ORDER at least 25 litres of maggot, about 5 gallons, which should allow you enough bait for four days competition plus a day's practice,
COME EARLIER to the venue if you can and get a better feel before the main event.
GROUNDBAIT is down to personal choice, but I think 10-15 kilos is enough for pre-bombardment and top-ups. |
Editors Note: I tried to get the time to go to this years Masters, but unfortunately I was tied to this sites re-development. However after reading these reports I think I'll be pencilling in the date for next years contest... it looks like 'proper' fishing to me!!! (so watch out Klaus!)
GALLERY:
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