NORRKÖPING OPEN, SWEDEN
NORTH CENTRUM HARBOUR AREA ON LINDÖ CANAL
17 & 18 MAY 2008
'Slabs' on the freezing Lindö
by Phil Ackerley & Fredrik Andersson

Unfortunately the weather was quite poor for the first day with a mere 9 degrees, but some welcoming rays showed when the sun came out. However, Sunday was freezing and windy with temperatures dipping as low as 3 degrees and believe it or not, the fish fed even better than the previous day for the few diehards who braved the conditions!

I had two 'masters' either side of me on the first day, Stefan Holst hinself and Christer Engvall... and both put me to the sword. It didn't matter what I tried, whatever I did,  pole or feeder, nothing worked. Anyway, before I knew it, there was 30 minutes left of the match and just three bits and a couple of stray bream in the net. So just as I was contemplating a visit to the psychiatrist on Monday, the tip of my Preston Dutchmaster feeder rod went whoooosh, and for the remaining 30 minutes didn't stop! I don’t think my 30gr feeder touched the bottom, yet in just 3 metres of water a big shoal of bream had moved in and I eventually managed to net seven out of the ten I hooked. That gave me a miserly 10,920 kilos. If only there was still 4 hours ago!

I'd been battered by Christer with 22,040kg and on the other side by Stefan Holst with 48,060kg. So that was it, the first day was over and Lasse Olsson took our section with 48,900 just 800grams+ in front of Stefan. B Section was won by Kent Adell with 41,880kg with Björn Holmberg taking 32,360kg for second place and Fredrik Andersson in third with 26,120kg.

With me depressingly taking another bad result on the Sunday, I thought its best to let my good friend Fredrik ‘The Swede’ Andersson take an overview of the two days...

...but first a brief profile of my replacement:

Fredrik has represented Sweden in two world championships...
Fished in two world club championships...
Been Swedish National captain twice and will also be this year...
Won the Swedish Championship once and second once...
Won the Swedish national team trials.
However, his biggest achievement is being known as ‘The Swede’ in the UK when he’s fishing with me at White Acres.
Fredrik's favourite English venue is Bolingey, Cornwall.

Day One:
Saturday morning and draw time. The sections are split and as usual, everyone's talking about which section to draw first as one is new and never been fished in a match before. I draw peg 11, one off last peg on the new section B. Quite pleased with it really as I suspect the other section will fish better on day two.

I start of by balling in twelve 'jaffas' on the 12m pole line. I'd put a lot feed in... half pint of dead maggot, half pint of chopped worm and half a tin of corn as I suspect there will be a lot of bream there because Mattias, to my right, managed to foul hook one before the all in and I'd had a few liners when plumbing up. I then put out the feeder about 65-70m and the first bite's a small roach followed by a perch.

After 25 minutes Kent Adell, on my left, had taken a few bream on the pole and as I'd done no good on the feeder I figured it was about time to try the pole. I hoped that the bream had got there heads down and were feeding properly because I given the pole line longer to settle then anyone around me . That was not the case and I ended up with just got a few fish, and than it went dead. The day was a complete struggle were I'd tried different things to get the fish going, but all I got was just a bream here and there. The feeder line never came good and it was not until the last hour that the pole line started to produce. What I did was to start feeding a lot more and often. A small ball every minute and then the fish got there heads down. The biggest problem of the day was that the fish were in the peg, but didn’t want to feed. They were just ready to spawn and not interested in anything else. This was borne out by the many anglers who had foul hooked fish.

Anyway, my day didn't turn out so bad, I managed third in section with 19 bream for 26kg, beaten by Kent on the next peg who won the section with 41kg, all bream on the pole. Looking back I think I should have fished it a bit different. I should have fired out 15-20 balls on the feeder line so when the pole line died I could have gone out and tried there. Even though there was a lot of fish in the area, there weren't many feeding. That caused a lot of problems with foul-hooked fish spooking the others. Also, feeding small balls of groundbait regularly really worked the last 45 minutes, so maybe I should have done that earlier, who knows?

Day Two:
We swapped over sections today and I pulled out peg 5. It's right in the centre of the section and not ideal, but as I plumb-up I can feel a lot of fish bumping into my line.
I decided to ball it in as yesterday on the pole line, 12 'jaffas' with loads of feed. I then fire out 20 smaller balls on the feeder line around 60 metres. The idea was to leave it to settle for a while while trying out the pole first.

As there seemed to be a lot of fish just swimming around today, I decided to also set up a 16gr waggler, with just a gram of shot down the line and see what fish were hovering over the feeder line. Experience had taught me that by fishing on the drop, under these conditions, it could prove productive, even though its about 12 feet deep!

The pole produced a bream right away and the first 45 minutes flew past, and saw me bank 17 more fish. Not big ones but, all around 1kg/2lb mark, but then it died. I tried the feeder and nothing. I could see that Håkan Svedlund and Björn Holmberg were catching well. For the next 2½ hours I could only manage to land another eight on the pole and two on the waggler, I know I’m way behind by now! Then I decide to go back on the feeder, but this time a bit further out. After just three casts we're into a bream and then it really gets going. The last 75 minutes produce THIRTY bream to shoot me up the section... but by how much!

When the final whistle sounds and I have to put one bream back as Swedish rules states that you have to bank the fish before that final signal, as do most international rules! Unfortunately I was just 10 seconds too late, however it didn’t change the result at the end, but still, its a bit of a stupid rule... please change it!

The weigh in starts and its soon clear that there has been a lot of fish caught today. Håkan Svedlund has a good weight, as I suspected, and records 79kg, which is good enough for a section win. Second is Björn Holmberg with 73,60kg, who caught most of his fish on the pole and then I take third spot with 73.45k, beaten by just 150 GRAMS! Håkan got most of his fish on the pole but when the pole line died he managed to keep catching on the feeder. Maybe if I'd started on the feeder earlier, it may have won me the match, as I was just 5kg short of first place?

The gear I used over the two days wasn't really bagging tackle: Black Hydro in the top three sections with 3 or 4 gram floats to 0.16mm mainline, then 0.14mm hooklengths with sizes 14 to 10 Triana Takara 200 hooks.

On the feeder I used Preston 0.08 braid, a 5 metre 0.25mm shock leader to a simple paternoster with 70cm of 0.14mm hook length to a size 14 Takara 200 hook that I changed up to a size 12 when I started to bag-up at the end. For easy casting the distance you need a rod that’s up for the job. I use a Bert Van Gerven Dutch feeder rod with Eco line, but any heavy feeder rod will do. Preston Dutch Master's were quite popular on the match as there was several of them floating around on the day.

The match was fun, but strange, I felt like I'd had a bad day, with just two good baggin' hours, yet I still managed to weigh in 73kg! I did break my personal best though and had a super weekend. It lived up to all the hype beforehand and I believe the venue WILL break the Swedish match record, currently standing at 120kg of ide, roach and bream from River Sege in Malmö, in the near future. Lets face it, to get over 70kg and not fish a perfect match just points to the potential of the place, especially as the weekend was cold with northerly winds and rain. 120kg is more than possible, as Stefan Holst showed last year, when he banked an impressive 119.6kg, which was really close to the record, so if you get everything right, 150kg could be on the cards. If you get a bit of good weather leading up to the match it could be done! On the second day five anglers weighed in over 60kg on my section. The other section fished hard and was won by Stefan Holst with just 30kg.

Fredrik Andersson