altSpeaking later to England stalwart Steve Gardener, he hit the nail right on the head when he said, “England had an edge, like they did in Paris, Merida and Spinadesco” that edge was fishing for roach with joker on the hook, just like on our hard winter league canals back home!

But why should England have done so well with a bait that is more widely used and accepted on continental Europe than any other? Put simply the majority of continental anglers don’t fish joker on the hook. To them, joker is for groundbait and bloodworm is for the hook. France and Belgium are perhaps the exception to this rule.

However, in England during our winters on ‘rock-hard’ canals, and in some cases commercials, joker is the one bait that seems to catch more roach than any other. Our article in 2008 (All that glitters is Gold) highlighted the potency of using joker for quality roach and skimmers.

But how did this miraculous turn of events happen? England’s preparation during practice week seemed to run from great to mediocre. Their returns from the first couple of days was nothing short of ‘eye-opening’, but come Wednesday things took a turn for the worse, with rain descending on the area and results taking a nose-dive for many fishing. It was then that things started to kick in. Conditions turned cold and hard with the incessant rain, not dissimilar to those found back home, as many struggled to find any sort of plan. Bleak had all but disappeared and anglers found themselves ‘scratching’ for what ever they could net. This is not uncommon, as with many internationals during practice sessions on these type of waters, bleak tend to take a hammering, and consequently back off, as the week progresses.

With conditions becoming more difficult, elastics dropped down to No.2’s and 3’s along with hook sizes, but even so, many struggled. Not so England. They had been here before and experienced similar conditions and used what came naturally to them, joker on the hook.

However, it was not quite that simple, because England where aware early during practice week that bleak may possibly not figure that well. The problem had seemed to be that too many teams were putting in lots of fine leam cloud mix for the bleak, which in turn tended to put off species like roach, who are mainly bottom feeders. England, on the other hand, found that if they ignored feeding the bleak and concentrated on fishing on the deck with a leam, peat and groundbait mix, they could catch roach. This was a plan that didn’t happen early on, far from it, it developed late in the day.

Will Raison's final practice catch which set the scene for England's total dominance on day one on the Zeranski Canal.England always review their individual practice sessions as each weighs, so each and every angler can understands what happened during the session and then discuss as a group the finer points while still on the bank. If there was a timeframe when the decision was made to switch tactics, then Thursday’s post-practice team ‘huddle’ was a salient point in that outcome. Come Friday, everyone sat with a mix of 50/50 leam and local peat, with 10% Black Sensas Lake added. The peat the team used was something that the locals used on this canal, as the bottom was generally quite silty and a light mix was needed to avoid too much feed sinking into the bottom layers.

The day saw confirmation of the team’s faith in the plan, with everyone catching roach. Things actually had more of a flavour of back home. With no distracting cloud upsetting the roach that England where targeting, the team sealed their approach for the forthcoming two days of competition. All that remained was to carry out the plan to the utmost effect and this they did by doing what comes naturally during many English winter matches.

With the feed mix containing an initial 200gr of joker, each man cupped in several balls, generally on two lines. They then put 2/3 joker on a size 18/20 Drennan Ultra Fine Match and began to take roach on four of the five sections, which ran in a continuous line. This was mainly due to the fact that sector A, being some distance away from the other four sections, had seen more skimmers recorded than on any other section.

The end pegs of A section where Des and Alain Dewimille had a peg to peg battle.
This was where Des Shipp found himself, on A35, one from the end. Even the team’s plan worked here, probably due to Des being near the end, and was confirmed by his fish count at the end. Des had recorded 149 fish, the only one to break three figures in the whole of section A. In fact he found himself in 3^rd place after the weigh in, with a commendable 5.375kgs, being beaten by some bigger skimmer weights to his left. It was a disappointing day for Frances’ Alain Dewimille, a European bronze medalist in Serbia. Alain was unfortunate in losing several good fish in margin weed and, but for that, would have finished much higher than his lowly 8^th place. (Remember, each of the five sections was split into two halves of 18 anglers each).

England duo Alan Scotthorne and Steve Hemingray with their day one catches from sections D and B respectively. Steve's weight of 4.020 kilos was the heaviest along all the four sections from B to E.
Day one analysis
It’s difficult to actually quantify what happened on day one, because of England’s almost complete dominance. Many teams had felt that bleak where the key, along with smaller fish and the odd bonus skimmer, therefore they tended to overlook the roach present. With the weather playing no small part in events, it would be a team who realised their importance and potential who would do well. As far as the results went, there was only one team who utilised this fact to the full… England. If we analyse the section divisions, team placements, weight and fish counts, we see just how emphatic and incredible England’s performance was.

The first days section draw showed that Steve Gardener had drawn the reserve slot. The managers said it was an extremely close decision for the final place as all the team had been outstanding during the practise week.
A split made no difference!
Breaking down the section did little to diminish England’s superiority on the day. A fact borne out, that if we add all the five sections as full 36 peg sections, the team would still have recorded a 7 point win.

Tough sections
Take the team placements in each of the split section and we see that England never faced the home side once. They had Italy and Belgium in four of their sections, and France in three of them. By far the toughest challengers of all the main teams.

Weight comparisons
Team England had four of the heaviest section weights and a third heaviest weight, both for a spilt and a full section, rarely seen at this level. With a total team weight of 18.575kgs, England where well clear of Poland in second (9.130kgs), Belgium in third (10.800kgs), France fourth (11.625kgs) and Italy 9^th (9.600kgs). The only other side to break into double figure where Russia in 6^th place with a total weight of 10.835kgs.

In B section it was clearly visible that bleak against roach was no match. Czech star Luca Pergreffi recorded 152 fish for 2.350kgs while Will Raison caught 156 fish for 3.510kgs!
On fish counts
Fish counts make equally impressive reading. Out of five sections, England caught the highest total of fish on four and the second highest on one. The only blot on a clean sweep was section B where Czech star Luca Pergreffi totaled 152 fish to England’s Will Raison on 103. However, Luca only recorded a 2.350kg weight for second place to Will’s 4.020kg section win!

Not since Spinadesco, in 2008, has England had such a dominant first day lead, indeed few teams have attained such heights. Team Italy in Ostellato came closest, but they still fell a section win and 2pts short of England’s performance here. Points wise, England had a 7 point cushion over the home side with European champions Belgium and a resurgent France snapping at their heels, going into the final day. But as we have seen on many other internationals, leads can be eroded, so England still had it all to do to maintain their lead. The warning would be that other teams would not be so dismissive of the roach on day two!

Day two's draw looked mediocre compared to day one's results.
Far from certain!
Even with their team plan safely giving a cushion, England could have been open to a takeover, if weather and draw conspired against them. As it happened, the team’s draw didn’t look particularly good, based on day one returns but, to be honest, the venue seemed relatively fair overall if a little patchy. It looked more about tactics and target species after the first day and other teams where now changing some of their approaches, so England wouldn’t have it all their own way.

As the day started the weather changed, with the sun breaking through some of the clouds, bringing an absence of rain… not what England was really hoping for. Both William (A25) and Des (B10) had drawn mediocre areas, Sean’s peg C13 was in a good day 1 area, Alan had the worse peg. His peg D1 had seen only one angler break a kilo out of a three peg radius on the first day. England’s star performer over the whole week had been Steve Hemingray and his day 1 section win was fair reward for that, but E33 offered him the chance of an individual medal.

Will Raison set off at a decent pace in A section on day two, but found that others in his section where picking up better skimmers rather than him, despite his every effort to attract them.
It seemed that William was struggling in A section, where skimmers had been the key to good points on the first day. Skimmers are notoriously fickle on their movements… if you have them in the area, you should be OK. But Will was finding out the hard way on this fact, and there was little he could do about reports coming back from his support runner, Steve Gardener, regarding better skimmers being landed in his section.

As the day progressed, the clouds moved over the venue and this gave some comfort to the hard working team that had supported all five anglers throughout the championships. Something both managers praised highly.

In B section, Des, like William, was also struggling. The roach looked conspicuous by their absence here and even with joint manager, Mark Addy, lending support, Des found fish hard to come by for the first couple of hours or so. But with the change in conditions, and Des’ perseverance, he managed to build up the peg and started to slowly improve his chances. During this tenuous period, the England team radio chatter was beginning to sound a bit nervous. With two sections still looking as though they could damage the team, and three sections doing well, victory was still in the balance until the final weigh in, as France, reputedly, had had some excellent 2^nd day results.

One of the great difficulties when fishing for smaller fish, such as bleak, is the fish count. While being important, it can often mislead when heavier fish such as roach and small skimmers are present. With bleak getting hammered for 6/7 days and conditions turning overcast, they are more often incline to vanish, rather than feed, a fact some teams had obviously not realised.

Des Shipp's final weight of 1.980kgs was looking highly unlikely with just over an hour to go. But Des managed to build up his swim and ultimately finish second in section, much to both managers delight.Again, with the spilt sections it was difficult to be certain of any clear victory. What was known was that William had faired badly in A section against some skimmer weights. The weigh in would reveal he finished halfway down the section in 9^th place. Des on the other hand had pulled the proverbial ‘rabbit out of the hat’ and ultimately finished second in section, a results that had joint captain Mark Downes punching the air in delight.

Sean, Alan and Steve had all produced top results. With Alan and Steve winning their sections and gaining places on the individual podium. What was most commendable was Alan’s superb winning weight of just over 4 kilos from a peg which had only registered 85 grams, the day before!

A beaming Delannoy holds up one of the bonus bream that secured his gold medal.It was clear soon after that England had maintained their advantage from day one, although with a slightly reduced margin, from day two winners France. They have obviously consigned past results to the memory basement and now look to be heading back to their former powerful unit. This venue suited them as much as England and they can take away much comfort and pride in their overall performance, especially as they now have their first World Champion since 1995, in the shape of ‘the larger than life’ Didier Delannoy. Described by Frances’ Nicola Beroud as, ‘the only Frenchman who fishes like an Englishman’, courtesy of his many sorties over the channel to fish with his great pal Alan Scotthorne.

It was a depressing championship for Italy, who no doubt came here with every intention of ascending the podium. One can only speculate as to their poor showing, but one thing is certain, there are not many roach in Italy!!! It will be interesting to see where their overall standing in the world ranking is now.

Home side Poland must have thought their defence of their 2012 title was going to be easier than expected. A home water, which many of them knew intimately, did not show any kindness to them and they left the championships with just a consolation prize of bronze team medal. They will have learnt valuable lessons from England, as will many teams, and perhaps we will see them adopting a more positive approach to the venue’s resident roach in some of their future national and regional events to be held there.

European Champions Belgium once more looked as though they had found some form in world events on day one, but fell away at the final hurdle. A fourth place will no doubt enhance their current standings, as will the performance from the Czech Republic. Another team worthy of mention is tiny Latvia. Under great adversity, this tiny nation put in a remarkable performance, considering nearly all the teams poles were stolen from the back of their vehicles the night before final practice. A 7^th place was small reward for all their trials and tribulations.

A good showing from ‘under new management’ Wales saw them pick up 9^th place. The remainder of the UK and Ireland teams faired much worse. Scotland finished in 20^th spot, the miniscule Channel Isles in 25^th and Ireland in 34^th, which overjoyed the USA contingent!

A final mention of Sweden, who easily won the hotly contested battle of the Norse-folk!

My thanks to all my friends in Poland for a memorable event and visit.