When Scotland manager, Chris Paton got in touch to ask if I wanted to go to France for The Sensas challenge Final, I jumped at the offer. When I first started to get interested in match fishing, all things “French” were very influential, not least their amazing knowledge of ground bait, so a chance to fish a match in the heartland of French match fishing, North East France was a no-brainer.
But this wasn’t to be any old match, It was a thousand peg team match against the best domestic teams in France with around another thirty international and top club teams from across Europe also invited.
Scotland are invited to the Sensas challenge in England each year to fish against the top English teams and that match is in fact a qualifier for the French event so, as we didn’t finish in the Top two in England (That honour fell to Daiwa Dorking) we had effectively been given a wild card entry to the final, due to our long standing sponsorship by Sensas.
The first task in these far-flung matches is to get some basic information like depth, species, rigs size, target weights and baits. This helps narrow things down in terms of what to take, very important when space is limited with two sharing a van.
It was to be a four-man team for the River Somme with Brian Clark and Ewan Weed joining me from the World Championship squad and also Alan Connolly, after his impressive debut for Scotland in the Celtic Cup this year.
Getting information about the venue turned out to be much harder than usual for some reason but Ewan finally got good, basic information from Jean Desque and Brian got some more detailed tips from a couple of English sources enabling us to start making some rig and hook lengths and limit the ground bait and leam to be transported to under two hundred and fifty kilos!
The logistics of organising this sort of trip is quite tricky and time consuming with bait, transport and accommodation to be sorted out and it took a couple of meetings and endless phone calls but eventually we were ready to go.
Alan and Ewan left first thing on the Wednesday to get a look at the venue in the evening, with Brian and myself arriving at the river by eight AM the next morning.
We had been warned that the river was deep, up to eight meters in places and that we would need floats from one gram to fifty grams, and that it would be hard. Quite a write up!
The river is only about an hour from Calais so after negotiating the channel tunnel Brian and I headed for the famous town of Abbeville (so famous it has a float named after it). The river flows through the town with the sections below the town being affected by the tide and the sections above faster flowing.
Alan and Ewan had had a look round and settled on B section below the town for our first practise session. This was an attractive; tree lined stretch around forty meters wide and averaging six meters deep.
We only had two days to practise so we were limited in what we could try but the main things to think about were the initial feeding, hook baits and feeding patterns with two trying one thing, and two trying another, so if something works we know it isn’t just luck.
Ewan and I opted for a similar mix with three parts gross gardons, two parts Etang (the same as Lake, but not as fine) and one bag of Terre de Rivire leam (much more sticky and heavy than normal “damp” leam).
Alan and Brian had a similar mix based around Gross Gardons with a more active “secret, oily” ingredient.
For the initial pre bait, or balling in, we decided to vary the amount of joker we put in, with some feeding 150ml, some 500ml, (the limit was a litre) some putting it in evenly through all the balls and some concentrating most of it in a few balls that would be cupped in, rather than throw, for accuracy.
I balled in 12 balls with 200ml of joker then cupped in another 4 with the same again of joker plus some chopped worm and caster.
We didn’t know what to expect so I was pleased after 15 minutes to see Brian landing a small perch, then another one and Alan landing a roach. At least there were a few fish about. After around an hour my float buried and my strike was met with something solid. It felt like the thump, thump of a Bream and the fish quickly surfaced and confirmed my suspicions.
Unfortunately this was to be the end of the action for me apart from some more small perch, although Ewan began to catch bream and ended with around half a dozen for a good double figure weight.
This first practise was over quickly and after a spell of tying rigs we headed back to our hotel for a chat about what we had learnt and to meet up with Andy Cornwall, the owner of Vespe who was going to run the bank for Brian, whom he sponsors.
Over dinner we decided that the mix Ewan and I had used seemed better and that limiting the amount of top ups and not disturbing the swim was a better approach although topping up sometimes brought a single fish if you were desperate.
Ewan was sure that chopped worm was a mistake but I wasn’t so sure. This was something to try the next day then.
We were up early the next morning and headed to the local tackle shop. This was a big affair with a mountain of ground bait and daily deliveries of different bloodworm and joker, quite an eye opener.
Sensas had organized the match brilliantly so you could place your anglers on each section and in doing so, enabling people to car share. If they hadn’t done this a pair sharing a car could have been pegged around 40km apart, a potential nightmare.
We had decided to split into two with Alan and Ewan heading for C section and Brian and myself deciding to have a look at A then maybe come back to the bottom of B section. We wanted to find out how to get to A section, as Brian was to be here the next day and after a couple of wrong turns, we found it. It was similar to B, being very straight but was a bit wider and more sluggish. We headed back to the low numbers in B section and found both Daiwa Dorking and Kamasan Starlets practising in the same area, along with several French teams.
The wind had really picked up by now and, along with a strong and variable current the fishing was harder than the day before.
We had a play around with rigs and found 40gram flat floats to be best, although you needed lighter and heavier rigs as well, as the flow varied depending on what the tide at the mouth of the river was doing.
I had decided to try a closer in line today which we hadn’t bother with the day before and fed some cloudy leam with a little bait past some weed, looking for a perch. After 10 minutes I was rewarded with a plump perch around half a pound, “that could be worth mega points,” I thought, and Brain told me not to do it again in case other teams saw.
All I could catch was small perch with a small red worm and bloodworm best on the hook. I had spent a bit of time getting hundreds of red worms for the team from the dung heap at my work before I came and I was pleased I had, as they seemed to work well for the wee perch which were looking increasingly important if you were to avoid a blank net.
After our four hours practise, towards the end of which Brian had managed to find a solitary Bream, I decided to go and have a spy on some of the other team to see if anyone was doing anything drastically different. In these situations many teams can be quite crafty and even try to throw you a dummy but with only a couple of days practise most teams were just trying to catch a few fish.
Most people were fishing similar to us with the only difference being that I saw a lot more running through rather than holding back hard, which was what we were concentrating on, although I only saw one small perch caught so perhaps we were right and they were wrong? Food for thought!
We headed back to the hotel and talked through what we had learnt. Alan and Ewan had struggled as well and we decided that avoiding a blank was the most important thing but not to be to negative as bream were about, and could be caught. We decided to keep chopped worm out at the start with the option of adding it if you needed something different to try.
We then headed into town for the banquet and the draw. In the town every second person seemed to be in Sensas clothing and there was a good friendly atmosphere amongst the anglers. The tent was huge to accommodate over 1000 anglers and much of the Sensas range of equipment was also on display to have a look at. This led to Alan and Ewan spending hours drooling over floats!
The draw looked reasonable with Alan in an area that may hold fish, Ewan in the land of the unknown some 25km away, I was around 100 pegs from where we had practiced on Thursday and Brian avoided drawing to far down near the mouth of the river.
After a few drinks we got an early night in preparation for the next day.
We had been concerned about the logistics of getting to our pegs but with a one-way system in use and good sign posting, I was at my peg with loads of time to spare. I had peg 203 in B section which put me at the end of a row of spaced trees and looked ok although, with the river being so uniform and straight I felt that what things were like under the water would be more important.
Based on the last two days I decided to set up three Flat floats and one round bodied float for running through at the speed of the current. All my flat floats were made up on 0.20 Ultima power match. There is no need to fish light line with big flat floats and the line needs to be resistant to wear with the weights we were using. I set up a 40 gram Cralusso Torpedo with a sliding bulk of drilled lead bullets separated with a small piece of silicon tubing below which I had several number 3 Colmic shot and finally a number 20 Preston swivel. I would either fish with three droppers or just one at the swivel depending on conditions.
I then had 25 and 12.5 gram Sensas Pawel flat floats with an angled bristle on the same line, with sliding olivettes and number 5 or 7 shot shot as droppers. The olivette rested on a number 8 stot, as these have more grip on the line. Finally my round-bodied float was a Garbolino DS number 24 in 8 gram for running through with the flow and not holding back. I then used the other floats for running through, inching through and holding back hard, depending on the flow.
Float selection - mainly large!
Hook lengths were 0.08 – 0.16 super G-line but mostly in 0.10. They were 20cm long and hooks were either Kamasan B511’s in 14 or 16 or Colmic B957 16’s (slightly heavier gauge). I couldn’t fish much smaller hooks due to the size of float and elastic I was using. My elastic was either blue or white hydro.
I plumbed up to find the swim was top six and a half at 13 meters, and I plumbed a line around top six as well which was a similar depth. I couldn’t see any UK based anglers in my section but the two guys to my left looked pretty handy and had turned up in vans with Sensas graphics all over them.
I had around three hours to get ready but it went in a flash and as usual I was running around trying to put finishing touches to all my preparation right up to the last minute. The most important thing though is to leave yourself a good 20 minutes to make up your initial feed for pre baiting.
My mix was the same as in practise and I made up a dozen big balls with 200ml of joker and some dead maggot then three joker, rich double leam balls to cup in. I also fed a few balls of Terre de Somme with a handful of chopped worm and joker for closer in to make a cloud.
My balling in had been spot on during practise, with all my ground bait going exactly where I wanted it so, imagine my panic when the hooter went and my very first ball knocked my cupping kit off and it started to float away! Normally I would grab my rod in this situation but not having set one up I bolted to my bag and pulled out my spare cupping kit, screwed on another cup and shipped out just in time to stop the kit drifting out my peg. I re attached the kit, took a breath, then got the rest of my bait where I wanted it and started to relax.
Since being picked for Scotland I have made sure I have a duplicate of everything with me. It’s expensive but essential, as you can’t always get a replacement when abroad. I now have a spare for all my pole sections, landing net handle, cupping kit and even small things like seat box legs and knobs.
The match started slowly, with little being caught that I could see. I was working my swim hard, trying different things and ways of presenting the bait but was being cautious with topping up, as I didn’t want to feed on top of any fish in my peg for fear of disturbing them.
Finally, after an hour and a half of hard work my float went under and I connected with something. However instead of the reassuring thump and plod of a bream the white hydro started to shoot out of my pole as, whatever I had hooked flew off down stream. It felt foul hooked and my suspicions were confirmed as it dinked off seconds later. Cursing my luck I shipped back in and rebaited, knowing that I may have lost my only chance of a fish. Around 10 minutes later, things were made worse by the guy to my left hooking and landing a bream.
Brian at his peg on Day 1
The next hour and a half were hard as I tried to keep my concentration despite thoughts of letting the team down by blanking, of how much I had spent and how far I had travelled, not to catch a fish.
Going into the last hour I decided to risk putting in some choppy. I also changed hook from the nickel B511 to the bronze Colmic pattern and with 45 minutes to go I had the bite I had been waiting for. This time it felt on properly and I gingerly played a two-pound bream to the net and landed it with a big sigh of relief.
I went back out to see if anything else was about but remained bite less for the rest of the four hours despite topping up again with around 20 minutes to go.
The flow had really increased in this last hour as the tide had changed, necessitating a change from 25gram floats to 40 grams to enable me to hold the rig back hard or “block”, as it is called on the continent.
When the scales got to me my 1 kilo and 80 grams put me third in the section, a position I held till the end peg of the 16 man section weighed in with over 2 kilos leaving me fourth and very relieved.
Back at the hotel Things were looking OK but not brilliant with Brian and Alan both 6th in their sections. Brian had been in a really tough area but had managed to get perch. Alan had drawn in the town length and, despite fishing a difficult peg had caught over 20lb. Ewan had suffered in a really patchy area and had gone dry which shows just how hard it was. Only a few weeks earlier, the last time he had “pulled on a Scotland shirt” he had won his section in the World Championships.
We were still in the top 100 teams and with a good result the following day we felt we could pull up the table into a respectable position.
Ewan trying everything to find just one fish!
Day two started early and Brian dropped me at my peg whilst it was still dark! I was in the same area, but this time I had an end peg and was feeling confident I could take advantage of it.
Like any international event the bait check is important as, after that time you can’t mix or riddle ground bait or leam so I made sure that was all sorted before spending the rest of my time setting up similar rigs to the day before. The only change was that I planned to use the bronzed Colmic hook from the off.
I balled in on the whistle without miss hap and shipped out with expectations high. Two hours later I was scratching my head, as I was still fishless, as were the three anglers to my right. A bank runner who spoke English came down and told me several anglers had caught further up the section but it was harder the further down you went.
I had been ringing the changes with different bait combinations, shotting patterns, rigs and types of presentation but try as I might I couldn’t buy a bite.
I knew that I had to catch to avoid the points penalty that came with a blank so I decided to try and catch a perch and take it from there.
I fed a small ball of chopped worm and changed my hook back to a B511. My reasoning for this being that the Nickel finish on the hook was more lightly to attract a predator fish like a perch by “flashing” and catching the light.
My changes didn’t seem to make any difference initially but after half an hour I felt I could see some unnatural movement of the float. I was using 25 grams by this stage as the flow had increased so it was hard to see any indications, let alone bites from a one-ounce fish.
Soon the float dipped and I hit a fish, although not the bream I had been hoping for. My changes had brought a small perch and I netted it, despite it only being a few ounces.
Although the blank was off I was still disappointed as I knew by now with just over an hour to go that I needed bigger fish to push me up the section.
Colin deep in concentration fishing long and holding back hard
The clock ticked down with no further action and when the whistle went to signal the end I felt a mixture of satisfaction that I had at least caught, but disappointment that I didn’t have anything substantial to get me better points.
Being last to weigh and looking up the river I was surprised to see several keep nets out the water before the scales came down. When they got to me I discovered that only six anglers further up had caught so my solitary wee perch was in fact worth seven points with nine blanks in my section!
On the phone to the others and it looked like we had done quite well as we had all caught. Alan had been on fish again finishing 5th in his section with over 20lb.
Alan caught well on both days despite having steep banks behind him to contend with
Ewan had caught several small Perch for 8th in his section, but best of all, Brian had been one of only three anglers in his section to weigh in when he scratched out a micro perch from just past some weed, using a small hook and single joker, giving him three points.
We made a speedy getaway after the Weigh in as we had a long drive home to say the least! Congratulations must go to Team Sensas Gravelines for a very consistent performance to win on what was the hardest venue I have fished an international on.
In reflection when we got home, I think our final placing of 47th out of almost 250 teams was a good performance and looking through the results we finished ahead of all the other international teams competing including Spain, Ireland, Denmark and this years Silver medallists Hungary, with their talisman and double world champion Walter Tamas.
Domestically we beat most of the UK based teams as well, with only one of the Starlets teams finishing ahead of us, and Dorking, including Will Raison beating us narrowly by one and a half points.
It was a long way to go for just a few fish but match fishing isn’t always about catching loads and big weights. Sometimes you have to grind out the results and Brian’s great performance on day two typifies this. It was just as important as a 15kg weight on another venue.
Finally I need to thank Sensas for running such a good event; I hope we can come back again! And also thanks to Steven McCaveney, Darrin Ferguson, and Dave MCauley from Monkland for generously lending 4m keep nets and big flat floats and olivettes. Without your help the trip could have cost us several hundred pounds more.
Cheers
Colin Mckerrell
Daiwa Team Scotland
