ENGLAND WIN SILVER, RINGER TAKES GOLD, AND MASTERS FINISH FOURTH AT EURO FEEDER CUP IN BELGIUM

The European Feeder Cup is a fledgling international event, but it is one that the Angling Trust Drennan England Feeder team dearly wanted to retain after winning last year’s inaugural event on home soil – but it was not quite to be.

Fished on Belgium’s Maasplas Geistingen gravel works – location of the 2022 World Feeder Champs – England were second across the three days of action with a total of 95 points, 15 away from new champions Germany and only one clear of France in third.

England’s Masters Feeder team – fresh from their World Champs silver medals in Hungary the week before – finished in fourth, just a single point off the podium.

There was better news on the individual front however, as new captain Steve Ringer took gold with five points and Adam Wakelin finished fifth on eight points.

Fielding a side of experienced old heads in Steve, Adam, Lee Kerry, Rob Wootton, and Will Freeman, manager Dean Barlow also added some new blood with the inclusion of Mac Stephens, with Tom Noton assisting on the bank of a venue they’d took silver from in the 2022 World Championships.

However, it didn’t get off to the best of starts with a 38-point score on day one to see England in fourth. Steve won his section, Adam ended up second, and Lee sixth.

Poor pegs for Rob, Will, and Mac however added 30 points of that tally, with poor Mac blanking off what was reckoned to be the worst peg in the whole match.

Day two was better, 30 points hauling the team back into contention in third spot, just a point off second, with Steve again taking out his section and Adam bagging second. Mac roared back from that blank with fourth, Will chipped in with fifth, Rob a sixth, and only Lee suffered off a duffer of a peg with 11 points.

The third and final day was where it got interesting, and England needed a winning performance if they were going to get close to overhauling leaders Germany.

A final 27 points did indeed win the day but ultimately, they were left with a little too much ground to make up. Steve, Rob and Lee were third in section, Adam fourth, Will sixth, and Mac eighth.

“After day one, I think we were happy to finish on the podium!” said Dean. “When you come away from home it’s always good to get a medal, regardless of colour and in fairness, Germany were very worthy winners. They do almost all of their fishing in Belgium and the Netherlands, so they were always going to be hard to beat with such a big lead.”

“We’re taking lots of positives away with us though – it’s been a brilliant trip, more experience under the belts and the chance to blood new talent in Mac and Tom,” he added. “The venue has been a really hard one to work out as it has fished differently every single day, making it impossible to read and meaning any plan went out of the window quickly!

“We’ve had three different winds over the matches, blowing in three strengths and from three directions. On a big natural water like this, it has a big impact. As a result, a bad peg on one day has been miles better on the next and you couldn’t say until the fishing actually started how good you peg was going to be. Form from the day before meant nothing.”

Individually, the news was much better as Steve took the gold medal, emerging as the only angler to score five points thanks to a brace of section wins and a third and joining him in the top six overall was Adam Wakelin on eight points.

Steve got off to a great start on day one with 16-400 of bream, skimmers and roach from peg 59 in D section, day two producing an even better performance with a massive 24-370 of bream and skimmers off peg A10.

The bubble had to burst a little though and it did on the final day, peg E75 giving Steve 10-450 of bream and skimmers for third in section. The damage though, had already been done.

“No two days were the same on the venue and a peg that was good the day before, was often harder 24 hours later,” Steve said. “I’ve certainly drawn the right part of each section, but you had to be on the ball and keep mixing things up to catch. That meant varying what you fed, the way you fed it, how much and how often you cast. Day three was very different to the others as it was flat calm and I ended up fishing what you’d call a typical English skimmer match with small feeders, twitching the bait and putting a bit of a cloud into the water.

“On day one I found a line at 36m at the bottom of the shelf and fished here all-day with a medium or large caged window feeder and redworms, catching 10 small roach and 15 bream and skimmers up to 4lb,” he revealed.

“Day two was windier and I had a lovely day, fishing the same way to the bottom of the shelf. the bream seemed to like patrolling that drop off, but you needed to be aggressive with the feeding to keep them there as I got the impression that they were always moving around. I think I had 22 fish, six of them proper bream, casting every three minutes with the caged window.

“Friday was different again with no wind and I was perhaps a bit too aggressive at the start. Once I reined it in a bit, I had a good run of skimmers and a few bream at the end and perhaps should have been second in section, but I was never winning it as the winner had over 23 kilos!” Steve explained. “Tactics were very different, using small and extra-small caged windows and redworms, putting a feeder of cloudy groundbait in to make a trail in the water and then fishing over it, twitching the bait and being patient – very much like we do on places like Southfield back in the UK.”

The Team England Masters Feeder side got their campaign off to a flyer with a superb 24 points securing second overall on day one. A hammer blow score of 45 points on day two derailed that charge but they posted a much-improved 28 points in Friday’s match to see them second on the day and fourth overall.

Top performer for the Masters was Richard Vaughan in 8th, with debutant Shaun Stenton in 14th, and Eddie Brydon 15th. Darren Cox ended in 28th place, Simon Fry 36^th, and Dave Berry was 42^nd overall.