DRENNAN ENGLAND FEEDER TEAM WIN WORLD CHAMPS!

The Angling Trust Drennan England Feeder team are the 2025 World Champions!

After two superb performances on Lithuania’s Skirvyte River, Dean Barlow’s squad of Will Freeman, Lee Kerry, Tom Noton, Steve Ringer, Adam Wakelin, and Rob Wootton finished with 52 points to take the gold by six points from the Czech Republic.

And it was a classic British river method was to prove crucial to the win!

While many teams went down the groundbait feeder route in search of bream and skimmers, England opted for the maggot feeder to catch everything that swims, realising the bream were not in every section of the giant river.

Instead, roach, pommies and the odd carassio were the target fish, the maggot feeder proving best for them.

Scoring 24 points on day one, England led, but there’s always a comeback from one team on the second day of a World Champs. That came from the Czechs in second, but they could only peg England back by a point, scoring 27 to England’s 28 to leave the result beyond doubt.

Individually, Germany’s Felix Scheuermann took the gold, England’s best performer being Will Freeman in seventh on six points with Adam Wakelin’s seven points putting him eighth overall.

“This has been a while coming – 10 years in fact – and it’s my first win as Manager and on Father’s Day – it couldn’t be better,” beamed England Manager Dean.

“We worked out midway through practice that the maggot feeder was going to be miles better, letting us catch fish that I don’t think ever get caught on the river. The plan was to feed some groundbait at the start and fish a groundbait feeder for half an hour to see if any big fish were about. If not, it was onto a medium blackcap feeder with single or double maggot and heads down.”

After day one, England posted a section win for Lee Kerry, fourths for Will, Adam and Rob Wootton, with Steve Ringer suffering 11 points from the wrong end of his section. Even so, England led, and Dean saw no reason to change anything for day two.

“There was no point in altering anything. We had the method, it was a winning one and we knew it would work again,” he explained. “Day two went pretty much as planned too, although the Czechs made a real go of it and with an hour to go, it was all getting a bit too close. I’ve got the best anglers in the world though, and they came good.”

Steve scored a second from just a peg away from where he was on day one, Will also taking second in section, Adam third, Lee eighth and Rob thirteenth. That all added up to 28 points, beaten only by the Czechs, to seal the deal beyond all doubt.

“I’ve also got to mention the lads on the bank. Graham West as my assistant, Tom Noton as reserve, and Scott Smith, Mac Stephens and Gareth Lambert as eyes on the bank and prepping the bait at 4.30am every morning. Without them, we couldn’t do what we’ve done!” Dean said.

“Having full backing from Drennan International as well is brilliant. It makes the job so much easier and lets us get on with the fishing.”