The Angling Trust England Men’s team has made a habit of staging thrilling second-day comebacks to clinch medals, as demonstrated by their stunning performance on day two of this year’s European Championships. Following a silver medal in last year’s World Championships, the team pulled off another impressive rally to secure the bronze medal.
After a disappointing start on the bream-dominated Princess Margaret Canal in the Netherlands, where they found themselves in eighth place, the prospect of a medal seemed distant. However, the team was aware of the venue’s variable nature and showed resilience on the second day, surging to third place.
28th Coarse Angling European Championship 2024 Team Standings
The England team finished with 79 points, just three points shy of the silver medal, which was claimed by Slovakia. France took home the gold with 63 points. England’s first-day score of 49 points was not what the team had hoped for, but their second-day tally of 30 points was the second-best of the day, earning them a well-deserved spot on the podium.
On day one, Cameron Hughes secured a second in the section, Sean Ashby a fourth, and James Dent a fifth. Matt Godfrey and skipper Will Raison however drew difficult pegs, resulting in 18 and 20 points respectively. The second day saw significant changes, with James and Matt scoring two points each, Sean three, and Simon Willsmore, replacing Will, with five. Cameron, despite a strong first day, ended with 18 points on the second day due to an unfavourable peg.
England Manager Mark Downes had this to say about the team’s result:
It was a good comeback, and one we thought was always on. But in truth, I’m a little annoyed because we were only a few points off second. What I think has cost us were seven pegs in the middle of D section. They’d been poor all week in practice, and we had an angler bang in the middle of them on both days. The lads on them scored 18 points apiece, but fishing elsewhere on the other days, both had section seconds, so the approach wasn’t wrong!
That’s match fishing though. You cannot beat the draw, and we could only hope that we had enough good pegs to even things out. Over two days we just about did. Being such a high-scoring event, making up a lot of points was always achievable, so certainly, on Saturday evening we were fancying bronze with the right pegs, and we got four good ones and a shocker on Sunday, so it all went more or less as we’d hoped it would.
Downes also highlighted a key strategy that proved to be successful on the final day.
The secret seemed to be to fish past the feed as the bream backed off it regularly. We could catch fishing over the bait, which was groundbait and leam with minimal joker in it, using a flat float for a static bait or a 3g round-bodied float for running. However, we fed roughly at 12.5m, giving us that extra space up to the 13m pole limit to go past the bait. That’s worked for most of the boys on Sunday.
28th Coarse Angling European Championship 2024 Individual Standings
The individual gold medal went to the home nation’s Ramon Ansign with three penalty points. Silver went to Lithuania’s Rytis Bitinas with five penalty points. Jérémy Perrin of team winners France took the bronze medal with six penalty points.
The England Men’s team’s ability to adapt and their strategic approach paid off, earning them a well-fought bronze medal and demonstrating their competitive edge in international angling.