Silver Anniversary turns Gold for England

The 2009 International was held at Llandegfedd, where the first challenge between England and Wales was held 25 years ago. England Youth Team Manager Rob Edmunds carries on the story...

We arrived in Wales on Wednesday night, meaning that we had two full days of practice to find methods that suited our team. We then knew we had to adapt the methods to suit each angler in the team, as we have a varying range of ability.

The reservoir was divided into 4 quarters with boats being sent to each area, their brief was to try a variety of methods and cover all the water in the area; we reasoned that it was just as important to work out what methods didn't work, as finding those that did.

On arrival at Llandegfedd is was quite obvious that the fish were going to be high in the water...we were greeted with an almost flat calm and literally hundred's of rising fish!

Day one practice saw the team catch an a variety of methods, from pulling Orange Blobs on a Di-3, to Dries on a floater, however it soon became clear that best methods were Black and Claret Hoppers on a floating line, fished static for 10-15 seconds then slowly figure of eighted back subsurface, or small eyed Boobies on a intermediate, again fished with a slow figure of eight retrieve.

Day two practice saw the whole team try both methods for half a day, in an effort to build up confidence in both styles and to get a better feel of where the main concentrations of fish were holding.

On the evening before the match we had a quick debriefing session; we all agreed that there were two main methods, dries on the floater, or, Boobies on the intermediate, no area was very difficult, we had caught well over the entire reservoir. However, practice had shown us that with the fish being so high in the water they were easily spooked and became very wary of boats after one or two drifts through them. Therefore we reasoned that finding fresh water was essential. A evening of tying ensued ensuring that each angler had an identical selection of flies to those that we had been catching on.

Match day saw the boats start in two main areas, the Dam and the Cages, however, they soon started to disperse. My brief to the lads was simply to start on the method they felt most confident in, and, the area they thought best. Then as the match progressed change methods when they saw fit.

Weigh-in saw all our team with consistant bags of between four and six fish with no blanks, an excellent team performance in my opinion, regardless of the result. A quick count up revealed we had 73 fish (8 more than the Scottish team) who had also fished well.

Eventually the results were read out.....Wales 4th.....Ireland 3rd....Scotland 2nd.....England 1st.

My key aims as manager was to try to instill into the team that, although we had distinct methods and area's worked out, conditions change. This means that they must adapt to keep catching. It's for this reason that I don't insist they fish a particular method, I merely give recommendations, I have confidence in their ability and so should they.

Although it was the good ‘average‘ bags of four to six fish that secured us this memorable victory, there were also some fine individual performances.

Kireon Jenkins of Wales won the Brown Bowl (top individual in the match) with 17 fish, in his last year in the Welsh Youth Team (due to age), his performance, catching fish mostly with a small Cat's Whisker Booby on a Slow Glass line, was simply head and shoulders above the rest of the field, proving once again that he is going to be a serious contender at senior level and in my opinion a future world champion (remember where you heard it first!)
Kireon Bonas was the English top rod with 9 fish all caught by fishing Dries through the middle of the reservoir, an excellent performance especially when you consider that this was his first international. He was closely followed by Dom Sherette with 8 fish (also fishing his first International who also caught all his fish on Dries) and Matthew Holdroyd also with 8 fish.

These fine individual performances by some of our youngest anglers are very encouraging for the future and I feel that with continued practice over next season we should once again challenge for the top honours at the International at our home venue of Grafham Water in 2010.

Rob Edmunds
England Youth International Team Manager the 2009 International Team