Drennan Team England are lying joint 4th after Day One of the European Championship.

The Hensies-Pommeroeul Canal in Belgium has been a tough venue for many anglers with one or two big bream being vital for good section points. The slider at 40-50 metres has been the key tactic with the pole only coming into play for tiny perch and bullheads.

England’s section results are as follows: Will Raison 2nd with five bream for 8kg, Alan Scotthorne 5th with three bream and a skimmer for 7kg, Callum Dicks two bream and a skimmer for 6th, Sean Ashby one bream for 8th, Lee Kerry one small bream for 15th.

That places them on 36 points, which is joint 4th on the day with the Netherlands. France came from nowhere to scoring two section wins and a 2nd in the last two hours to finish with an impressive 29 points but it is the Czechs who are surprise leaders on 27 points.

The Czech angler won Alan’s section thanks to five bream in the last hour on two worms for 11kg. That was the 3rd best weight of the day. Top weight was Russia’s Sergey Komarov with 16.298kg from E18, just ahead of Holland’s Adriolo Jo with 15.766kg from A3.

England definitely started strong with early bream in the first three sections but struggled in the latter half of the match. France, Hungary and the Czech Republic all finished stronger and this seemed to be down to a slightly different feeding regime. Whereas England relied on heavy balls of soil catapulted in on the slider swim, other nations seemed to be feeding a couple of much softer balls more regularly. The French seemed to be feeding almost neat joker held in grey leam and this catapulted three of their anglers up the section as the sun came out and the fishing got harder. Despite England’s frightening accuracy with a catapult, other nations still caught with a slightly more haphazard technique with softer balls. The Italians were one such team and they seemed to catch more smaller skimmers as a result to finish 3rd with 35 points, just a point in front of England.

These are big 24-peg sections, so points can be easily made up and a number of teams are still in the mix.

Once the official results came in the heavens opened. Hopefully this will inject some much needed colour into the venue.

England definitely have a chance of a medal, and Will Raison is our strongest hope for an individual prize, but when you are fishing for just four or five bites over four hours anything could happen…