Rising match star Matt Barnett has written this great blog from the River Sorraia in Portugal, where he and his Drennan Team England Under 23s team mates were crowned World Champions!

What an amazing few weeks I have just had! In April I was lucky enough to have been selected to represent my country at this year’s Under 23s Freshwater World Championships, held in sunny Portugal on the River Sorraia, in a beautiful village called Coruche.

The team selected was Alex Clements, Rory Jones, Ricky Marshall, Bradly Gibbons and myself with Mark Downes as manager and Darran Bickerton the assistant manager.

We knew this year would be a hard one as we were not used to fishing in such extreme heat plus the target species are not all present in our rivers back in England. The team decided to go out a week before the week’s official practice, which allowed us to get acclimatised to the scorching 40+ degrees heat! You are not allowed to fish the actual match length, therefore we found a few stretches of river nearby that helped us get into the rhythm and familiarise ourselves with the target species and of course the heat! This was a tremendous help with getting used to fishing 20g wagglers and catapulting balls of stickymag at 45 yards, plus finding ways to prevent it sweating up in the heat, not to mention keeping all of our bait cool!

During the official practice week we constantly talked to each other and shared our findings. Feeding would be crucial. What to feed at the start? Should we put chop worms in the mix at the start or try adding it halfway into the session? What top up mix to use? How often to top up? Slowly, with Mark and Darran at the helm, a team plan was coming together.

Feeding Plan

The team’s plan was to use a mix of two bags of Sensas Lake, two bags of Fine Carp and a bag of Terre de Rivière. We fed two spots at the start. On our main 12m line we fed six to eight balls and a ball of stickymag. This would include around 250ml of maggots, chopped worm, hemp and joker.

We felt it was best to feed all the time, even if you had fish in your peg, as you needed to keep them there! They seemed to respond to being fed little and often. Even if you were not catching you just had to keep feeding small balls regularly. The top up balls included one, two and even three balls of a groundbait and leam mix packed with worms and some joker.

The reason we fished a bit shorter at 12 metres rather than 13 was so we could fish past our feed as the carassio seemed to always sit beyond it. It therefore allowed us to fish towards the back of our feed area.

We also had a backup line at six metres, where it was about six inches shallower. This is where we fed one ball of the gb/leam mix with a ball of stickymag. Sometimes, this caught us a few small barbel and the odd carassio at the start, followed by odd fish throughout the match.

Day One

By the Thursday the team was confident on a plan so the next two days were spent perfecting our feeding and rigs. Friday evening Mark announced the team for the Day One. This consisted of Alex, Rory, Bradley and myself with Ricky as reserve.

Everyone was confident but you could still feel the nerves! The first day’s draw was made and A Section was Alex, B Section Rory, C Section myself and D Section Bradley. During the week we found that A and B would be the best fish catching sections. It appeared that C was a steady section with odd big fish, and D was a hard Section with lots of big fish and not many small fish. On the hole we were all quite happy with our draws.

I was on peg C7 and was happy with it being in the middle as I could see most of my section from that position. I had a flying start, catching small carassio and barbel from the off! Unfortunately this only lasted about an hour and a half and the fish seemed to move to the lower numbers for the last three hours. Unfortunately they were able to keep the fish coming and catch a kilo more then I was able to.

When the match finished I heard on the radio that we had all done ok but nothing was official. All our hearts raced as we waited for the results. We ended up with a 1st, two 4ths and a 6th, which was enough to win the first day! I ended up with 6.378kg for 6 points, unfortunately beaten by an 8kg, three 7kgs and a slightly higher 6kg.

Day Two

The second day was also a reasonable draw: A Section Alex, B Section Bradley, C section myself and D Section Rory.

The second day is was on C2. It fished a lot harder with very few fish being caught in my section, but we were happy with our plan and stuck to it. We fed regularly with little top up balls and pinging hemp to attract fish into the peg. By now it was up to 48 degrees! The weather was so hot my pole was a challenge to hold. I also dreaded picking up my landing net handle as it was very very hot!

I had a slow start catching odd small barbel at 6m. I was told that the whole match length was fishing hard so I wasn’t panicking and just kept to the team plan and plugged on, working both my pole lines for fish.

At the halfway mark I was middle for diddle and needed to have a good spell. I was catching the odd one but nothing special. I kept feeding little balls every few minutes with the odd pouch of hemp to get the fish into my peg. This is what the team had found worked best throughout the week. Thankfully I started to get more indications and for the last hour my peg was full of fish and I couldn’t get my rig in fast enough, catching 3-5oz carassio and the odd barbel.

I was relieved on the whistle and confident that I had done ok. I was also gasping for a drink! At the scales I weighed 4.676kg, beating the Portuguese angler off the next peg by over a kilo and the Dutch neighbour by over 2kg. I ended up with 2 points and just beaten by 200 grams for a section win by the Spanish angler on C13 who had a big carp last knockings.

The Result

After a long, hot and tough four hours we we had all done really well with a 1st, two 2nds and an 8th in section. This was enough for 2nd on the day and put us on 28 points overall, 11 points clear of Italy, making us the new World Champions! I felt so proud and was smiling from ear to ear!

I would like to say a huge thank you to the managers, Mark and Darran, for all their help, belief and support. I would also like to thank the parents that always made sure we had water and suncream! Also all the people who have helped me all year, particularly my main sponsor Drennan and Gary Barclay, Drennan Bordon and all my team mates, Bordon Angling Centre, Steve Barnett, Pemb Wighting, Micky Hughes, Mark Harper, Robin Morley, Cameron Hughes, Callum Dicks, Simon Willsmore and, most of all, my father Shaun Barnett!

What makes this feeling even better is that my best mate has also gone and become the individual World Champion. Well done Alex. Well deserved!

I feel so grateful to have been chosen to represent my country within a sport I love. It feels even better to say that we succeeded in the job that was given to us and to stand on a podium with a gold medal, so far away from home, was one of the proudest days of my life. As a team we worked so well together and can hopefully look forward to winning more medals together in the future.

As much as I’m now loving the cooler English weather I had such an amazing week and loved every minute of it and would not change a single second. We had some good laughs and memories I definitely will never forget. Cheers boys! Tight lines!