Italian corespondent, Matteo Maggi, reports back from the Italian Feeder Club Championship.
If 2013 could be considered a year of transition for the feeder fishing scene in Italy, 2014 was the year of true validation for this technique. The Italian Feeder Championship comprised four big matches where the real values were put on the table. It began in Ostellato in April and ended with the finals on the wonderful River Mincio in Peschiera del Garda at the end of October.
Lenza Emiliana Tubertini were ultimately crowned the 2014 Italian Club Feeder Champions. This is a talented club that decided to aim high on the match feeder scene since its beginning. The club was lying second after two good matches in Ostellato and prepared meticulously for the final two rounds on the Mincio. They started to get a feel for the competition venue two months before the event, studying area by area and peg to peg, fishing in different conditions of flow. This work paid off with two matches fished to perfection!
The Mincio at Peschiera is one of the most beautiful venues in Italy, but the fishing can be very difficult with lots of tactics needed to catch species like rudd, chub, barbel, crucian carp, carp, tench, blue gill and perch. It is a venue that had raised many concerns because the bottom was covered by weed. This is also the venue that hosted the Coarse World Championship in 1996, where Alan Scotthorne won his first of five world championships.
During the penultimate round, the river had been affected by strong winds which meant the water was more cloudy than normal. These conditions should technically be more favourable for fishing, allowing use of stronger hooks and line. On the Sunday, the colour dropped out and there was more floating weed to contend with, but the flow remained the same; medium to slow with 30g to 40g feeders required to hold bottom.
People approached their pegs depending on how weedy the bottom was but the tendency was to find a short swim between 10 and 20 metres out and a longer line at over 40 metres. At this greater distance many anglers preferred to keep the rod in their hand, bouncing the feeder along the bottom and feeling for movements on the quiver tip – a really exhausting choice for five hours of competition! The trick was to use a large feeder, packed with bait and groundbait, cast, let the groundbait break out a few inches from the bottom to create a sort of cloud and then let the feeder move with the flow.
On the 4th round, one of the most used baits was floating caster. Both rudd and chub seemed to like this choice. This was certainly one of the tactics employed by Lenza Emiliana Tubertini. It was not only chub and rudd that people caught with this tactic, as carp were also very important for the fate of some sections; carp from 4kg to 11kg! In addition, there were many wonderful barbel between 1kg and 3kg. The average catch was around 3kg, but unfortunately not all of the anglers caught and often just two or three fish was needed to get a good result.
Congratulations to the Lenza Emiliana Tubertini’s Manuel Marchese, Stefano Mariotti, Michele Capoccia and Paolo Zaffani. Also to runners up Lenza Mogliano Preston and the 3rd-placed Bellaria Rimini Miramare Maver.
Report by Matteo Maggi – www.fishingmania.it.