World Feeder Championships 2022 - With Ade Kiddell

In this article, Ade shares more about the 2022 World feeder fishing championships that were held in Belgium just weeks ago.

The venue was only kilometres over the border from my home in The Netherlands and I was honoured to be asked to help with Team England during the event.

Is there a fishing World Cup?

The actual feeder event lasts 7 days with 5 days of official practice and then 2 days of the actual championships. During the 5 days of practice, each team out of the twenty-three taking part is allocated a box, each box has 6 places for anglers. Teams can only fish to a strict timetable and only in the box allocated.

My role was simple, help the anglers get their tackle into the correct pegs, make sure they had everything they needed and make sure plenty of tea, coffee and snacks were available before and after the 5 hours of official practice.

Along with the six anglers, team manager Dean Barlow had a team of backroom staff to ensure that every effort possible gave the team the best chance of success. A team of 4 were responsible for bait as it's vital to have the absolute best bait possible. 

Bait Used for Feeder Fishing 

When the rules of the competition only allow competitors an exact amount of bait every day, bait measurement becomes even more crucial. Maggots, worms, castors, bloodworm, joker and groundbait all needs measuring and checking by umpires, every day.

Furthermore, it is particularly important to have at least 1 if not 2 runners in each of the 5 sections every day to keep an eye on what other countries' anglers are catching and what methods or baits, they are using. Of course, it is a 2-way mirror as other countries are watching Team England.

Who Is In Team England?

The team of 6 anglers were reduced to 5 for the event and unfortunate for my old mate Will Freeman who was the unlucky one to be dropped. That left the team of Mick Vials, Lee Kerry, Rob Wootton, Adam Wakelin, and Steve Ringer.

The 5 days of practice went well, it became obvious that some pegs would be exceedingly difficult and as very often in match fishing a good draw is essential, team fishing tends to even that out a bit, so it was with confidence and fingers crossed for the draw on the 1st day.

After the first day, England lay in sixth place with Team Serbia in first place, but with the points close it was all to play for on day 2. On Day 1 the venue had fished well but day 2 turned out to be more difficult as is often the case with the extra disturbance of spectators around the venue.

The 5 anglers being some of the very best in the world and the backroom boys working so hard to ensure bait was prepared and of the very highest standard as well as making sure every angler was kept up to date as the match develops all adds up and at the end of day 2 the feeling amongst the team as we had possibly achieved an incredible result.

Results for Fishing

As the weigh-in results filtered through, we knew it would be tight and we were in a position to pick up a place on the podium. The elation among the team was incredible as we realised, we had achieved a silver medal with Team Serbia winning by just 2 points and Team Hungary 3rd place only 1.5 points behind, an incredible result and remarkably close for the top 3 places.

My Experience with Team England

It would be wrong for me to mention any individual angler as the whole team was incredible and for an old Norfolk Boy like me to be part of the team is something I will never forget.

The dedication shown by the whole team is on another level to anything I have ever been involved in, it's impossible to put into words the amount of preparation each angler puts in to make sure that they were 100% prepared for the event and every eventuality that might occur.

Early starts, long days, hours spent tying rigs and checking and double-checking everything. I know all the guys spent a lot of hours in preparation before they even left the UK, let alone the long days during the week of the Event.

Well Done to everyone in the Team.

I have not mentioned anything about Feeder Fishing Rigs or tackle used during the event, let us just say it is far to diverse and varied to go into detail, but I will say it takes feeder fishing to another level. I was very honoured and privileged to be amongst the absolute best anglers and the tips I picked up are in Ade Kiddell’s Top Feeder Fishing Tips article.

I hope everyone has an incredibly Happy Christmas and I wish you all a healthy and wealthy new year.