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Match Fishing in Holland - Ade Kiddell
It must be 20 years since I last went competition angling, other than the odd friendly match I left the Competition circuit and have spent most of my time specialist angling, however a visit last year to the River Ijssel Masters festival had me wanting to get the match fishing gear out again.
Preparing Match Fishing Tackle
Over the last few weeks, I have been getting the tackle together for the 6-day festival, not knowing fully what to expect I had to take plenty of “just in case gear”. I know now why most match anglers have a van, getting everything, I needed in the car was a tight fit but with a push and shove it was in and on a 2-hour drive north to the Zwolle area of The Netherlands.
Fishing on the Ijssel in this area is all about feeder fishing, with such a variation in swims I might need feeders from 30 to 150 grams. With the river being snaggy and some decent size fish expected tackle needs to be a “heavy feeder” but balanced.
How Do Fishing Festivals Work?
For those that aren’t sure how festivals work here’s a quick guide. Before the fishing begins, anglers draw their section rotation for the week, in this case, the angler draws into their section for the first day and on day 2 and onwards daily sections are in alphabetical order.
So, with my day 1 draw being F, day 2 would be A then B, C, D, and E. Each morning a draw takes place for the peg number for your daily peg. On the first morning, I drew peg 3, a steady draw I was keen to go.
The winner of the daily section gets 1 point, the lowest weight gets 10, points are added up all week and the best 5 points out of 6 count, the lowest accumulative total will be the winner overall of the festival.
Match Fishing Festival 2023
On arrival, I met up with good mates Kevin Humphrey and Angling Direct Norwich’s Match expert Glenn Hubbard, both Ijssel masters’ regulars and both have previously won the Festival. I would be sharing our accommodation with them, so couldn’t have had 2 better cabin mates, plenty of tips and help all week as well as plenty of laughs along the way.
Day 1 saw me on peg 3 and a decent peg, a small roach second cast settled my nerves, a couple more than, a disaster when a pike took off a decent fish at the net and the same thing 2 or 3 casts later.
I caught steady until the end but unfortunately lost a 2 kg bream with only minutes to go. Nerves and lack of practice resulted in a snapped hook link and cost me a good weight. Had I not had pike trouble and lost the bream I would have been close to 3rd or even 2nd in section. The fish I caught were good, so I was not too disappointed with my seventh-place finish.
Day 2 saw me draw Peg 1 on the Power station stretch, I know this area well and Peg 1 was a flyer. I had a super day fishing with a nice variety of fish, 42 in total, nothing huge but a nice weight of close to 8kg for a 2nd in section, 2 points and a few Euros in the pocket.
Day 3 was Railway and another area I know, Peg 8 was not what I wanted thou, though normally a good peg, but with extra water on the fish were just not there, tried my best, and had 25 fish but was only 9th in the section.
Day 4 was on the Copse section and nobody wanted Peg 5 as it's full of snags and difficult to fish, so I was not happy when number 5 stuck to my hand at the draw. Lost feeders, about 20 lost hooks and a handful of fish for 8th place and thanks for coming. However, a couple of anglers in the section had some fantastic fishing, well done to Paul Keizers with 47kg from peg 1 and Jon Bowland with 23 kg from peg 10, both magnificent bags of fish on the day.
Day 5 and peg 8 stuck to my hand, a quick look and it had produced 17kgs the day before, “game on”. When I got to the peg I was over the moon, text a book peg with a lovely crease and backflow, perfect for a few fish.
A 40-gram feeder held perfectly and at the start, I fed plenty of caster and worm in with my Sonubaits Dutch Master groundbait, the first 4 casts produced a net roach but when the tip pulled around and dropped back slack on the fifth cast I knew I had something better.
After a few nervous moments, I was relieved to slip the net under a 2kg bream. I then had a crazy hour putting another 8 good fish in the net. From then until the end of the 5 hours the fishing slowed up but I still keep getting an odd fish.
The section had fished poorly in general, but at the weight of 16kg, 600 grams was enough for a section win. I was even more pleased when I realized I had also got top weight on the day for the whole match. A nice few euros in the kitty and most important the highly coveted Ijssel masters winners hat.
I needed a good draw on day 6 but didn’t get it, I didn’t fish well and the whole section was a struggle, another 9-pointer and a disappointing end, to the festival, unfortunately, I lost fish to pike and that again cost me a point or 2.
The Fishing Results
The overall winner of the festival was my Cabin mate and Norfolk angling legend; Glenn Hubbard. Glenn fished an almost faultless festival and finished with a near-perfect 6 points total. Well done Glenn.
My first-ever festival and my return to match fishing after twenty years left me in 36th place, slightly disappointing but on looking back a couple of bad draws and losing good fish to pike on 4 different days along with some poor swim management had cost me points. A couple of mid-section finishes from bad areas and that lost break on day 1 and my 36 points could have easily been halved and saw me in the top 20.
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£14.99 - £27.99 -
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£89.99 - £134.99 -
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Many thanks to the Festival organisers and section stewards, to Glenn and Big Kev and most of all to all the anglers who took part, see you next year.