Sensas Challenge Final 2011!
The team embarked upon the journey at around 2AM Friday for the long journey to Abbeville in North France. The team selected to fish the final was Chris Gorrell, John Brogden, Ian Morrison and Tony Weightman. We were fortunate to also have the support of other team members to with Lee Murphy, Roger Gardom, Dave Mc Manus, John Harrison and Gavin Platt flying the flag. This was a team effort and their support was a massive bonus over the three days.
Upon arrival we had a chat with French legend Jean Desque who talked us through the format of the event and about the considerable amounts of bream and roach that were to be caught! We`ve all fished big matches before and were a little sceptical about these presumed big weights – more of that later.
Sensas had put lots of effort into pegging and directing anglers to the sections, the entire match length stemmed some 40KM. So that gives you some idea of the scale of this match. As we arrived early it gave us plenty of time to look at some of the sections. Off we set to C section, which was one of the non-tidal reaches. Immediately we saw a wide river with lots of pace, plenty of anglers from all over Europe were practicing and setting up rigs.
We then ventured a further 20KM upstream to D section (my section for the weekend) and saw the mighty Will Raison and Gary Pook practicing. They quickly pointed out that this section was very weedy and this made fishing difficult. Roach were there to be caught, but the bream shoals were somewhat scarce!
A and B section were downstream and were tidal stretches and were much easier to navigate. The time flew and we made our way back to the draw. Sensas had set up a marquee the size of two football pitches for this event. Anglers gathered from all over Europe. The draw was a little frantic, as you would expect with over 1000 anglers fishing. I made the draw and we set about getting to the digs.
We had booked a large converted barn 20KM from Abbeville in a place called Gueschart! The barn was perfect – five separate rooms, large car park, kitchen and a massive lounge were we gathered, all be it very tired to discuss the Saturday match and how we were going to approach it! Ian safely navigated us during the three days and all the lads had confidence with his methodical approach to driving making sure we all kept in convoy and nobody got left behind!
The lads were all equipped with round bodied floats ranging from 3gm up to 10gm and flat floats up to 40gm!!! Groundbait mixes were basically 50-50 Sensas River and Gros Gardons, bulked with varying amounts of Terre de Riviere leam. Hookbaits were bloodworm, caster, maggots and Dendrabena worms.
The lads were left to decide how much joker and other baits were to be fed at the start in the initial balls. We all opted to ball in around 12 and then cup in 2-3 feed rich balls in the killing zone.
The amount of tackle many of these continental anglers had on show was massive. They left nothing to chance. It was interesting how much respect they had for the English anglers, when they walked past they glanced at rigs and often watched every move we made, some anglers seemed amazed at the Dacron connectors I was using – many could speak good English and were keen to talk to us.
Fortunately for us young David Mc Manus speaks excellent French and was able to interpret for us. He got us out of some difficult situations over the three days (thanks Dave!)
I had actually drawn five pegs away from where we had seen Raison practicing earlier that day and hoped my peg did not contain too much weed which could prove costly. However on arrival it seemed clear and running the rigs through confirmed this.
Around ten minutes before the balling in period I went to add a little more water to the groundbait and mix it with the drill. However my French counterpart on the next peg began shouting, “non, non, non! Non Drille!” I was unaware that drills were banned once your bait had been checked by the officials. I apologised “sorry pal” and set about “boshing” some in, then went to feed some balls with the cup.
That left three minutes until the whistle went. I took me around an hour to get a bite, when a small roach greeted the net. The next three hours were difficult to say the least, I managed 11 more roach for about a kilo. Dave and Gav my runners for the day informed me that there was fifteen minutes left. I had two roach on the 3gm rig, then went in again and hooked something much better. It turned out to be a bream about 1.5kg and was nervously played into the net just before the all out!
That fish was worth mega points and catapulted me up to fourth in my section.
The angler to my right landed one which was of a similar size – unfortunately he landed his 10 seconds after the whistle and this has to be returned! Phew!
Elsewhere John had landed a bream and a perch on a big flat float for fourth also! Ian landed one perch for good points. Over in C section and Tony Weightman faced a nightmare on a fast flowing peg and was unable to muster a single bite!
The talk that night was would the fishing get any better on the sunday? Deep down I feared the worst and felt it would be another gripper! To cut a long story short, we had three catchers, with one perch a piece.
I endured a dry net along over half the other anglers in my section! Gutted was an understatement! In the end we ended up in 81st place out of total of 260 teams this was a fair result given our lack of knowledge of the river and the tactics required.
Just two fish instead of our two blanks would have seen us finish much higher – but that`s fishing!
The atmosphere and event more than made up for the fishing, over both days the entire team caught 2 bream, 12 roach and 4 perch! That illustrated just how challenging things were! John ended up best performer over both days with 6 points – great result mate!
We really enjoyed the entire event, the banter was endless, and all the lads would jump at the opportunity to compete again! One of the lads even commented on the event being like a school trip, only more funny!
We never quite found answers to everything and a few issues still need clarifying!
1. What on earth did we eat on Friday night?
2. How many cans of lager did one of our members consume over the weekend?
3. What materials was the “den” built out of on the Saturday?
4. Why did two team members decide to go to Paris on Sunday?
5. Why did the navigator go to the closed entrance on the toll road?
We must thank Danny Ashington (Starlets), Paul Hughes (Saints), Joffmeister (Leicester Sensas) and Mark Downes (Starlets) for their help and advice during the weeks before and of course during the event itself! John and his dad did us proud with some cracking bloodworm, and of course Graham and Ian at the shop for sorting out the gear and bait!
Au revoir!
:oand G/B 
a great outfit and having three teams in the competition practice and sorting the venue out must of helped and was rewarded 
this time i better take the wife and kids ::) ::) ::)if i get timei'l put the photos up before 
