After 13 hours hard driving Christophe and Stéphane finally arrived at the Babice Canal, one of the best match venues in the Czech Republic. The canal is very English in character – 15 metres wide with depths varying from 1.40 to 1.80 metres. The dominant species are roach and hybrids with the odd carp and bullhead present too. Given the time of year delicate fishing was the order of the day and our two French stars took to the task with aplomb. At the end of the 3 and a half hour match both anglers had won their sections.
Christophe Nouhalier had drawn the best section on the day and walked the match with a fantastic 8kg 260g. Stéphane was in a much harder section and won that with 780g, taking third place in the individual rankings as well. Our thanks must go to the match organisers and in particular Yvan and Daniel for putting on such a great match.
Christophe Noualhier’s tactics:
Christophe used floats ranging from 0.2 up to a gram (Romagna and Lucie patterns) and like Stéphane used the Sensas 3532 hooks. His lighter rigs had 24 hooks to a 6.7 bottom and his more positive rigs had an 18 on a 9.2 bottom. Christophe started throwing 4 balls in by hand at 11.5 metres then fed 8 small joker rich balls in the cup (using about 250g of joker in these balls). Some were pure soil, others with groundbait.
Overall classification
1-Christophe Noualhier (France) with 8260 pts
2-Ricardo (Portugal) with 2260pts
3-Stéphane Pottelet (France) with 760 points
Stéphane’s groundbait
1 kg de Sensas 3000 Dark salted lake
1 kg Sensas 3000 Lake
+ 2 kg Terre de Somme Noire
Christophe’s groundbait
1 kg Sensas 3000 Dark salted Bream
1 kg Sensas 3000 Dark salted lake
+ A half pack terre de rivière (finely riddled)
