Competitions
30 June 2025
FIFTH PLACE FOR ENGLAND AT EURO CHAMPS
There was disappointment and frustration in equal measure for Angling Trust Team England after this year’s European Championships, as their hopes of a medal evaporated on day two following an extremely promising opening day of action.
Scoring 64 points, England finished fifth as a dominant Belgian side took gold, day one seeing the team in fourth with 27 points, only two away from the top spot with all to play for. However, the second day on Slovakia’s vast Slnava Lake didn’t go to plan, 37 points seeing them slip a place.
And according to Manager Mark Downes, it was down to the late arrival of the bream and skimmers into two of the team’s pegs that caused irreparable damage. Throughout practice and on day one, these key fish had arrived on the long pole line early enough to catch plenty of them, but as Mark explains, that didn’t happen on Sunday.
“It was much calmer on day two, and the bream and skimmers slowly filtered onto the pole line along sections D and E where Steve Hemingray and James Dent were,” Mark said. “We were expecting an hour minimum of catching these on the pole, but the lads were biteless at their ends of the section while anglers at the other ends were catching much, much earlier. When they did arrive, Steve caught six bream in the last 15 minutes and James two in the final five minutes. Unfortunately, it was much too late to catch up.”
Day one went well with a start on the waggler or slider at 24m, feeding groundbait and leam holding joker and chopped worm and fishing bunches of bloodworm or pieces of worm on the hook. The same feed went onto the pole line at 13m and when anglers felt the time was right, it was time to come off the float line and onto the pole.
“It worked well on day one with good scores for Matt Godfrey, Cam Hughes, Will Raison and Steve Hemingray,” Mark continued. “We didn’t feel the need to change very much at all as I honestly expected the fishing to be better on day two, at worst to stay the same, as it had done all week in practice. The trouble is the venue was an out and out bream water and there’s never been a fair bream venue in the history of fishing!”
“It was very much a match where you had to wait for the bream to arrive and then make the most of it. They’d done that with plenty of time left for much of the week, but not when it really mattered. It was very frustrating as there was nothing you could do about it,” he revealed. “A slightly earlier arrival in a few sections and I think we could have got a medal, but we wouldn’t have beaten Belgium. They were majestic all week and had the pole as their main line of attack with the waggler secondary, totally the opposite of what everyone else did!”
Top scorer for England was Matt Godfrey with two section seconds to earn him fifth spot overall, Will Raison chalking up nine points to finish just in the top 20.
European Championships 2025 – the facts and figures
Day one team result:
1 Czech Republic, 25 points
2 Hungary, 26 points
3 Belgium, 27 points (90-445)
4 Team England, 27 points (74-355)
5 Poland, 28 points
6 Italy, 36 points
Day two team result:
1 Belgium, 18 points
2 Czech Republic, 29 points
3 Hungary, 31 points (45-900)
4 France, 31 points (37-680)
5 Poland, 34 points
6 Team England, 37 points
Overall team result:
1 Belgium, 45 points
2 Czech Republic, 54 points
3 Hungary, 57 points
4 Poland, 62 points
5 Team England, 64 points
6 France, 74 points
England’s day one scores:
A section – James Dent 10 points 17-125
B section – Cam Hughes 4 points 16-915
C section – Steve Hemingray 4 points 12-085
D section – Matt Godfrey 2 points 18-090
E section – Will Raison 7 points 10-140
England’s day two scores:
A section – Matt Godfrey 2 points 13-490
B section – Will Raison 2 points 12-790
C section – Cam Hughes 12 points 3-080
D section – Steve Hemingray 11 points 7-350
E section – James Dent 10 points 5-590
England’s overall individual finishes:
Matt Godfrey – 5th place 4 points
Will Raison – 18th place 9 points
Steve Hemingray – 29th place 15 points
Cam Hughes – 33rd place 16 points
James Dent – 49th place 20 points
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