Sensas Mark One Challenge Super Final Squad 2011

Back Row left to right; Rob Hewison, Ryan Harris, John Bates

Front Row left to Right; Dan Hall, Bob Bates

This years Sensas Final has been an unusual event in that it has involved 230 teams of four from all around Europe, approximately 200 teams from France and about 30 foreign teams ended up competing on the challenging and interesting River Somme in Northern France over the 8th and 9th October 2011. At Sensas Mark One we were fortunate enough to be invited by Sensas to take part in the final and as a result decided to spend a few days in France getting to know the venue.

The first thing that we realised is that the venue isn't actually that far from home, being no more than an hour and a half from Calais just straight down the coast on the A16 it was a simple drive for me and my team mate Bob Bates who had to put up with my driving all week!

We knew a bit about the venue, and Joe Roberts had organised some big floats to overcome what we expected was to be extreme depth (up to 8m) and some flow, what we hadn't appreciated was that even 6m of water was flowing faster than the Trent in flood and was also very clear into the bargain.

The first session involved John Bates, Dan Hall, Ryan Harris and Caroline, John Bates girlfriend, fishing in B section below Abbeville, with Bob and I arriving Mid afternoon to watch them for the last couple of hours. Whilst sport was slow, Caroline caught a good bream on the feeder (which we are not allowed to use) and the lads ended up with up to 20 roach perch and an odd skimmer.

It had also become apparent that the flow was varying considerably during the session, controlled we reasoned by some sea gates a few kilometres downstream, at one point the venue all but stopped and filled up very rapidly.

However, a few things had been learned regarding presentation, and there were a few roach and perch to catch, but a quick chat to the passing Irish lads suggested that it would be bream that were critical throughout the length.

It was starting to rain, so we bid a hasty retreat back to our digs in Gueschart, about 20 mins away stopping off for a Pizza on the way.

Our first session as a group was to be way up in D section some 25 miles from Abbeville, all we knew was that it was a sensible depth a probably moved a bit!!

The river here at Ailly sur Somme was a sensible 2.5m to 3.5m deep and flows like the fastest parts of the Trent back home, we used an array of rigs from 2.5 to 5gram round bodied floats, but it needed a 20g gram flat float to hold completely still as overshotting is not allowed.

We had a good session here catching between 2 and 4kg and learning a lot about presentation and feeding. My mix was 6kg of Terre de Rivierre to 3kg of groundbait, the groundbait was a bag of black river, a bag of Noire (Black Roach and Silver fish) and a bag of Bremes, the bremes is inert and has a good sweet "breamy" smell, so much so that we call it "laughing gas" as it is so distinctive.

This mix was dark and very heavy and was really aimed at roach due to the quantity of Terre de Rivierre. I put about 300mls of joker into 15 balls for the long pole and about 100ml into 6 balls for the 5m line over the weed as the flow here was greatly reduced. With a lot of leaves being blown off the trees it was quite easy to see the main flow, and this was at 13m, but looking closely and after having a plumb around there was a distinct crease at 11.5m and it was here that I decided to ball it because the difference it made to tackle control by being just out of the main flow was significant, so much so that later I was able to run a 1g rig through that I had set up for the inside. Funnily enough the depth was very uniform once you got beyond 5m and I reasoned that the position of the flow would change dependent upon the river levels and general flow.

As such I also reasoned that the fish would probably be just as likely to be caught out at 13m but why make it so difficult in the heavier flow. By the end of the day we had got a fair amount sorted, John had set up round a corner and caught some bream so we also learned where the bream will be caught, all told we were all feeling a lot more comfortable with the venue.

We fed bloodworm, but once a few fish turned up you could catch on a maggot, with a worm on the flat float for bream.

Ryan fished the downstream end peg and caught some stamp fish, fishing quite aggressively with a lot of bait, this would be important should you draw an end in the event as the downstream end pegs especially, were a big advantage.

See the photo gallery for a shot of Ryan's 3kg+ bag.

Ryan had a great day, he needed 36gr to hold still in the fast flow, CIPS rules don't allow overshotting so you end up using huge floats. The method involved a large bulk of drilled bullets, set just off bottom with a 2 foot hooklength and spread small shots laying on the bottom. Ryan lowered his rig in and had a couple of fish hook themselves as he put his pole into his bump bar. Black hydroelastic and a size 13 hook to 020 mainline, and an 017 hooklength completed the brutal set up!!

Caroline had at least one bream every day on the feeder proving that the venue is full of them, shame it wasn't allowed in the match!!

Friday afternoon and all the teams began assembling in a huge marquee in Abbeville Town Centre for the draw and the gala evening, this picture only shows   half of the marquee, it was massive and it really began to bring home how many people were about to fish this event.

John had decided to run on Saturday, and our section draws put us as follows A: Dan Hall, B: Ryan Harris, C: Bob Bates, D: Rob Hewison.

We then found out our peg numbers a bit later and I found myself on 222 just 8 pegs from my practice peg, but because of the gaps it was about half a mile further up the towpath. I dropped Bob off at Eaucourt and then drove the twenty odd miles to my section at Ailly sur Somme.

My peg was even shallower than our practice section at about 2m and the flow was really motoring, I had made a decision to increase the percentage of groundbait in my mix, thinking that the influx of water may improve the fishing. Unfortunately following this match and the lack of fish at my end of the section I believe I probably had it about right in practice.

I drew next to a Swiss angler Salvatore Biancamano and shared a few jokes before the start and a ham baguette, he only caught a few fish but one of them was a 1kg bream!! The only one caught in the whole section and this led to him beating me by a couple of hundred grams. My too positive mix cost me and I ended up a disappointed 10th out of 16, with only 1.28kg, at completely the wrong end of the section. 

I should have fished a bit lighter, and fed a little less groundbait, this was a tough lesson, and I needed to do better the following day.

At least I had caught, poor old Bob sat in the middle of an awful bend in the river and blanked along with 5 others in his section.

The blank was costly, both Dan and Ryan had bream, and we ended the day just below halfway on 34 points.

International style bait checks were order of the day 2 litres of live bait of which a max of 1kg of joker and 17l of groundbait, here is my bait all laid out ready for the stewards on day one. Your bag of hemp or corn can go in the groundbait bowl. Once checked your are not allowed to re wet your groundbait so you have to keep adding water right up until they check ypu after this you are only allowed a spray mist to keep it damp.