In stunning style, Jens Gassen & Thomas Muller emphatically swept aside even their nearest rivals to claim the title and, in doing so, established a new record for the total weight of fish caught. As we join Jens & Thomas for their story it gives us great pleasure to congratulate them once more on their excellent result.


‘In the run-up to the event we didn’t have


the benefit of months of preparation time as usual. For Tom, Yvonne and myself, it was the third time that we had participated but, this time, our team-building began only four weeks prior to the contest and that resulted in a hectic and exciting few weeks. We arrived together in order to prepare on


Sunday … We were confident that we had a great team but we knew that all the other teams were experienced fishermen too, and the fact that such great teams from all over the world get together for the contest is what makes the World Carp Classic so exciting. However, it is not easy for us fishermen to be so close to the lake without being allowed to start fishing immediately and we spent the waiting time with friends having barbeques and a few beers. Before going up on stage for the draw we had decided that if we got an end-swim or a successful swim from previous years, we would go for the first draw. Traditionally, our team runner, Yvonne, makes the draw and the first draw was CC Moore 12 - a section- winner swim from 2010. Actually, that would have been a YES, but looking at each other we spontaneously decided that as there were obstacles, islands and snags we would go for the re-draw.


My partner, Tom, already felt resignation but when Ross read out SBS10 as the second draw for us, we were overwhelmed by our emotions. We heard others reacting to this and


the voices in the room got louder, and we realised that we had drawn our section- winners swim from 2009. This swim was also the event winners swim from which George Csonka and John Roberts won the event from in 2010. Now, we knew what was awaiting us. In this swim, you can either win or lose


everything. We had taken a chance by going for the second draw and it had paid off… This was the reason we went for a second draw, an all or nothing decision.. When we arrived in the swim we noted that a lot of fish came from the left side to feed. Right in front of us, we had a shallow gulley of 15m long at about 3.30m deep and the rest was about 3.10m deep. On the left side, we had huge fields of weed of about 100m2 and the challenge was to find the feeding routes. We decided to go for a central feeding place per side which we would just leave aside to start with. In total, we found many fishable areas with solid ground that seemed to be worthwhile and we wanted to test these places and observe any fish activity. After the first fish, which we caught at


about 9pm, our expectations on the left side


increased. We knew that there were many mussels in the weed and decided to go for 0.25mm braid mainline, 0.70mm mono snag leader, safety bolt rigs, 350g grippas and fox hooks size 6 with combi stiff rig and a garlic pop up from FM bait. These together built the set-up. This time, unlike before, we did not want to lose any fish.


From previous years we had learned that the fish came in groups from the bay in order to eat and again this was the case. After each fish, we decided to change the


place in order not to “burn” it out. After each catch, it took about 2 hours to the next fish, but it helped that we had double takes as well. Daytime did not play any role in regard


to captures and mostly, the action started at about 9pm and ended around daylight. We sat out together on our chairs each night and tried to get some sleep and deal with the takes together. After 2 days, we were logged in on twitter and received the news that we were ahead


and, for us, the fishing became even more exciting and we were being updated with SMS, phone calls and e-mail. The boat ban did not affect us much, as we had most of the action during the night and the weather conditions were not a problem for us as we had a sheltered position.


We were very lucky to catch only carp,


no catfish, no bream, no roach, just carp. The high average weight reflects the high quality of the lake. In total, we lost 2 carp, unfortunately, one due to a line-cut of the 0,70mm snag leader.


The carp knew the weed beds exactly and


that made playing them tricky. Despite this, I (Jens) managed to improve my personal best up to 24.1kg.


Perfect weather conditions had prevailed


but then the weather changed. The night before, we got no sleep and it was very tiring but here, teamwork comes in and we had a great understanding among us. By Saturday, we were far ahead and we knew that we would finish far in front. We had a


24


‘Daytime did not play any role in regard to captures... mostly, the action Magazine sponsored by Pescalis www.pescalis.com


Goodnight Madine


With the announcement prior to the event that the World Carp Classic would be moving to Lago di Bolsena for 2012, nobody could have predicted that Madine 2011 would be heralded out in such a dramatic way...


World Carp Classic Champions 2011


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