Our Italian correspondent, Matteo Maggi, reports back from a tough Northern Qualifier for the Italian Feeder Championship on the Fiuma Canal.
The Fiuma Canal recently hosted the second qualifier for the Individual Italian Feeder Championship. It’s a popular venue for Italian competitions and is in the Feeder Champ’s calendar for the second year. It also hosted the Women’s World Championship in 2008.
It is a large canal that averages 35–40 metres wide, with a depth of 2.5 to 3 metres. There are many carassio present between 100g and 500g, plus carp, catfish and bream between 50g to over 2kg.
In spring and autumn the flow is very low, but in summer it is much stronger as the canal is used for agriculture. The presence of flow normally isn’t a problem, but this year all Italian canals seem to be having problems with the quality of fishing, and that includes Fiuma. In fact, some days before the competition, anglers really struggled in practice with only 5 or 6 fish per angler! Only the capture of one big bream could be the solution to bring home a good result!
The competition started under hot, sunny conditions. With strong flow it was necessary to use feeders of 50–60g. Drennan Heavyweight Cage Feeders, Oval Blockend, Vari-Weight, Gripmesh and Oval Groundbait are all popular amongst Italian anglers.
In Fiuma there are usually three lines of fishing. Close in to the bank, near common reeds, where it’s possible to catch one or two big bream; in the middle of the canal and, finally, near the far-side reeds on the opposite bank. These are the principle spots for catching carassio and carp.
Many of the competitors prefer to use dark groundbait with plenty of maggots, casters, dead maggots or chopped worm. Others prefer to fish only with maggot feeders and use stickymag because of the flow. At the end of the competition, it was difficult to say what tactic was better.
Unfortunately the fishing was very bad and many competitors brought just two or three fish to the scales. First on the day was Matteo Maggi of I Delfini Amino Pack Balzer with a fantastic weight of over 6.5kg. That consisted of carassio, a 1kg bream and a 600-700g carp from Peg 4 in the last section.
After two rounds, the overall leader is Angelo De Pascalis of Team LBF Italia Fishingitalia.com – Preston Innovations with 2 points.
This competition has been a crossroads for many of the competitors. Based on this result, some have already cancelled their tickets to the Final on the Ostellato Canal in August, while others are hoping for a good result in the last test on the Canal Navigabile in Spinadesco – theatre of the World Championship in 2008!
The competition will be very difficult, even though the abundance of fish seems to be pretty good with the presence of many small fish plus some big carp.
Report by Matteo Maggi – www.fishingmania.it