Team or individual?

Perhaps this may seem alien to some of you,but I believe there are in fact three distinct types of competition angler,that is " the team angler- the individual angler - and the natural angler". However I will make an attempt to explain, first of all it may be appropriate for me to start with the team angler, as this was what I was so closely involved in hence do have a little bit more of an understanding. It may also be appropriate for me to explain how most organizers decide on who has won what! and how team events are ran.

Most team events are commonly decided on a points system, say for instance you have four teams consisting of twenty five anglers, you would then have one hundred anglers competing, they would then be divided in to four sections, of twenty five anglers, then the person who has caught the top weight out of twenty five anglers would receive the maximum number of points available, which would be twenty five, the next weight nearest to that would receive twenty four and so on.

Until you get to the person who has caught nothing, which does and unfortunately for some can happen?. More often than not this scenario appears to happen during the Winter months. If at the end of the day there is a tie on points then the teams results are decided on the weight factor.

Of course it is no shame to catch nothing because on some waters, there are just no fish willing to open their mouths. this became clear to me during a National Team Championship, which I fished with a team of Yorkshire lads on the River Ancholme we came third overall winning a silver medal, in fact we were the only team on the day not to have a man without a fish.

This was such a memorable experience for me for a number of reasons basically because this was my very first National, and you guessed it, the man with the lowest scoring points was yours truly. But having said that I was still pleased with my efforts as we had the highly fancied smithies team on the very next peg to us, and they did no better than sixteenth. There where ten blank pegs either side of me and all I managed to catch were two minute transparent Tommy ruff which weighed a total of four drams, not bad eh!

The difference between an individual and a team angler as I see it, is the manner in which they approach their fishing, with regards to feeding the fish, that may or may not be in front of them. More often than not you will find that the team angler has practiced on the water they intend to fish as a team, then hold a meeting to discuss what each of them has learned about the water. For example where the good and the bad areas are, this is important to them as every angler relies on one another to catch a fish, no matter how big or small in order to gain points for the team.

There is a common accepted philosophy in fishing, which is, you can't take out what you have put in, in other words if you throw, or put to much feed in to the water where you intend to fish. Then if there are not many fish there you are certainly going to fill them up, or even worse they won't necessarily get to your bait.

Therefore the little and often approach for the team is most often employed, specifically on hard fished waters such as the ordinary navigational canals. Having said that it does also work on some commercial fisheries now that they have been established and more regularly fished.

This tactic is not so important to the individual angler as their approach is quite often more positive, were as they tend to introduce large quantities of feed initially. Both approaches do work but having said that knowledge about were you intend to fish is with out doubt the key to being successful.