FIPS World Shore Championships 2012.

The FIPS World Shore Championships in Holland starts properly tomorrow, Tuesday 16th of October.
      Practice finished today for the 16 competing nations and hopefully the hard work of preparation has been completed by the competing anglers. A good nights sleep and a strong start in the morning at 10:00 will be the wish on everyones mind as I write this.
       Most of the teams will have already been to the venues in weeks prior to the event. They will have taken time off work and invested their own money in most cases to fly over, check out the beaches and see what they are up against in terms of logistics, available species and tackle needed. Baits will be supplied by the competition organisers for the match, but all of these will have been scrutinised on the beaches beforehand.
        Decisions would have been made that will make or break a teams plan. Hundreds of traces per team will have been tied and tactics discussed and pondered over.
        For those competing it will be the culmination of an enormous effort and expense, and an amount of preparation that most anglers could not even contemplate. A level of preparation that has been up-held through qualification aswell as practice and is second nature to those match anglers involved.It really is a case of "fail to prepare , prepare to fail" as no amount of luck will carry you successfully through this competition.
  
          I hope the Championships are a success , that the weather is kind and that there are plenty of fish to keep lads and ladies occupied. But most of all I hope that the Irish team of Martin Howlin , Eugene Farrelly, John O'Brien , Joe Duggan and my local club member Derek Kenrick stay competetive throughout and maybe , just maybe, bring home another Gold by finish on Friday..... GOOD LUCK LADS.

You can keep up to date with the daily results etc using this link.
http://www.sportvisserijnederland.nl/sportvissers/wc_shore_angling_2012/?page=draw_and_results