We at Metmask decided we must fish this competition having heard so much about it . We took the 6-7 hour journey to the 'Theatre of Breams'
Metmask bait supplier and sponsor of the SNOGFESTIVALEN
Thursday Travel for Russ , Jamie and myself and after 7 hours we finally got there ! Almost immediately the anglers were there getting the Best bait in Sweden from Metmask with the best selection of small and medium worms , Red and White maggots and casters of the finest quality. On arrival i saw faces i had not seen for some years and it was great to renew acquaintances and to discuss fishing with the odd glass of wine and beer , of course !
Jan Backe , Robert Johnson , Christian Pantsar , Stefan Holst and Lasse Magnusson
A section next to the draw for the competition - Beautiful , like a scene from Ireland
Soon anglers were arriving from other accommodations in the woodlands area
The gathering of International anglers from Denmark , Holland and Sweden with many English , Polish guys from those countries.
Many MKQUATTRO boxes on display - Lasse the owner
My kit wagon at the ready , MKQUATTRO and MATRIX gear in plenty
Roijne in the foreground who sat to my left on the first two days - me and Jamie recognised him as a SKAR music fan
Section A PEG 12 was my gift for the day and i struggled to get 5.5 kilos , to my left was top-rod Roijne who beat me by a kilo .
The only picture i took was on peg 9 and he had a reasonable weight
Master organiser of the event Willem Poelstra was also chief chef .
DAY 2
Top diamond geezer Jamie looking inspired to lock horns with those Lake Bream
Draw time and Wilhem does whilst holding his mighty Klaxon
PEG 35 for me in Section C which is recognised as where the larger weights will come from , so they say !
Got my MKQuattro our in the water which has very firm clay sand bottom so no sinking silt , perfect .
Very interesting day as even though i was comprehensively beaten both sides i learned so much about the place and how the fishing period runs to typical stages of this match . Firstly i was told that you can catch Bream closer on whip but after a short while they move of . Umm i must admit i did not believe that at first but i was later to realise that is exactly what happened .
After a 10 minute pre-bait of 10 balls on the whip line and 5 feeder casts at 35 turns the start was true to form as i took two large Bream and 3 other large skimmers with a few large Roach all in the first 30 minutes only for them (Bream) to back off. I still carried on catching Bjorkna (Pommies) with Roach perch and Rudd . This lasted an hour and half before i decided to switch to feeder as either side of me they were taking good Bream so i knew i was falling behind . Kristian Ekman (eventual festival winner) to my right was feeder only and his class told as he imported a continuous string of good fish . Even my mate from previous day , Roijne started to haul them in .
It took me a while but eventually i started to bring a few in but by then i was at least 10 kilos behind them both but i stuck at it but learned a lot from my mauling even though Kristian ended up with 37 kilos , Roijne had 31 kilos and i had just 16 kilos .
Top bloke was Roijne to my left , second day on the trot . So grateful to him as he allowed my a few guzzles of a very unusual Rum kind of a drink which gave me a warm glow as the last two hours it rained hard and went quite cold .
Absolute Top guy and great friend is Festival winner Kristian Ekman , a tremendous bloke who has suffered health wise and bounced back and lives for the day like all of us . Please watch out for him as he travels to Ireland soon for the Feeder Masters , please say hello .......Julian kendrick , Gary Envis , Francis McGoldrick , Karl Woodhouse.
Anyway to cut a long story short i had 16 kilos on the whip only at 7m and it was only a metre and half deep . I made the mistake of sticking at that distance and should have come shorter on a 4-5metres whip like the great and enigmatic , talisman , super star Stefan Holst another great Swedish International who did me with 19 kilos .
I Learnt a lot from today and previous two days to put me ready for next years competition which i certainly will return to , definitely !!
The podium in front of the sleeping / kitchen hut - Top 4
Top 15/36 - I just squeezed in
Top Metmask - Matrix angler Christian Pantzar sporting new graphics on his fishing wagon
CONCLUSION TO A GREAT EVENT
Willem a long with great help from Magnus and Lasse and the team at VKMK have done us all proud with their phenomenal organisation skills to get this Festival going to a new 3 day format .
What does the future hold ? maybe a 4 day or even a full week festival including a weekend tagged on ? Then that is so similar to what the Scandinavian Masters was years ago , could we see that return also ? Could we see another festival in the Spring ...........Watch this space ???
Willem - Top Geezer !
