Haringvliet, Hollandsdiep and Volkarak - these 3 bodies of water up to 30 km long form the fish-rich Rhine delta in the Netherlands. The Luremasters also took place on these very waters in 2022. An international tournament featuring top anglers. The format of this tournament is as follows: the aim is to catch a total of 3 pike, 7 zander and 5 perch over the three days of the tournament. The lengths of the ideally 15 fish submitted are added together and the team with the highest total wins the tournament. The three waters are drawn by lot from the 120 participating teams. Each team will fish at each of the three waters for one day.

The preparation

As a rule, a tournament does not work without appropriate preparation. So it starts months before the start with numerous phone calls. Frank Bußmeyer and I went through all the charts during these calls and picked out the best spots. In our minds, we had already caught a lot of fish before the tournament started. We also realize that things often look different in reality - but anticipation is of course the best kind of joy. Two weeks before the start of the tournament, Frank set off for Holland with his well-equipped Nitro boat. I received daily updates on the latest catches by phone and via WhatsApp. Everything looked very promising - especially as far as the perch and pike were concerned. This week was extremely difficult for me, as I still had to work and Frank was torturing me with the pictures and reports... But a week later I was finally able to hold the fishing rod in my hand. What can I say, it went really perfectly for us. Even the catfish wanted to bite, even though they don't count in the tournament, they sweetened our training with plenty of action.

As I came with my small Lund boat, we should be well prepared for many situations. The plan was to fish pelagic from my boat and then cast from Frank's big boat. It is also much easier to fish from the big boat in very windy conditions. And the wind was actually going to play a major role during the tournament.

The tournament

Before the draw for the order of the waters, we wanted the order of the waters to be Haringvliet, Hollandsdiep and Volkerak. In fact, luck of the draw was kind to us and we started as Team 2 in this order. So the plan was that we would attack pelagics from the small boat on the first day with the least wind on the Haringvliet.

The starting signal was given punctually at 8:15 a.m. and the 40 boats spread out over the huge body of water. We quickly spotted a few zander on the sonar. We fished a few until finally the biggest signal "jumped" on our bait with the courage of death. Unfortunately, the fish didn't hang, and as is so often the case in the stories, it was of course a really big, no, a huge zander. We had to tick it off and wait for another chance, which came an hour later. It came as it had to, this fish also unhooked itself after a short fight. Two hours later, it was already lunchtime and we were still without fish. Our panic was still limited, but we wanted to try another spot. So we drove a good 8 km to a new spot. However, there was already so much wind that it was impossible to fish properly. New plan: a round of longline fishing in the lee of the bank. This also didn't work as well as in training. Now the nervousness slowly increased. We put everything on the line again in the last hour. Fortunately, we were able to catch a good zander of just under 70 cm on the long-established Popeye. It was a really hard fight.

On day 2, the Hollandsdiep was on the agenda. The forecast was for wind/storm force 6 from 12 noon. Therefore, after much deliberation, we decided to start with the big boat. At least 6 zander had to be landed on the scoreboard today, as it is almost impossible to catch a zander during the day on the last day in Volkerak. Especially as 3 pike and 5 perch were still missing. The day then focused on casting and trolling. If we caught a fish while trolling, we dropped the spot. We tended to use bulky lures for trolling. The successful lure of the day was the Ikiru Crank. In the end, we managed to scrape together 6 zander. So far we were satisfied, although it is very stressful when you have to chase after the rather poor catch of the first day. So we celebrated the 6 zander, even though we knew that the last day on the Volkerak would have to deliver 5 perch and 3 pike.

Day 3 was dominated by the storm, so much so that the organizers seriously considered cancelling this day. We were glad when the organizers decided to hold another day of competition. In the end, however, gusts of up to force 7 were measured - which was a real challenge even in the big boat. But the day at Volkerak was a really good day. There were plenty of really nice perch in the boat. It was really good fun again at the end. Unfortunately, we didn't catch any pike as "by-catch" between the perch. We really had a lot of this luck during training, even with meter fishing. That's why we decided to fish specifically for pike in the last 2 hours. We were still 3 short of a full card.

Cast after cast, we cast off the edges and structures, but apart from one really good bite on the Thrillseeker, there was no further activity. The storm was now so violent that it was really difficult to fish with concentration and good guidance. So we decided to do another round of trolling. As it turned out, the first pike quickly appeared on my rod. Frank reeled in his rod at the same time and got a brute impact. No, line breakage!!! We almost had a double fight. And as it turned out later, this fish would have been super important for the full card, as we only managed to land one more pike afterwards.

So we ended up with a total of 14 fish out of the required 15 and can call ourselves training world champions, but in the end you can't buy anything for that. And as we all know, there are always more training world champions than actual winners. So I really do have the utmost respect for the teams that came out on top in these tough conditions. This time it wasn't us and we can only wave from the better midfield to the top. But next year we will come back stronger and with a more sophisticated plan 😉

Finally, we wanted to thank SPRO for the trust you have placed in us!