Some interesting points here.
I have watched a lot of match anglers recently and the biggest difference beween the winners and the losers - who are always moaning as far as I can see, is not so much the methods used, or the length of the poles etc, but the feeding techniques.
Watch a top class match angler. His hand is hardly ever out of his bait bowl or maggot box. What he is doing is getting those fish into his swim and then feeding at the correct rate to get the fish competing for the bait. His work rate is enormous.
The average guy chucks out his rig or feeder, maybe a pounch full of bait every half hour, and then sits on it.
And then he moans about the conditions, wrong peg etc etc, anything other than his own incompetence.
There are enough article in the mags these days about the techniques of the winners. I wonder if your average match angler ever reads them.
On many occasions I have sat behind a top class match angler watching how he does it. You alway seem to get some other guy watching watching, who will say - "Yes but that's not fishing - moan moan moan!!"
What a lot of the losers don't seem to realise is that the object behind match fishing is to put as much weight as possible into your keepnet in 5 hours, irrespective of species or method.
Hey chaps I'm not a match angler but that's the way I see it.