World Carp Fishing Championships

This is due to be fished over a 72 hour period in October this year.

Personally I do not envy the competitors. The temperatures can reach in excess of 40 deg C at this time of the year and if any of the violent early spring thunderstorms hit, they will be a few bivvys blown away I can tell you.

There will be a tremendous number of carp caught. The fish are not over large, well they weren't the last time I fished here and that was ca 1976.

I doubt if any of the carp will exceed 20lbs. Bloemhof is a large bit of water where carp tend to overbreed.

My suggestion to any partaking is to refine your distance casting techniques, especially with large crushed maize method feeders. You will need to reach 150 yards using big pit reels. I don't think you will need sophisticated baits. Hair rigged maize should suffice.

To the guys going to fish the champs . I am from South -Africa and i can assure you that you will be catching a lot of fish as said and yes there a lot of small fish but the fact is that a competion is fished and threfore any fish above 1.5kg is allowed to be weighed for the competition . I fish Bloemhof on a private sector of water and believe me we catch carp over 25 pounds on a regular basis . It really is a wonderfull lake and if you fish it onmy way called the mouse trap and if you have the knowlege of the lake there are big fish to be caught . Ihave been fishing Bloemhof for 20 years and we have a pieceof land on the banks of the lake .

The England team will have really good time here and they willhave a great time although the fish wont be that big!