Ian goes into ‘no man’s land’ for world win
England’s Ian Heaps, the little man with the big heart, is the new World Champion.
The chirpy Stockport angler captured not only the glory of victory but also the hearts of the 30,000-strong crowd as he romped home on the Bydgoszcz Canal in Poland on Sunday.
A giant portion of the crowd hung on Ian’s every move, cheering and applauding every strike and sighing after a missed bite or a lost fish. Far from unsettling him, they spurred him on to greater effort.
“The crowd were absolutely fantastic, they really seemed to take to me from the start,” said Ian, who annihilated the opposition with his carp, bream and roach weighing 10kg 220g (22lb 8oz) – a record for the World Championships.
“It was just like being a matador in a bull ring – the crowd shouting ‘olé!’ every time I struck into a fish,” said champion Ian.
“I just can’t put into words how delighted I am. My life’s ambition was to fish for England, but to come here and win the match is just out of this world. I’m especially pleased for my dad, Jim Heaps, who will be over the moon where he hears this.”
Ian, a 32-year-old metal worker, was fishing for England for the first time and is only the third Englishman to win the individual crown in the World Championships, Coventry’s Billy Lane and Peterborough’s Robin Harris going before him.
He began the three-hour match by sticking rigidly to team tactics, feeding the shelves running out from both banks with six good balls of breadcrumbs laced with 75 per cent squatts, plus casters and pinkies.
The deeper water running between the two shelves had been branded ‘no man’s land’ after the previous day’s practice, but this was to be totally ignored.
“These were our basic instructions, but each man was to use his head and fish his swim accordingly,” said Ian. “I started off by fishing the far shelf with a balsa-bodied peacock waggler, taking the equivalent of three-and-a-half swan,” he explained.
“The float itself was weighted and I locked it with two swan. I used a BB near the hook and bunched the rest of the shot just off the bottom. The shotting pattern was intended to deal with the tricky surface skim.”
Using two maggots on a size 18 hook to a 2.6lb bottom and a 3lb line, Ian missed a bite only minutes after the start.
“My bunched shot were a few inches too deep and fish stripped the maggots,” he explained.
“So I moved the float down about four inches and caught a roach on my third cast. Then the canal started to pull strongly and I switched to fishing the near shelf.
“I had some lighter tackle set up for this, but because of the increased pull I stuck with my heavier gear and caught my second fish, a 12oz bream, about 15 minutes after the start,” Ian said.
“My next fish – a 1lb 8oz bream – came half-an-hour later. The pull had eased by that time and I was fishing the far shelf again.”
Ian’s hand was never out of the groundbait bucket during the match. He fed the near shelf while fishing the far shelf, and vice-versa. And it paid off an hour
after the start when he landed a 2lb 12oz carp after a fight lasting over 10 minutes.
A good bream followed almost immediately. Quickly recasting, Ian looked up from his groundbait bucket to find his float had gone. He struck, hooked the fish in the tail and landed it after a tense fight.
Devoting all his time to the far shelf for the last 90 minutes, Ian landed another carp, several good bream to 3lb, plus a couple of small roach, before hooking his last fish – another foul-hooked bream.
He battled for nearly 10 minutes to keep the bream within the official swim boundaries and landed it with only five minutes to spare. His total catch was eight bream, four roach and two carp.
The crowd roared their approval at the end of the match when the English hero turned and saluted them with his hand in the air.