Competing in the World Boat fishing championships in Portugal was always going to be hard as the size and types of fish are so very different from those in UK waters. Despite this the England team members were confident on their arrival in Portugal that they would be challenging for medals. There was a tremendous amount of experience in the team, with Colin Searles and me having fished for England since the early 2000s, including being part of the amazing gold medal winning team in Portugal in 2006. Cliff Newbold and Mark Smith were in the gold medal winning team in Weymouth in 2014, while Paul Hart and Matt Osborne also both had valuable experience in Portuguese waters.
ARRIVAL IN ALBUFEIRA
We flew out a full week early on 19th September, which was coincidently the day of the Queen’s funeral, to give us four full days of practice in addition to the official event practice. Being self-funded, this demonstrated full commitment to the task in hand. We had all forked out in excess of £2,000 each to fish this event and the cost would have been even higher were it not for the
