Industry news

World Carp Championship

Sports Trader unfortunately had to go to print before the competition was held.

Since first participating in the world championships in 2003, SA has always been in the Top 10 in both team and individual placings. Before this year’s world championship, members of the SA team were very confident of achieving good results, as they expected that their knowledge and experience of the local angling conditions would give them an advantage. The benefit of being used to having to constantly be pulling out large carp earlier paid dividends when the SA team beat the team from England in a pre-world championship test series in May.

Although relatively small in comparison with the other world championship events of the International Freshwater Sport Angling Federation (FIPS-ed), the World Carp Angling Championships is by far the most important high profile freshwater angling event ever hosted in SA.

The high cost of air travel and airfreight (despite camping and material subsidies by SAFBAF) to SA was expected to deter some countries from sending teams. Last year the World Carp Angling Championships was held in Serbia and 17 nations participated, but it was foreseen that between 10-12 countries would attend the 2008 World Carp Angling Championships.

To help off-set some of these costs, the Midas Group/Akals sponsored all the camping equipment, which will be used for the SAFBAF development programme after the event, in order to make the sport more accessible for people who previously could not afford to participate.

SAFBAF has a talent identification and development programme in place to grow the sport, in particular among previously disadvantaged individuals, the youth, women, clubs and rural communities. A previously disadvantaged angler is a member of the 2008 carp angling national team, and another participated against England in May.

SAFBAF also hoped to use the World Carp Angling Championships to further promote the freshwater angling sport, especially carp angling, to previously disadvantaged communities in rural areas. It was part of their project plan to involve provincial and local sport and recreational bodies, local communities and schools to promote awareness. It is estimated that freshwater angling, a sporting code that involves a lot of spending, has a big impact on the economies of rural areas. It was therefore expected that the rural communities around Bloemhof Dam would have benefited from the spending of participants and visitors to the event. They also hoped that some visiting teams would extend their visits, and that a positive experience would attract many more international competitive, recreational and trophy anglers to our shores.

According to SAFBAF the interest in carp angling has increased tremendously since the announcement that SA is to host the 2008 World Carp Angling Championships, which also benefited the trade The demand was so high that some of the previously imported carp angling equipment, tackle and bait are now manufactured in SA.