The World Freshwater Angling Championships is a

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does incl ...

angling Angling is a fishing technique that uses a fish hook or "angle" (from Old English ''angol'') attached to a fishing line to tether individual fish in the mouth. The fishing line is usually manipulated via a fishing rod, although rodless techni ...

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, ind ...

. Participating countries fish in teams of five with titles awarded to the team with the least amount of points, the competition area is split into sections and the winner with the most weight will be awarded one point, two for second, three for third, at the end of the two days the team with the least points is the top team. Since its inception in 1954, the competition has been staged on

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface f ...

s and still waters from a selected host nation. Currently (to 2021), the world championships have not been held outside of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. The 68th event was held in September 2022 at Bilje, in Osijek-Baranja County,

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = " Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capi ...

. Held at Lake Biljsko Jezero which holds prussian carp, dwarf catfish, grass carp, catfish, asp, bighead, red perch, silver bream, ide and carassius. First-time world champions were

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...

, with Italy in second place and Czech Republic in third. and the individual new world champion was Mihael Pongrac of Croatia.

Brief history

The inaugural world championship was held in West Germany in 1954 and won by team England, with the first individual title going to Gino Vigarani of Italy. In 1992, Dave Wesson, an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

n, became the only non-

an to win the title. The 2020 World Freshwater Angling Championships was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

but resumed in 2021. The host nation have been team champions on 15 occasions, with the strongest nation at home being Italy who have won on their own waters 6 times, the others were Belgium 2, France, Luxembourg, Romania, East Germany, West Germany, England, Spain. The host nation has produced a home grown individual world champion from just 9 events of the 67 fished (one in seven). For a video history of this major angling event, see External links at the bottom of this page.

World Championship Nations Team Results

World Championship Individual results

Championship records

Team medal table

References

External links