Marc Voosen is one of the leading carp anglers in Germany and will be an angler for you to pit your wits against when competing in single player events in The Catch: Carp & Coarse but who is Marc and how did he get into fishing and end up having a career at one of the biggest manufacturers in the carp fishing industry? Marc tells us all:

I was introduced to fishing through my Dad. He was a good all-round angler and we would go out occasionally to fish for whatever he had in mind. By doing this, I learned some of the basics for various different styles of fishing whether that be fishing for barbel through to carp, trout or pike. That being said, my dad was far from a specimen hunter, he just enjoyed being out there doing it. However, he lit a spark in me that made me surpass his drive to fish by a landslide pretty quickly.

Looking back, I stumbled into it. I was working in a courtyard and in typical fashion working for the state, which meant I had a lot of free time even during my official working hours. Due to my own interest in the topic and out of boredom, I started a company called pinpoint hooks and started selling hand sharpened hooks and sharpening equipment to carp, catfish and predator anglers. Some of these hooks found their way into the hands of Alan Blair and the rest as they say is history! After a meeting with Alan Blair and Kevin Nash, I found myself in the role of the Area Brand Manager of Nash Germany/Austria.

Personally, I feel that I underwent a pretty standard progression, in that at first I was fishing for whatever. We only lived minutes away from the river Rhine (Europe's biggest stream!), so from an early age, every day after I finished my homework, I was allowed to fish there - completely on my own, no license, no mobile etc. That was in the early 90´s. When I was old enough to get a license, I joined my first club on a local park lake and a whole new world opened up to me - a world that included carp! From there on, there was no stopping and I explored every lake in my area. With my first car, my horizons grew and soon enough I visited several countries all over Europe and finally Africa.

Germany is a bit special (not only when it comes to fishing)! First of all, you have to pass a real test to get your license. You can compare it to your driving license. There is a multiple choice questionnaire as well as a practical part, where you have to put together a set up for a certain species.

When it comes to catch and release, there are a lot of misunderstandings. One of the first paragraphs in the German constitution is that “you are not allowed to harm any human or animal for your personal pleasure.” For a long time, that was interpreted as “if you catch a fish over a certain size (varying from species to species) you should put it to a meaningful purpose (eat it).”

To catch fish just for your own pleasure was seen as animal cruelty. Now that never meant that German anglers killed every fish, because we learned a long time ago that this is not what you do as a sportsman but at least in theory you could get in trouble if somebody recorded you putting back a fish that was an edible size.

It does not by any means effect my fishing in Germany. However, it effects the way we shoot our videos over here. You will struggle to find a video where somebody says on record that he is in Germany and then releases a fish. Normally it cuts out after you present the fish.

Are you an out and out carp angler or any other styles you love?

I tend to fall in love with other species from time to time. I had my catfish period where I went to Spain a lot, I love some pike fishing in the winter time or to just let a float drift in a small stream at times to fish for whatever. I enjoy the steep learning curve you have when doing a style of fishing you don´t know too much about. It makes me feel like a kid again, learning a new style of fishing where every day feels like one big adventure and every capture is special.

My personal fishing is a mix of fishing I do for the company, which usually means shooting videos or doing some underwater filming etc. This can be frustrating at times but in general I love it because it puts me out of my comfort zone a lot and makes me learn new stuff, that I can than integrate into my own fishing. My personal fishing on the other hand is dominated by target fishing for a certain big fish that caught my attention. It just so happened that I ticked one of those off of my list, a huge mirror carp named “Stallone”, which funny enough made me revisit the park lake I mentioned earlier. Over 25 years later, I found myself back at the banks of the first lake I ever fished for carp.

I have got the fondest memories of weekends spend at a friend´s house - every single weekend, we met there and played Doom all night long. Back in the days you needed two big TV’s, two PlayStations and a special cable to link them together. This way we could chase each other through the pixelated labyrinth until the sun rose. We would fall asleep when others got up but by midday there always was a huge bag of fresh buns and a jar of Nutella in the middle of the room that my friends mum had placed there. After a quick and “healthy” breakfast it all started over again…best memories ever!

Now, I am able to feature in a fishing game which combines two of the biggest things that have been in my life!