Ever felt like you wanted to pit your wits against other anglers? David Walker gives us a look inside competition fly fishing.
Like many fellow anglers my fishing life began along familiar lines. It started at the age of six being taking afloat on Loch Shin with my father, uncle and brother. The memory banks show the Walker clan filling the boat with fine trout with vivid memories of sitting on my old man’s knee reeling in fish after fish. It probably wasn’t that easy. My early school years had me tackling the local canal, burns and eventually local hill lochs with my brother. We would spend most weekends and summer nights fishing these hill lochs with success not quite as easy to come by as Loch Shin but enough to keep interest. Following a few years break when concentrating on other pursuits namely chasing tail and football, I came back into angling and started concentrating mostly on running water. Meeting and making friends with competition anglers, this journey has led me into competition fishing and subsequently opportunities to represent my country at World Championship level.
I would like to talk about the change in my fishing enjoyment which may help anyone considering making the leap from pleasure fishing to competition fishing.
Fishing has always been a pleasurable pursuit for me. The years growing up with my older brother and spending our childhood learning to catch wild brown trout has carved a solid foundation on which my fishing knowledge is built. The adventures we have had from finding abandoned boats filled with water on remote hill lochs, bailing them out, going afloat to finding them soon fill up with water from an unnoticed leak and swimming back to shore minus fishing gear We almost repeated the feat on Loch Merkland near Loch Shin as adults when an estate pioneer boat decided to give up its rubber stopper letting water flood in whilst out in the middle! From writing off cars on the way back from fishing trips to my own brother nearly cutting off my thumb whilst rowing a boat! Tales of losing a ten week old Labrador puppy out the back of said boat and seeing his head bob along heading for the safety of the shore, from writing off engine props along the shores of Loch Awe to capsizing kayaks whilst fishing on the lochs of Rannoch Moor, losing car keys, cameras and mobile phones stranding us miles from home in the process. All character building stuff. And believe it or not, enjoyable although retrospectively!
The above sounds like we aren’t the safest afloat. I would like to state for the record I think we have just been unlucky. In twenty-odd years of fishing I think we have had our fair share of mishaps! The good times of nearly emptying Loch Eye with every wild fish on or over 2lbs to the days of guiding my brother to catch his first grayling certainly outweigh the occasional blip. Memories ranging from talking non-stop about great fishing during the long walk home in the darkness from those hill lochs, fishing the banks of Shin well into the wee small hours refusing to stop as the fish are eating the sheep off the bank to getting my brother his first trout on a dry fly from our favourite river.
"I t was the type of experience I wanted to soak up"
Nowadays, fishing has become somewhat different. Competition angling has seen to that. My fishing days have become split into two types. Pleasure days and competing/practising days. The pleasure days speak for themselves. A day or two away fishing exclusively dries for rising river trout, waiting to see a feeder, spending the day with a good mate sharing some quality craic. Love those days. Live and work for those days.
Practise days are spent either trying new water, new methods, and new flies or most likely renewing confidence on waters and techniques you don’t like fishing as much as they aren’t as fun! I sometimes tag a mate along with me in an attempt to learn what’s working quicker or more importantly what isn’t working. These days feel almost wasted to me. I would much rather be on different water waiting for a feeder. Needs must I guess.
Competition days are the real poser for me. I will explain shortly in more detail but a little background information may be needed first. In Scotland there is a two-tier system in place for anglers wishing to gain caps competing in a Worlds, European or more recently the 5 Nation Championships. The Scottish National Fly-fishing League (SNFFL) is a great set-up with massive potential. Competing anglers who have finished in the top places of the leagues having fished four different single day events over rivers and stillwaters get the chance to fish for their country. I have been lucky enough to fish the World Championships in Bosnia this year and the 5 Nations in Ireland winning Gold as part of a successful Scotland team.
These competition days present a pressure and expectation that has never been evident in my angling life before. Of course that isn’t surprising, it’s a competition after all. Feelings of pressure are normal, expected even. I can deal with that, soak it up and try and perform as best as I can.
I should probably clarify something at this point. The pressure I deal with in my working life is what I would call real pressure, the type where people’s lives are literally in my hands. When things inevitably go wrong it’s my job to find a solution and quickly remedy it. I feel it’s important to make that distinction. Pressure isn’t just for tyres…
But we are talking of fishing here. Nothing quite compares you to fishing your first World Championships. It’s the unknown that throws you. The size of it, the fact that you are representing your country and the new teammates you almost instantly become good friends with and place trust in to share information. It’s a pretty big deal especially to a rookie like me. You don’t want to let them down by fishing poorly. Days spent practising on new waters with each team member given a specific technique to concentrate on, the feedback at nights and evenings spent tying flies for the team are all part and parcel of most teams' preparations for major championships. I recall having the feelings of whether or not you are good enough to compete at this level flit in and out of my mind. A feeling that was quickly dissolved upon sharing a beer with a few of the renowned Czech team. My teammate Stevie and I had been practising on a particularly difficult river with very little to show for our efforts. Some of the rivers in Bosnia are home to little river cafes that serve wonderful food and as luck would have it, very cold beer! Deciding that a refreshment stop was in order we headed to a little café where we noticed some of the Czechs had a similar idea. We soon found out they were struggling too and having a sneaky look at the flies on their rods I realised that their patterns were more or less the same as ours.
On day one of the competition proper you are placed in a sector with approx thirty other anglers from different nations. Day one found most people on the bus very quiet but come the final day most of us were sharing email addresses and a beer on the way back to the team hotels. Some were sharing flies and discussing techniques, which would have been seen as treason on day one.
Those of you reading this that have competed will know the feeling of relief when fishing your session and you get the first fish. The dreaded blank is off. Most sessions in Bosnia weren’t about avoiding the blank; it was more of a numbers game. But back at home a score of one fish in each session can be good enough to score well. And that’s what I’m struggling to enjoy. That feeling that you can’t enjoy your day until you get the blank off. It’s a nervous pressure I guess, one that dissipates the moment you net that first counter. I recall a session in Bosnia on the River Sanica. I drew the beat that during the practice week had walked the stretch and found it black with grayling. Literally a shoal 50ft long stuffed with fish ranging from 50+cm down to counter size. The locals had come out to watch and lined the bridge that crossed the top of my beat. There must have been about forty odd people waiting to see what the Scottish guy was going to do! remember thinking dries were the tactic of choice for this stretch and so it proved but for the first thirty minutes of my three hour session I couldn’t get into it. I landed four undersized fish within 10 minutes and must have dropped, jagged or burst off on another six! My casting was pathetic with me constantly catching my back cast on the grass behind. I just couldn’t relax. But once I landed my first counter I got into my rhythm and started spanking fish. I was lacing them fishing small size 18-20 dries and targeting individual fish in the crystal clear water. It was magic and I’ll admit I felt like a superstar every time I caught and landed a fish with the watching crowd cheering every fish netted like a goal in a cup final!
"You will make new mates and perhaps have the chance to travel too"
The end of the Worlds was a relief; I had been away from home for over two weeks and was missing those waiting for me at home. A little guilt creeping in perhaps as I had left the good lady at home with our young daughter. I was tired, mentally not so much physically. Speaking to a good mate who has been there and got the t-shirt, he had said this was normal and that it would sink in once I had been home. More than three months later I think I’m just beginning to feel it.
Winning gold over in Ireland was an excellent result for Team Scotland. I felt before we went that our team had a realistic chance of a medal position. The guys in my team were very strong anglers who had a wealth of experience. The type of experience that I was determined to soak up. Ireland was my kind of fishing, truly wild brown trout on rivers, hill lochs and a big expanse of water from the boat. My bread and butter. The weeks leading up to Ireland found me lacking motivation and I was struggling to get excited about it. This continued once I arrived and right up until the day of my first session. I had my river heat first, which saw me draw a decent beat with some lovely looking water. Once I stepped into the water though I quickly found my competitive spirit and put in the required shift managing a 3rd place with six fish. The second session was equally as good and found me on a lovely hill loch that was full of trout. tripping ginked up muddlers over a big rolling wave and watching kamikaze trout launch themselves through the water will always get me excited! Sessions three and four were shared with two Irish guys and I thoroughly enjoyed my day afloat even though the second guy gave me a proper doing! I had put in a steady shift but thanks to my teammates who were putting in performance winning sessions the result was never in doubt from day one. Winning gold was a great achievement but again I’m still waiting for it to sink in. I’m not sure that’s normal?! I didn't fish for three weeks when I got home. Eventually venturing out to my local river and spanking fish on dries. I fished four more times that week landing a proper lump one night. I called mates waxing lyrically about the fish I had been catching and patterns I had been using. Describing each fish covered, the take and the fight. They must have been bored rigid listening to me!
I like the idea of competing, by nature I’m competitive, always have been. Speaking to a few close mates and seeking their advice on whether or not I should continue competing has seen them all agree I should. The fun just seems to be one of those emotions that are absent and replaced with a sense of relief once the blanks off. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of representing my country, wearing the team blazer and tie, meeting new mates, the laughs with the boys, the new techniques and patterns learned/gained, the kudos that goes with your caps and the little nuggets you pick up from watching experienced anglers are like gold dust. I recall sitting in the pub one night beside one of my teammates and waiting till he had sank a few more sherbets I rattled off about a dozen questions about flies, leader set-ups and the like in the hope that the fine Irish liquor would loosen his lips. And it did. Big time. So much so that I won my next river heat back home on the info he supplied.
So in essence, the biggest learning curve for me thus far hasn’t been in trying to bridge that gap in terms of experience between my rookie stature and those of the anglers that have numerous caps and been competing for years. For sure that’s massive, a challenge that I’m embracing and looking forward to closing but rather the feeling that I’m not equating my competition days to being fun and enjoyable as has been the norm in my fishing. That’s what I’m finding the most difficult. Again, is that normal? Next year will see me competing with the cream of Scottish angling but I see that as an opportunity to learn and improve rather than harbour thoughts of apprehension. So for those thinking of taking that step into competition fishing I would suggest try it. It will make you a better angler. Some of you may enjoy it, even thrive on it. You will make new mates and hopefully, if successful, travel to other countries and fish different waters.
I’m still trying to work out if the caps and gold medals make it fun!