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The 2012 World Fly Fishing Championships were fished over three days from 5th June 2012 to 8th June 2012 in the Bohinj Municipality of Slovenia. This is a very picturesque part of the world and my first impression was of clear water, big rivers, stunning mountain views and charming people. This was only my first impression and I have to assure you as I settled into our practice sessions and moved around the district fishing various practice water my affection for the region and its people only got stronger.

Our team captain was Craig Coltman and the team was made up of Vern Barby, Rick Sunderland, Brian Hughes, Lubin Pfeiffer, John Fisher and myself as the reserve.

When we arrived at our first practice session I was a little daunted by the heavy flows in the rivers but with some encouragement particularly from John Fisher I found that even in heavy flows there was always water accessible, even to me, that held plenty of fish. I guess I'll always remember the lesson I was reminded of there and that is that in heavy water fish will seek sheltered water in much the same way as the smarter anglers do. As we worked through our practice sessions it became increasing probable that whilst the rivers had been up due to rain that during the competition days there was a strong probability that the rivers would drop to flow levels that would be much more manageable for fish and anglers a like. Indeed, by the time the actual competition started the rivers were much lower than when we first tackled them.

At our first briefing Craig had emphasized the need for mutual respect in term of all team members accepting that what other members of the team determined in relation to tactics and flies should be accepted by all the members of the team and embraced rather than each individual doing his own thing. We had 13 days of practice prior to the competition and by about the 9th day, as a result of all the team members embracing the concept of mutual respect, we were pretty settled as a team on which flies would make up the core of the final selection of flies that we would fish in the competition. Everybody got stuck in tying flies and by the time we got to the opening ceremony we all had a full complement of flies. Not only a full fly box of those core competition flies for the rivers and a back up selection of the same flies stored separate to our main fly box just in case that was lost but we also had two boxes of boat flies to be used on the Lake Most na Soci. I am pretty sure that all of us were confident in the core fly selections for the rivers and the lake and it's my expectation that it was unlikely that any of us fished flies outside of the core selection even though I am sure we all had a couple of our own 'comfort' flies tucked away in our kit.

Working out that final selection of flies was an interesting process in itself. Prior to leaving for Slovenia some of the members of the 2012 World team had been given flies "sorted" by the 2011 World team when they used our competition waters as their practice waters for the 2011 Worlds. On top of that we also had a selection of flies provided by Fulling Mills and John Fisher and I had sourced a range of flies from Gregor Novak who we understand was the official fly tier for the Slovenian team. Then on our first day in Slovenia we were introduced to a further range of flies recommended by our guide Marko Gradnik. Marko was with us every day from when we first arrived in Slovenia right through to when we departed on the train on our long journey home. Marko proved to be indispensable in terms of getting into great practice waters and helping us recognise the idiosyncrasies of our various practice and also competition waters. Marko was fantastic and I highly recommend Marko as a first contact for anyone wanting to fish in Slovenia. Marko introduced us to a range of flies that would become the back bone of our competition fly box for the worlds. The river flies were similar in some ways to the flies we fish in Australia but were remarkably different in that many were tied with silver beads and in most cases the colours were much lighter than the flies I am used to fishing with on Australian rivers. As Marko described each of the flies he was recommending I took quick notes and you can see them below.

We also had the pleasure of having Jeremy Lucas with us for four days as a coach to help us translate our our Australian "trout" oriented river skills to suit the very differently behaving Slovenian trout and of course grayling which most of us had not previously fished to. As well as taking on that task with zeal Jeremy introduced to a great little CDC emerger fly called a plume and that, as well as his skinny bead head flash back version of a pheasant tail nymph both made the grade for inclusion in our competition fly box for the river sessions. Finally, also included into our final selections were a number of flies that were intuitively selected by our 2012 World team members and were then proven by other team members during our practice sessions.

I have set out below my river fly boxes selections.

Nymphs

Spiders

Dries

River Sectors:

Sector I: Sava Bohinjka, the upper part – in the fishing family Bohinj district

Sector II: Sava Bohinjka, the middle part – in the Fisheries Research Institute of Slovenia district

Sector III: Sava – in the fishing family Tržic district

The Sava Bohinjka is regarded by many as one of the best rivers in Europe and is an alpine river that is regulated and generally has very constant and flows along its full length until it flows into Lake Bohinj.

Sector IV: Kokra

The Kokra is one of the most beautiful alpine rivers in Slovenia, especially in its upper part when it runs through the Jezersko area. Most of the stream is a superb fly-fishing destination with deep pools, rapids, clear and bright waters. The whole district is managed by the Fishing club of Kranj.

Target species

Any fish caught that was greater than 20cm was a counter for this competition.

This included chub which we did catch a few of during practice but by the time the competition proper started the chub were well and truly in spawning mode and bunched up at the sources of the river at lake Bohinj.

Like many other rivers that flow into the Danube river the Sava system also holds reasonable populations of huchen which are the same fish as taeman and are also known as Danube salmon. These are large fish and during practice we did see some big specimens of around one meter long. Clearly with our 2 and 3 weight rods we were not targeting these fish.

Our real targets were rainbow trout, grayling and brown trout probably in that order. We didn't specifically target marble trout but they behave much the same as brown trout a few of them were caught as a by catch.

Rainbows were reasonably evenly distributed throughout the Sava system and the Kokra. They were where you would expect them to be and that included the slightly faster more oxygenated sections of river as well as any softer water adjacent to faster sections of river and of course in the current itself. For the rainbows depth wasn't an issue and we all caught good rainbows in riffle water of just 20 cm or so deep right through to quite deep water. The browns are not as evenly distributed and they were more dominant in the upper reaches of the Sava Bohinjka often hidden away in softer deeper stretches of river typically protected by some structure.

There are a lot of grayling in the system but most were bunched up in true grayling water. The key element there was large gravely edges or gravely sections of river often with deeper water close by. Grayling congregated in the true grayling water in large numbers and that was reflected in some of the beat outcomes. Within those true grayling waters small fish were dominant in the shallower water and often the larger fish were in the slightly deeper pockets or just on the edge of obvious drop off's.

What have we learnt?

Whilst we have some fantastic fly fishers in Australia I came away from the World's recognising that there are several areas that we can focus on to improve our international competition outcomes.

Doing the basics should never be an issue at the top level of this sport. Whilst I know that all our competitors practice in their own way I would now like to see a more formalised practice approach. Because of our tyranny of distance rather than forcing competitors into too many "training camps" I would like to see the introduction of a mentor program where shortly after selection to international teams, a couple of as local as possible, current and past international competitors are linked as mentors to each competitor to help identify areas that need the focus of attention and to document an individually focused balanced training program. Being local the competitor and his or her mentors could then of course get together a few times to check progress and modify the program as needed. Competitors and mentors should also during the period of selection into a world team and actually heading off use local competitions to get some measure of success of their efforts.

Workload was another point of interest. I had the pleasure of watching Bernad from France fish session 4 on the Sava Bohinjka and for at least 2 hours of the session he carried his second rod in his mouth. He caught 76 fish in the sector on the previous afternoon and 36 fish in think in the session I watched. The combination of carrying the extra rod and getting back to the controller so much quicker than anything I have seen before gave Bernard so much more fishing time during the session than I would have expected. I also watched the Irish competitor below Vern on the last session carry his second rod in his fly vest with the tip poking out over his left shoulder. He also had very quick turn round times when he caught a fish. Since then I have subsequently watched quite a few videos of the Worlds and note that having a second rod with the competitor is not unusual and that generally the anglers with the better outcomes work really hard during their sessions to maximise their actual fishing time. At this years Worlds techniques used particularly by Bernard from France were quite different to how we fish in Australia. I cant help believing that Bernard and probably the other top competitors had a much better handle on the behaviour of Slovenian fish. As a result those competitors make repeated and quick rod changes. We don’t do that and as a result FFA members whilst having alternative rods set up generally loose relatively more time wading back to the bank to change rods. We are also not as practised in our wading techniques and consequently our turn round time when we have a fish measured should be a point of focus.

Whilst touching on techniques we need to make sure that our guides and coaches focus much more on local fish behaviour. One tactic that was briefly mentioned but not really taken up by our team members during practice was 'shuffling". This involves as the name implies shuffling your feet so as to dislodge nymph and other food off rocks. Grayling and it seems also small rainbows respond very positively to the tactic and often move right up to the anglers feet. There is much more to it than that but you get the idea. When there are tactics like shuffling that work in fisheries that are new to us we need to ensure that our guides and coaches make sure that we have understood the new tactics and know when and how to apply them.

Finally, I note that our selection process in Australia often results in no continuity of membership in successive teams. I think it's time to change the selection process to ensure that the best two Australian competitors each year carry forward to the next world team.

Rivers set ups

The maximum leader length under the 2012 Worlds competition rules was two rod lengths. This leader length led to some interesting and effective alternative set ups to the French leader rigs that we had all used in recent years.
Several of our team members opted to use silk lines and they worked well particularly for dry fly presentations.

I had two different set up that I settled on before I left Australia and both were based on my two #3 weight fly rods. Leaders for the worlds were limited to 2 time the length of the fly rod and both my set ups were always as close as I could make them to 22 feet or 6.7 meters long without exceeding that.

My fist set up was for fishing dry fly fishing and that started with my 11 foot #3 weight 4 piece CTS fly rod which was expertly built up by John Fisher. This is a fantastic rod and an absolute pleasure to own and use. I loaded that with a #3 weight Scientific Anglers trout series line. I have taken the loop of that line and have nail knotted 60cm of .55 mm Maxima Ultra Green to the end of the fly line as a sacrificial butt section. I coat the nail knot and back to back uni knots with Loon UV knot sense and they both pass comfortably and smoothly through the rod tip to ensure I can always retrieve enough line when playing a fish to get it comfortably to the net. My leader set up consisted of a 4.5 meter hends Camou leader attached to the sacrificial butt section with back to back uni knots and a tippet of up to 2.0 meters of 0.12 mm Grand Max fluorocarbon. This outfit and set up fishes like a dream and allows both close and longer delicate and accurate presentations. The rod has a soft tip allowing great management of particularly small fish and a tough butt allowing you to put pressure on bigger fish. My biggest fish to date on this set up was prior to heading off to the worlds and that was a brown of around 60 cm. I did hook a fish that was probably bigger than that in the Sava Bohinjka but unfortunately that Rainbow straightened my hook in reasonably fast water.

The second #3 weight rod only arrived in my hands a few days into my trip to Slovenia, which was not ideal, but I had fished with a mates identical rod so I knew what I was getting. That rod is Greys Stremflex XF2 11" #3 weight 4 piece rod and it's just as sweet as my CTS rod. I had that rod earmarked as my nymph rod and it performed that duty beautifully. It looks fantastic, is a pleasure to use and has a dynamic balance between sensitivity through and enough power from the butt up to fight surprisingly big fish. The line I settled on in my practice in Australia is a 1# weight Orvis Hydro Superfine forward taper fly line. I chose this line, firstly because it's dull olive in colour, which is prerequisite for a nymph line for me, and because the running line is finished the same as the forward taper and floats very well and most importantly is only 0.6 of a mm thick and 58 feet long. I have that line loaded on my reel back to front so that I fish the running line and the forward taper is connected to my backing. Off that thin end of the line I have connected with a nail knot a 4.3 meters leader taken from the middle of a 9 meter Camou leader. I initially take a 4.5 meter section from directly above where the Camou leader is 0.3 mm thick and cut the butt off about 4.5 meters (the extra 0.2 meter is taken up in the nail knot to the fly line and the leader half of double uni knot I use at the business end) above that. At the thin end I add two colours (that's around 60 cm) of Cortland bi colour indicator line. I then have 50 cm of 0.16 mm Grand Max followed by up to 1.8 meters of 0.15mm to 0.12 mm tippet. the 50 cm of Grand Max is important as I find that the step down in thickness allows a stronger tippet connection than if I tie my fine tippet directly to the 0.3 mm indicator. This is a great set up and with 3 or 4 meters of the Orvis fly line outside the rod tip it's as close as I could find to fishing a 9 meter Camou leader. In fact in some respects for me this is a better set up than 9 meter Camou leader because the fly line is about 10% thicker than the butt of a 9 meter Camou leader and consequently my Orvis running line set up is easier to cast over longer distances particularly in windier conditions. Sure the 0.6 mm running lime is slightly heavier than the first 3 or 4 meters of the Camou leader that I used to use, but I must say that it's still light enough for it to be held off the water with an 11 foot rod. In faster water particularly there is very little tendency of the hang of that heavier butt section pulling your fly or flies toward you particularly if your using reasonably heavy flies.

Lake Most na Soci

Located in the fishing family Tolmin district Lake Most na Soci was the fifth and only lake sector for the 2012 World's.

Prior to heading off to the Worlds I spent quite a bit of time on the internet looking at information in relation to Lake Most na Soci. The information that I gather and was subsequently confirmed was that the lake is relatively deep except for some shallow areas near the launching area, west of where the paddle boat is moored, opposite the paddle boat on the east bank and just up from the "Gallery" and also opposite that.

The lake was created by damming and flooding the basin of the river to service the nearby Doblar hydro plant. It presents as as the intersection of two flooded rivers and is only about 300 meters wide at its widest point in front of the boat ramp and gets narrower the further you get away from that area. It is not very wind prone as it is located between high mountains but as it turned out there was enough wind during the competition to influence the natural river drift of the lake which runs from west to east. It apparently holds plenty of food dominated by pupa, yabbies and damsels. I note that we also fished flies described as blood worms but these were not blood worms as we know them in Australia. They are a sand worm of around 20mm in length that poke their heads out of the sandy bottom and occasionally mover around finding themselves on the trout's menu.

Under the competition rules competitors were only allowed to have one fly rod set a up at a time and to use one fly. I am pretty sure that without exception the Australian team opted for #6 weight fly rods. We had only one practice session of Lake Most na Soci and we were luck enough for that to be the afternoon before the competition. The team was allocated two boats and based on what we had gleamed from a non-fishing visit to the lake 2 days earlier we had basically identified 4 areas that should be fished. The first three were fairly close to the launching are and the fourth was around 20 minutes by ore up the west arm of the lake. We were also allocated 2.5 hours of practice time including "steaming" to an from where we wanted to practice. "Steaming" is a misnomer as the boats were all powered only by ore. Craig allocated one boat to Vern and myself and our task was the fish the area furthermost away. He set John and Brian the task of fishing a couple of the closer sections for the first 1.25 hours of the practice session and Lubin and Rick the task of fishing the remaining identified section for the final 1.25 hours of practice. Each of them also fished from the bank when they were not in the boat. When we had looked at the lake 2 days earlier with Marko and a contact he had who fish the lake regularly we came to the conclusion that the shallower water was always worth a look. Vern and I therefore headed off to a pretty fishy looking relatively shallow area on the west side of the north arm. We fished there for about 1/2 hour without a touch so moved across the arm and fished the deeper water right into the bank under the overhanging trees. We had one hit and one follow there. We then moved down to the "galley" and Vern swapped over to Marco's bloodworm fly and in short order we both caught good rainbows fishing that slowly on intermediate lines. We were constantly shadowed by other competitors and not wanting to give too much away we disguarded the fish a quietly as possible and swapped over to pulling and fast stripping the fly as we headed slowly back to the launching are hoping to pit the other competitors off. The other guys also had a good practice session and I think we all caught fish which gave us some confidence for a sector that had been a concern. On very short notice Marko tied 6 more of the "blood worms" for us and Lubin tied some red bead head black buggers and these were added to our 2 lake fly boxes.

Most of the flies that finished up in our final lake fly boxes were consistent with woolly buggers and bugger variants that we use in Australia for perhaps the following flies:

Finally, unbeknown to me somebody took a you-tube clip of me fishing the Kokra ... I came 10th in that session ... wish they had got me with a slightly bigger fish:

Or here is a link to range of you-tube clips of the WFFC:

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