Whilst competition fly fishing isn’t my thing, for some of you it is. The results from the 2009 World Championships held in Scotland have just come out, and can be found here. The Australian team, made up of a majority Tasmania contigent, managed to finish just outside the top ten, whilst the English team were the overall winners. This was a great result for the Aussie’s when you consider that some of the top teams in the world, such as the French, are actually paid professional competition fishers.
For those who don’t know, the competitions are like a game of golf: the lowest score ultimately wins. You score points for the fish you catch (numbers) and the overall length of the fish you’ve caught – these points are then converted to a ranking against others anglers in the same session, to provide a score of 1, 2, or 3 etc. You score penalties for not catching fish, usually about 20 points. This is aimed at providing the best scores to those who catch the most fish, the most consistently.
There are no points for matching the hatch, landing an arsey cast, remembering your hip flask, or casting only to sighted fish…