Posts Tagged ‘competitions’

1st league

Červenec 20, 2016 - 1:28 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

tonda-1 The spring part of the First Czech Fly-fishing League was held in the South Moravia, in the river Svratka. We had big respect to this competition, as we qualified to this privileged society last year for the first time. I was practising there two times, river was full of fish, but in my opinion, individual sections were not similar, somewhere was a lot of fish and some parts were very difficult. Competition is composed by spring and autumnal parts and every part consist from four 3-hours sessions with rotation after 90 minutes in every session, everybody fishes two sessions and judges two sessions.

I was judging during first session on the Saturday morning, so I could observe best competitors in the world in action and it was very educating. In my session in the afternoon, I decided to start with nymphs but I had only two fish in the scoring card after 30 minutes, what a surprise, so I moved to dry fly and caught another 15 fish in the next 60 minutes, it was not bad, but the first 30 minutes of wasting time costed me better place. In the second part of my session I was fishing only with dries and I caught only 7 fish and lost another 5 and my result was good enough only for the last 10th place. What an awaking :-)

On Sunday morning in my second session, I started immediately with dries and I get first fish on the very first cast, finally I caught 40 fish and gained 3 place. My suspicions were proved during competition as there were “wining beats”, “average beats” and “looser beats”.  First day, I had one “average beat” and one “looser beat”, I was fishing poorly, so the result was poor. Second day, I had one “winner beat” and one “average beat”, I was fishing well and my result was also not bad, in fact, I had not chance to beat competitors in the first and second place as they had great beats and caught over 60 fish.

Who says that present fly fishing and mainly competitions are only about rolling of nymphs on french leader is far away from reality, nymphing is easy and everybody has the same patterns, same rods, but dry fly can make difference !!!

My mates from our team were fishing like me, so we finished on the unpopular 9th place (first falling) after spring round, but distance to the 8 place is not big. It was big experience, and we are ready to fight for better place in the autumnal round which we are hosting in Vltava river.

Spring in Květoňov lake – third victory in Spring Květoňov Cup in the last three years :-)

Květen 13, 2016 - 11:04 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1230548 Since 2015, our small trout reservoir Květoňov is open all year around. However, it is in fact fishable usually from March till December. We plan to try also ice-fishing during winter, but ice has not been strong enough during last two years. Ice disappeared this spring during first week of March and in the mid March we stocked first fresh fish and next we have stocked fish every three weeks. I have visited lake few times and fishing was always good, mixed stock od older fish and stockies of different size offers a chance for few takes every day and every day it is a chance for a fish of about 50 cm. Generally, I found out, that fish were relatively deep, and my yellow and black flies work well :-)

In the first weekend in May, I attended our traditional competition called “Spring Květoňov cup” which I also help to organise. This competition is very prestigious in our club and concurrence is always increased by attendance of people from Czech A and B teams. It was again big portion of luckiness, but I gained again victory . However, considering the third and fifth place from Hanák Open from the last two years, I became specialist on this lake :-)

Fish were very deep considering Czech conditions, where competitions usually take part in carp put and take ponds with water of transparency up to 50 cm, I guess they were in the depth of 3-4 m, I was fishing slow and fast glass lines Airflow 40 + or Hanak Competition Camou intermediate line, and yellow, black and white lures and leader HC 0,20.

My advice is: Use proper equipment, cast as far as possible, wait before start of pulling, often change frequency and speed of pulling and always hang.

Trip to Slovakia to competition called “Kežmarská Zlatná”

Květen 13, 2016 - 10:39 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

p1240125 Luboš Roza and Milan Čubík offered me to join them during journey to a competition in one nice small reservoir located under Tatra Mountains in Slovakia. What a nice trip, I caught 72 fish in two days and gained second place. My method? Fast glass line, long leader and fishing deep and slowly :-) I tested brand new Hanak competition hooks for lake fishing and they were fantastic.

System of fly-fishing competitions in the Czech republic

Říjen 13, 2013 - 11:22 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

Many people have asked me about system of competition in Czech and how we select our teams.

We have about 300 000 anglers organised in Czech Angling Union, and about 20 000 of them buy permits for trout waters. We have about 500 active fly-fishing competitors and about 50 competitions. We have regular competitions (1st league, 2nd league and regional divisions) and open cups.
Results from all fly fishing competitions (fished by FIPS-MOUCHE rules) are counted to the annual ranking every year. From every competition you can get number of points according its quality, number of points decreased with your placing (usually -1 point by one place). For example:

victory in sector in 1.league = 30 points
victory in sector in 2.league = 24 points
victory in Czech lake or river championships = 40 points
victory in WFCH = 60 points
victory in EUCH = 50 points
victory in any open cup with at least 40 competitors = 30 points

- only 2 abroad competitions can be included

The 7 best results are counted to the annual ranking. Best 14 competitors from the ranking competes next year in elimination (it consists from 5 rounds similarly like WCH) and results from elimination (1-14) are counted with results from next year ranking (1-14) and first 5 go to World and second 5 go to European championships. For example, for WFCH 2014 there are counted results from ranking 2013 and elimination 2013 (to attend this elimination you had to be in top 14 in 2012). This system requires top results in last two seasons.

Ranking and results of individual competitions are accessible on-line at special website<

Youths have similar system, only best 5 results from 8 youth competitions are counted to the youth ranking .

 

Start of the season 2013

Duben 29, 2013 - 6:24 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

potocak The fishing started slowly comparing with last season due to longer winter, it is similar probably in the whole Europe. I spent the opening day April 16th with friends at Květoňov lake, we were there just before the 6 a.m. The nice mild weather and the dawn on the eastern sky welcomed about 50 fishermen, all banks were occupied like during competitions and on the water surface was traffic of boats and belly boats.  Fish were taking from really first casts, everybody was satisfied and everybody caught a good fish, the biggest trout was caught by Franta Hanak (as usually :-)) The best line was Di3 or fast glass and the best flies were lures or boobies in light colours, surprisingly the  black/green combination was not good. I caught majority of fish on yellow lure with silver bead. They were also caught come big pikes, but majority of pikes were parading along the banks without any interest in our flies as they were preparing for spawning. I saw one crocodile of the length about 1,3 m followed by two smaller males.
I returned after few days, weather was very warm but light breeze promised nice fishing. After few missed takes we found that fish search more for natural food as there occurred an occasional hatch of lake olives and olive buzzers. And probably all of them had been already caught by a lure. I caught about 10 fish (both rainbow and brook trout) on black and olive buzzers, the best method was to pull flies on hover or slow glass line and change speed of retrieve, the take usually came during the speed-up. So it was nice afternoon and good practice for England, to which we are flying in the end of April.

I also visited the trophy fishery Vltava 24, we stocked again really good fish and the icing on the cake is brown trout in weight 3-4 kg. As the flow in river is still high, the best method is streamer, I caught majority of fish on pink or white combinations. The first rises of olives and sedges hopefully attract fish to surface, I saw some occasionally rising fish, but I was to lazy to change rod and I caught two of them on nymph. I took one rainbow home and he had in stomach buds of trees, so it was probably the reason why he was rising. Lets tie the brown/green buds :-) . I also found nest of kingfisher.

I got the hot message that the Czech republic was approved by the Congress of FIPS MOUCHE to organise The World Fly Fishing Championship 2014, so if you would like to see top fishermen in water, come in May 2014 to South Bohemia. The schedule of the championship will be similar like the EFFC 2011, if you are interested find the link on the main page.

 

HANÁK OPEN 2012

Prosinec 27, 2012 - 12:29 am Komentáře nejsou povoleny

Pavel Kudrna The last weekend in September belongs to the peak of the fly-fishing competition season for our competitors as well as for our foreign friends. The bank holiday 28th September fell on Friday, therefore the Hanák Open Series started with Svatováclavský cup at the Květoňov lake.
As we welcomed 72 competitors,  we stocked 1200 rainbows (including fish over 2 kg), we ordered great refreshment stand,  I prepared special draw composed by six rounds which includes four rounds in all four sectors and two breaks for every competitor … but despite of suitable weather, the competition was absolute flop,  it was caught only 149 fish altogether, fresh stocked fish did not take and the big fish lethargically tottered along the banks and were probably easy target for local pikes. Interesting finding from this competition for everybody was unquestionable fact, that under this terrible conditions could win only the best competitors, who were able to concentrate and to score from sporadic takes.  (I had no any take :-) The Svatováclavsky cup 2012 was deservedly won to Roman Heimlich, who caught fish in all four rounds as well as the runner up Pepa Hanák.

We don´t exactly know what happened with the stocked rainbows, but this fish did not died, they were not visibly ill, but they started to take gradually during next four weeks. Fish were probably affected by long transport, for the future it is necessary to stock not only one sort of fish, but to combine fish from local hatchery with fish from other suppliers and it is necessary to find another supplier.

team south-east (jihovychod) The Theodor Kouba Memorial hosted 40 teams from five countries including top Czech competitors (inclusive of 18 medallist from European and World Championships). Before the competition, we stocked 700 kg of rainbows from raft (to every beat 20 fish), but they were unfortunately from the same supply like the fish in Květoňov lake.
Before the official draw in Lesanka pub, I made short meting for foreign teams as usually to have time to welcome old good friends and to explain rules of competition, as we had prepared something new. Minimal size of fish was decreased to 15 cm and fish were only counted, not measured. Competitor only showed fish in the net to judge and released it back. In case of doubt, competitor is required to go to judge and to measure the fish. Every team can measure bigger fish, as in the case of the same number of caught fish, better is the team with the bigger fish. The main aim of this rule was to limit handling and replacement of caught fish and to protect them, second aim was to try to make competition more fair as stocked rainbows are usually concentrated in few beats with deep pools and it is very difficult to beat this beats.
Everybody went to sleep after draw and few beers as the first round started at 9 o’clock. I again fished with my friend Jiří Pejchar in the team called South-East, the third one was Míla Trousil, member of the Czech Youth Team. I always don´t fish in the first round in the case, that it is necessary to solve a problem. Boys had relatively good richly rugged beat in the Sector B and they thoroughly hoovered it, however their 82 fish was not enough for the first place which was taken by 90 fish !!! In the afternoon, we had one of the best beats in the Sector C, the big pool called “At the Track” . But the problem was, that stocked rainbows did not take and there is not to many browns. I was fishing with Míla and we could not catch on, but after approximately one hour I “tuned” my leader and started catching fish. I finally caught 16 fish and Míla added another 8 and our 24 fish sufficed for the 6th place, if only we have caught 6 more fish, we took 3rd place in this round and the bronze medal in the whole competition. On Saturday evening was official dinner, roasted dug with dumplings and cabbage was amassing and  whole party was great, it is always good to see old friends. I was surprised, that people who claim that they don´t speak English were almost fluent in the end of party.
In the last round we had relatively good long beat in the Sector C, it was caught there 47 and 67 fish on Saturday. Our bank of the river was shallow with weed, behind the weed was significant edge and the middle and the opposite part of the river had the ideal depth of 0,5-1,5 m. We were fishing upstream and I was searching the middle of the river with three a little heavy nymphs while Jiří was going after me and he was focusing on the opposite bank of river with many pools and backwaters. We started well catching fish during first few casts, but after 15 minutes I told Jiří, that except serious takes on the point fly (black with cooper head) I had few short hits which I could not convert. He had the same experience and we decided to change silver bead of the fly in the middle of the cast, I used orange tag jig with cooper bead and Jiří the same fly but with violent bead, and it worked well, fish had probably seen to many silver beads on Saturday. We caught altogether 75 fish including brown trout, rainbow trout, brook trout, grayling and dace, and it was victory in the last round which lifted us to the total 6th place. What a shame the second round.

It was caught 4605 fish and the Theodor Kouba Cup was won by the team from our Fly fishing club České Budějovice, detailed results and more pictures you can find here

First competition this year – Fly-Fishing Marathon at Jestřabice lake

Duben 3, 2012 - 8:07 pm Komentáře nejsou povoleny

my-last-fish Me and my mate Lukáš Pazdernik usually start fishing season at Spring Fly-Fishing Marathon held at Jestřabice Lake in the end of March. We always go on Friday afternoon to meet fishing friends, drink some beer, talk about fishing and prepare rods for the competition as it starts at 7:30. It is competition of couples and every of 44 couples walks around the 12 acres lake two times in 10 sessions, so a lot of fishing and a lot of walking. Fishing is always good there, I remember one year, when we caught 78 fish and we occupied 12th place and winning couple got 114 fish.

Lukáš picked me up on Friday at 5 p.m. as usually and we headed of the Moravia, eastern part of Czech republic. Weather looked not good as last two weeks were unusually hot but there came cold front connected with strong wind and snow showers on Thursday. Evening was great as we met a lot of friends and we had a lot of things to talk and we were in beds at midnight. In the morning was cloudy, rainy, strong northern wind and 3°C, but we started full of ambitions. We sobered up very quickly, mainly me could not catch a fish in majority of places and we caught altogether only about 30 fish and finished in 22nd place (which is our worst ever result), whiles winners got 58 fish.  I thing, that we were fishing to high as we expected fish in waves under surface. Lukas caught few good older fish on light flies and floating line, but stockies were definitely deeper, I asked few friends and they were fishing Di 3 – Di5 lines and boobies. But it was nice trip and good experience.