I got the sleep that was needed! If I sound excited it’s because it was so nice to feel great this morning after my first good night sleep since arriving in the Czech Republic. Furthermore, today was simply a beautiful fall day with light wind and falling leaves everywhere you looked. Our drive to the practice waters was a gorgeous one.
In case you’re just tuning in, Jerry Arnold and I are doing the recon work for Team USA Masters Fly Fishing Team. Our World Masters Fly Fishing Championship starts next week on October 5th. There will be five of us. Jerry is the manager and sponsor and I’m one of four anglers. My other teammates, Pete Erickson, Mike Sexton and Brett Bishop arrive on Friday.
The competition will have four 3 hour sessions. Three will be on the Morava River and one on a lake. We aren’t allowed to fish the actual competition waters so today we practiced between Sector 1 & 2 on the Morava.
Sector 1 & 2 are the skinny water sections of the river and will require patience and stealth. This part of the river has small brown trout and European grayling. Unfortunately the most effective way to catch these wily fish is with nymphs – no indicator. In other words, by “Czech Nymphing”.
I’m far from being a nymph fisher but I do enjoy fishing in the Worlds Comps. It’s not only a blast to get to travel the world but also amazing to learn new fly fishing techniques. While I’ll be the first to say I prefer dry fly fishing, I’m enjoying the heck out of the Czech nymphing this week. And it’s especially fun because of our guide and top Czech angler, David Chlumsky. David has been teaching us, demonstrating and fishing side by side with us. He catches more but he has Jerry and I nymphing extremely effectively.
The quick report is we had a fantastic day of fishing. I got in my groove and nymphed out more than 15 beautiful browns and graylings in the morning. In the afternoon we practiced on the lower Morava in the same area as yesterday. This area is much tougher due to high and off color water. Its also tough wading. But here I hammered on the European chubs which will count in the tourney.
It was a great day. Being alert and awake is beautiful thing! Tomorrow the rest of the Team USA Masters arrive and as of now we aim to take it very easy and rather than fish, simply look at some of the competition water which is close to actual fishing.
Got sidetracked so I am catching up reading the posts in order. Still exciting!.