5 AM came quick. Currently its day three of the World Masters Fly Fishing Championships. I headed for the feared Noce River. While both sections of the Noce, the Upper and Lower have skunked more competitors than any of the three rivers, the Lower is by far the toughest. Its where Loren blanked yesterday. I have the Lower last but today I was on the Upper.
Its long bus ride of about 90 plus minutes. I got there and they read off the beat numbers. I drew beat 3. I knew nothing about 3 but as my judge/controller walked me to it, I was happy. It was a lot of fast moving water but when I broke it down piece by piece I noticed places of slow deep water where trout should live. I got ready feeling confident as I went.
My controller was a cool guy. While he didn’t speak English he was fluent in Spanish. I’m no scholar in Spanish but I’ve been around the block when it comes to Spain and South America so we chatted a little. It was nice to talk to the judge. He was a really cool guy and he was quick to tell me my beat on the first two days only produced three fish each time. While three would score ok, our team is in medal contention and I really needed to do better.
When the clock struck 9 AM I went to work. I started at the bottom of my beat and waded directly across to a dark undercut grassy bank. It looked incredibly fishy and I hoped I’d knock off a fish ASAP. But despite looking great there was no fish. I’ll assume one of the two anglers competing here the last two days moved him already.
I had other water to hit and dry droppered my way up through some decent holes in the middle of the river. Slurp! I stuck one fast and into the net he went. A perfect 24 cm brown trout. On the boards in the first 15 minutes.
Eventually I arrived at an amazing looking pool. I squatted down and eased my way along with the dry dropper. Soon I was in full crawl mode covering every inch. It took me about ten minutes to reach the top and when my caddis dry hit the water a large trout rose for it. It was my best marble trout of the trip. It was a brutal fight and I nearly lost him twice but finally to my relief I got him to the net. A 37 cm beauty. This is not the one but rather a similar marble from practice. There’s hardly time or sense in taking the camera out while fishing during competition.
In fact, I’ll just sum things up because I don’t have any pictures and no stories to tell like yesterday. During the next two hours I fished my butt off crawling and wading through very fast water over slippery rocks. I went down several times and by the end of the session the feet and lower legs of my waders were carrying several gallons of water. But it was worth it. I landed six measurable fish. My score was 4.
All of us kicked ass today and Team USA is in first place. We can’t believe it. In the nearly 40 years of adult competition history Americans have never taken gold. There are two more days, a long way to go, but we’re in a good place.
Ok. Every inch of my body feels the pain caused by todays fishing. It was intense, but a gratifying day to look back on. Good night. 5 AM will come early again.