The 2014 FIPS Mouche season of competition is almost upon us. For me personally it started already in January, with the organisation of the International Supervisors for the World Championships in the Czech Republic, the World Youth Championships in Poland & the European Championships in Sweden.
It promises to be an exciting season, the Worlds in the Czech Republic are to be fished on the exact same waters as the 2011 European Championships which were a huge success across the board. Obviously the favourites to win this will be the Czechs, but there will be some serious opposition from the French, Italians and the Polish if we are to look at the results from 2011. I expect that everybody competing in this event will catch at least some fish……..
The World Youth Championships in Poland promises to be an exciting championships for the neutral observer. Team USA have taken 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal in the last 3 years of FIPS Mouche competition, and we can rest assured that they will not let up the pressure this year. Of course they can expect serious rivalry from the Czech youth squad, as well as the Polish and French teams.
The European Championships in Sweden are going to be pretty special for me. I wont be attending as Chief of Supervision this year, but I will be fullfilling a 25 year dream of actually competing at a FIPS Mouche event. Those of you that know me know that I am an Englishman, but after living in The Netherlands for 6 years and being married to a Dutch woman for 16 years, I have been granted Dutch Nationality, which allowed me to take part in the Dutch National Championships and qualify to represent the Dutch National Flyfishing Team in Sweden. Which ever way I choose to look at it, it remains a huge honour, especially as I will represent The Netherlands as Captain.
So, how does this tiny country, with no rivers, no trout & no grayling actually manage to send a team to every World Championships & European Championships? In England we have a saying ‘’beggars cant be choosers!” so we have to fish for the fish that we do have!
The Dutch National Championships are put together by fishing for primarily course fish, such as Roach, Rudd, Bream & Perch. There are of course stocked trout lakes in Holland too, which are included in the championship schedule every year. Usually we will fish 3 matches on course fish in both large shipping canals & park waters, and 3 matches on stocked trout ponds and lakes. These matches are spread out over the whole year with the top 5 earning a place on the Worlds team, and the next 5 earn a place on the European squad.
Its not as easy as it may sound, the course fish matches can be extremely tough, trying to catch minature fish on the fly is not easy at all, and when I say minature I am reffering to fish around 8 to 10cms in length in many cases!!! So the flies need to be VERY small as well, the flies that are used succesfully can be as small as #30, which in itself is a challenge to tie such small nymphs!
So, with the national championships over, and international squads decided it then becomes time for the teams to go into training to compete against countries that have miles of wonderful rivers, full of lovely trout & grayling and anglers that are the best in the world…….not such an easy task in any respect of the word, to start with, where the hell do we go to practice in a country without rivers? Ahh yes, well jump in the team bus and pop over the non existent border and visit our German neighbours, simple logic of course!
This last weekend we had our first team training for the European Squad. Its a four hour drive for us to the nearest river, which in this case was the River Aar in Medebach, Germany. Its a heavily stocked river full of rainbow trout, brown trout, char and the occasional group of grayling. The average width of this river is around 3 meters, with an average depth of 1meter with lot of overhanging trees and bushes, its very much a ‘’bow and arrow’’ fishing river with lots of crawling around on your knees.
We left The Netherlands on Friday night and started the 4 hour drive to Medebach, where team manager and recent ‘’Master of the world’’ Rene Koops had made hotel reservations at his usual resting place when visiting Medebach. A warm welcome with a bar full of smoke and Germans awaited, and the beers soon started flowing freely in the smoky Germanic atmosphere. After a few liters of German brew and of course the traditional plate full of schnitzelgruben, it was time to hit the pillow and get a few hours sleep ready for the day of fishing that awaited us.
The alarm went off at 6am, and after a quick shower it was time to hit the breakfast room for a typical German breakfast of bread, meat cheese and eggs. After a few coffees, off we went to the rivers edge to get geared up for our day of training.
Our “master” manager Rene decided that we should split into 2 groups of 3 anglers, with his group going downstream and my own group going upstream for the morning sessions, to meet back at the team bus at lunchtime then swap directions.
So off we all went into the lovely German nature to start our first team training session!
I started out just slightly downstream from an old bridge, and quickly found the fish, catching 3 doubles in 45 minutes of fishing along with 5 other larger fish, all of them rainbow trout.
This seemed to be the order of the morning, staying with the same method of 2 size 16 cdc nymphs underneath a bouyant sedge pattern, the catches continued up until the lunch break. The other 2 anglers in my group also had steady catches on different methods.
When we arrived back at the team bus to meet up with the other group, it became apparent that they hadnt chosen wisely by going off downstream, as nobody had even felt a fish the whole morning!
After a bit of banter with the “Master” group, it was time for some lunch and a change in direction, with my group going downstream and the ‘’Master’’ group going upstream .
Although it was tough downstream, my group managed to catch quite a good number of fish, but I have the feeling it would have been much better if the temperature of the water was a little higher than 5 degrees, this made for a tough day, especially downstream.
At the end of the day, we came out victorious over the “master” group which was of course lots of fun on the way home in the team bus!
We cant compare a river of this nature to anything that we will encounter in Sweden, but it is quite useful for trying out new patterns and so on, and certainly for the less experienced river anglers in our team, it gives them a good opportunity to learn how modern nymphing techniques are practised.
We will of course be going out for some more practise as a team before the championships start, and the FIPS Mouche season will give me personally the opportunity to practice in the Czech Republic & Poland after my work there is completed of course!
For The Netherlands it will always be very difficult to keep up with the rest of the world when it comes to competitive river fishing, we do not have the water, the species or the resources. That said, I know that the boys that will go to Sweden later this year, will be prepared to the best of their ability, and will go into the competition with a Dutch lion mentality, and at the end of that week in August, we will all be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and know that we gave 110% effort and did the absolute best that we could have done towards achieving our team goal of finishing higher than any other Dutch European Championship team.
Jason Lieverst
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