Italy finished fourth, Norway a creditable fifth and the Czech Republic sixth

Throughout the six sessions French anglers were dominant, and in the final individual placings they filled three of the top ten. In the end, the local knowledge of the Welsh team just edged Australia out of the silver spot, but it sure was a close thing. Italy finished fourth, Norway a creditable fifth and the Czech Republic sixth. England came in a very disappointing 12th. I will give a full list later. The competition was fished on Chew Valley Lake, Blagdon Lake and the River Test. The lakes fished well without giving of their best for May. It is quite usual for dry fly fishing to be the main method at this time of the year, but we had three days of steady cold wind, and with the drogues in use being so small, the boats drifted at a considerable speed. This lead to most anglers seeking the comfort of the bays and both Villice and Herrons Green were the areas most fished. On Chew the vast majority of trout were caught on nymphs – either diawl bachs or superglue buzzers in their various colours. The French team have this style of fishing down to a fine art and it was a delight to watch them put it into practice. It was no great secret to most of the competitors what style to fish and where the best numbers were to be found. Blagdon proved to be a little more difficult and all sessions there saw several blanks recorded. Someone pulling lures won each day on Blagdon but that didn’t stop most of the field sticking to nymphs. The two river beats on the Test were amazingly different. The upper river was very clear and produced many smaller wild trout. The lower Test had some anglers pegged on side rivers (I heard a few anglers refer to these as “drainage ditches”), and these poor anglers had to watch their fellow competitors fish mayfly patterns amid huge rises of fish taking the naturals. It begs the question as to why there cannot be a rotation of beats. This would also make the bank session on the lake a great deal fairer too. It would certainly mean that there could not be a result such as, on the first day of bank fishing on Chew, when Pascal Cognard, who ended as the individual champion, caught eleven trout whilst the majority of fishermen were struggling for a “take”. I am not trying to take anything away from Pascal as he was by far the most outstanding angler over the three days, but fortune certainly favoured him on that day! I will look at the competition in depth next week, but would like to end by saying that I was involved with the Australian team as their local guide. You couldn’t have met a nicer bunch of people. We tend to picture Aussies as being brash – almost to the extent of thinking of them as arrogant; these people were A1 and I look forward to going over to fish with them in their country as soon as I can afford an airline ticket. Here are the full team results and the top ten individuals.

Individuals: