I believe that more members should join in an event like this

My club, Bristol Reservoirs Fly Fishers Association, organises a competition throughout the trout season called the “Knock-out”. All those who enter are paired up against each other and fish their various rounds as the season progresses until the final is fished, during the late season competition held in early September. In the past, winners of this prestigious trophy have been John Dawson, John Horsey, Dave Monks and more recently Tony Baldwin. I enter the event every year – I believe that more members should join in an event like this – but I have yet to get through to the final. However over the years this competition has provided me with some of my most memorable days and given me the opportunity to fish with people who have become life-long friends.Way, way back – when the competition was in its infancy, I drew to fish with Martin Cairncross. I did not know him at the time, we soon became good friends. We fished on a tough day in May – unusual in those days on Chew. We started off at Stratford but only moved a couple of fish. We moved around the lake and soon realised that we were in for a tough day. Just below Wick Green I had a positive take and struck into what turned out to be a brownie on the top dropper (an orange winged soldier palmer) and a rainbow on the point (a green tagged stick fly). We moved off to the dam and in those pre-dry fly days couldn’t touch the fish that were smutting in a large slick off one of the bubbles. Martin wasn’t keen to spend long there, claiming that those fish were uncatchable! During the day we fished hard but not another fish was boated. So on a really tough day I had qualified for the next round with two fish caught and landed at the same time.Another year I fished with the legendary Stan Pope, a man who qualified to fish for England when he was eighty years old! We had a lovely day with fish moving. We both caught a few, I believe about five each, though Stan’s fish were larger so he went through to the next round. What reminds me constantly of that day are two aspects. Firstly, the fish were as fit as they could have been and every one of them ran out behind the boat. When this happened to Stan he just put his rod down, stood up, turned around, got himself comfortable and started playing his fish again! On not one occasion did his fish come unstuck! So much for keeping a tight line. The other vivid memory is of Stan’s colourful language towards the yachtsmen as he was playing fish. Really Stan was pretty quiet when he was fishing, but boy did he change when he was playing a fish and the yachts came near us. I don’t suppose it helped that there were races on and that we were in their course!Another year I reached the semi-final and fished against Biker. As is his want, he had spent a couple of days out practising. He knew that the best spot was Villice Bay. We set off and fished hard. I was on dries and he was on nymphs. I moved a good number of fish but they were reluctant to take the fly. Biker had a few pulls but the fish were mostly tentative. As the session drew to a close ( we had opted just for an evening trip) we caught a trout each, but then Biker caught something that looked a bit larger – it was a pike! Next cast he had a perch and five minutes later he had a roach. On the scales my trout was half an ounce heavier than his, but I couldn’t really claim to have out-fished him on that evening, so Biker went on to fish the final.Then there was the year that I drew to fish my pal Geoff Lambert. We went out and fished our knock-out round in the Orvis competition. It was an ideal day in May. I opted to fish dries (it isn’t really much of a problem to opt for that method!). We fished in front of the Yacht Club and I steadily caught trout including one of 4lbs 5oz. I caught my eighth fish at 2.35 (all this is taken from my diary) and went on to win the Orvis Competition by a considerable margin. Poor old Geoff had one of those days. Soon after I had finished he caught his first fish. He went on to get a few more, but he just couldn’t get things right for some inexplicable reason.What got me onto this subject was the fact that I have just had a smashing evening afloat with Alan Ward – whom I drew to fish with in this year’s knock-out. I had never met Alan before though he comes over to Chew fairly regularly, we soon struck up a mutual friendship. He had been told that I would fish dries and as that is an aspect of the sport that he isn’t yet too good at he decided to try and match me on that! On our first couple of drifts we both moved several fish. Then I caught one – a small fish for Chew at only 1lb 4oz, but next drift Alan had a much larger trout, which fought incredibly hard. At one stage it looked like it was going to swim straight through the tree roots that we were drifting past. When he landed it we saw that he had been playing it with the top dropper embedded in its back – Alan immediately offered to put it back, but we also noticed that the point fly was fairly and squarely in the trout’s mouth. There was no question of him returning the fish. The wind dropped a little and I fairly quickly caught my four fish for the evening ticket and then returned another couple. Alan stuck with it and had another three trout and could have had seven in all. When the fish are moving as they did for about half an hour, I feel far more confident, and certainly fancy that I will beat most people in the boat with me. However when the fish are “coming blind” then it is often the person with the biggest flies that does best. I rarely fish large flies confidently, though John Horsey pushed that lesson home at Rutland in the Hardy competition.I now look forward to my next round and another new angler to share a boat with. I will report on that in the future.Tight lines,

Martin Cottis