Lets have a debate on this! Get your opinions in.

With the Foot and Mouth problem still in the news, the Irish team opted out of the event leaving just three others: England, Scotland and Wales. On their home water England were hot favourites, especially as there were several of the local Midlands trout anglers on representative duty. Graham Pearson, Martin Introna, Iain Barr and Lee Henfry are just four of those who were tipped to do well; Iain in particular, having just won the Bob Church Classic on the same water, was a good tip!Practise showed that the fish were feeding well down in the water and, although the lads from the North-East found that nymphs were consistently successful, by far the majority of those in the match honed their fast sinking line techniques. The fishing tackle shop in the lodge sold out of all of their seriously fast lines, such as the DI-8, as anglers found that the demands of three days hard fishing with these proved almost too much. My friend John Horsey was representing England and he reported to me that several fishermen were suffering from nasty gashes of their index fingers due to the constant fast retrieve that was deemed necessary. He himself had more fish by fishing his flies slowly, but at great depth.Come Friday – match day – all plans had been made, and partners were introduced. The Scottish team had done very well in practice and this continued into the match leaving them with a huge margin of victory. They were 25 fish clear of the second placed England team. Below is a summary of the result: 1st Scotland 115 trout 262lbs 15oz 2nd England 90 trout 206lbs 12oz 3rd Wales 82 trout 185lbs 11ozTop individual wins the Brown Bowl and this went to Hugh Law of Scotland who caught 12 fish weighing 28lbs 11oz. The biggest trout caught was one weighing 7lbs 4oz and John Henshaw of England had that specimen.The top four rods for the England team go forward to fish in the Autumn International which will be fished at Loch Leven in September. These were:1. Lee Henfry2. Davy Hodgson3. Martin Introna4. John HorseyIain Barr, however, sadly came bottom rod and didn’t live up to earlier expectations! Talking with John afterwards I asked him if he thought that it was a good competition, especially bearing in mind that the vast majority of the trout caught came to orange “blob” flies: a concoction of vivid fritz packed onto the hook! John’s response was that you cannot knock this sort of fishing as many of the lads taking part in the competition really enjoy fishing fast sinking lines and stripping tactics. I noted “Trout Fisherman’s” editorial in which Chris Dawn raised the issue of racing to catch “stockies ” during fishing competitions in order to prove that one is a better angler than another. In recent weeks I have touched on this in my articles. I would be very keen to hear what readers think about these issues. Please email the editor with your views as I would love to give some feedback on this matter to my readership. There is no doubt that to fish a fast sinking line, and catch fish consistently, requires a great deal of skill; there is also no doubt that with the heavy level of stock fish in our reservoirs at the moment this seems to be a top method of catching the fish. However, I have reservations about the image that this type of fishing gives to newcomers to the sport, or indeed to outsiders.

Lets have a debate on this! Get your opinions in.