World Champs Report 2003

In mid June The New Zealand Fly Fishing Team again competed at the World Fly Fishing Championships, held in Spain. It was a triumph just for the team to get there this year, after not competing in the 2002 championships held in France, due to the expense involved in getting there. New Zealand was represented by Ian Gibbs (Auckland ), Don Short (Waikato), Chris Shadbolt (Taupo), Aaron West and Des Armstrong (Manawatu),Strato Cotsilinis (Wellington) was Reserve and Captain and Jill Mandeno was the Manager. This article is a summary of Jill Mandeno's reports which were regularly received throughout the event.

The competition headquarters was Jaca (pronounced like HAKA but in the back of your throat) which is located high in the Pyrenees surrounded by very old and worn mountains. It sits at 820 meters above sea level and on the original flood plain of the Aragon River (it is now cutting down a new one). The mountains are composed of a wide mixture of very old and fractured rock types including beds of deep (iron red) sandstone, which pours into the river as heavy red sand after any reasonable shower, slate, large areas of boulders from what is probably a terminal moraine for ice age glaciers. In consequence all the rivers are very rocky with large boulders throughout the water.

Though high in the mountains, the temperature soared to between 30 & 40 degrees, day after day. Sunburn and dehydration was a major concern for everyone fishing.

The local trout, known in Spanish as Trucha Comun or Farrio Brown Trout, are abundant throughout the water. In spite of the seeming abundance of food, they do not seem to grow very large and the largest fish taken in the tournament was not more than 40 cm. Most of the trout were at the limit of 20 cm, or under and every team caught many trout which do not count. Barbel are common in the rivers and seem to grow to more than 10 pounds. The Barbel seemed very happy to take orange woolly buggers!! Which added to the frustration, as they do not count, not being a Sports fish

The lack of grayling in these waters helped the New Zealand Team and several other Teams, who do not have Grayling in their home water. This has traditionally been an advantage to the teams who are used to fishing for those wily customers.

The fishing took place on River Veral (Small Mountain Stream), Aragon Subordan (Mid Size River), Aragon River (Mid Size River), River Gallego (Large River) and Lake Escarra. The river conditions were generally good, clear with a little bit of snow melt, although the River Gallego rose and fell with Hydro requirements and this severely effected the fishing. The fishing overall was very difficult, with many blanks (Catching nothing in your session) recorded. The dry flies, and particularly the Parachute Adams worked well for the NZ team, although keeping the little fish on the hook and getting them successfully to the net proved extremely challenging.

The New Zealand Team competed extremely well over the three days of competition and finished a very creditable tenth overall, best of all we finished 2 places ahead of the Australians, which always feels good. Things seemed to go better for the team in the mornings and wilted for us in the afternoons. The best placed Kiwi Angler was Aaron west who came in 25th.

The World Champions are again the French, who retain their title, just pipping the Belgians, and the Spaniards picking up the Bronze. The individual World Champion is Stefano Cotugno of Italy.

The World Championships in 2004 are to be held in Slovakia, again a New Zealand Team has been selected and will be representing us, provided they get the funding and Sponsorship to get there. Composite Developments have again agreed to sponsor the team in 2004 , this ensures that the Team will have a selection of high quality technically advanced Fly Rods, to help them compete against the World.

"Let's all get behind the New Zealand Fly Fishing Team!"