FIPS-Mou events - THIS IS NOT THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE

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by Karel Křivanec

what-is-going-on-at-the-general-assembly-fips-mou-2019On Friday, 3 May, the General Assembly of the International Fly Fishing Federation is going to be held in Almaty (Kazakhstan). The meeting will follow traditional scheme and also the organization of the following championships will be assigned. One of the most important points on the agenda is the approval of changes in the competition rules. These changes will be applied already from this year. The motion is submitted by the Presidential Board and at the beginning it needs to be said that the number of proposed changes is extraordinarily high. The motion says that the Ladies World Championship should be held from 2020. I have been promoting the independent Ladies World Championship for about 10 years and I am pleased that this point is now ready for approval.

Written by Karel Křivanec

Photographs taken by Igor Slavík

01 David with huge brown troutThis year‘s World Fly Fishing Championship was held in the Italian town of Comano Terme in the valley of the Sarca River, between 17th and 23rd September. Twenty-nine teams and 148 individuals took part in this event. This article was written based on the views of Czech competitors who I interviewed during the October elimination competition in South Bohemia. I wanted to heal the silence which started after last year’s season when the team captain and a team manager finished and I wanted to preserve a traditional Czech view of the highest world event for fly fishermen. From this point of view, I would like to remind that the Czechs were second in Slovakia 2017 and Antonin Pesek (CZE) won his second world individual trophy.

And now to the Italian championship where the Czechs had a team consisting of Antonin Pesek (Fishing Captain), Frantisek Kouba, David Chlumsky, Vojtech Unger, Lukas Starýchfojtu and Igor Slavík as a Team Manager. The team had a week-long preparation before the Championship at the venue where David Chlumsky managed to catch a beautiful brown trout on the Sarca River (705 mm).

 

By Karel Křivanec

Bronze teamBetween 6 and 12 August 2018, the 17th Youth World Fly Fishing Championship was held on the San River. This time 10 teams were present, 8 from Europe and one from the USA and one from South Africa, i.e. altogether two teams less than in Slovenia a year ago. Unfortunately, also British teams were missing this time and therefore the only representative from the islands was the Irish team which takes part regularly in these championships.

After the last year’s failure in Slovenia (5th place), the Czech team changed the coach and now the coach was Martin Musil Jr., a student of ichthyology, who became the Youth World Champion in France in 2012. Jiří Pejchar, President of the Czech National Fly Fishing Committee, was the Team Manager was and a member of more numerous accompaniment was Tomáš Starýchfojtů, former successful Czech competitor and a coach of the senior team.

By Pavel Chyba

06 Pavel Chyba My fourth participation in the European Championship was this year on the Vltava River in our country and the Květoňov Reservoir. I did not like premature opinions that we are fishing at home and the result is clear and you will only see who will be the first, who the second, etc. As I also remember the World Championship 2014 in our country, when we really worked hard and we had a great piece of luck and nothing was clear until the very last round. Nevertheless, extremely strong Czech team consisted of four individual and four multiple European Champions in teams and this filled me up with optimism that this time I could touch the European gold medal in teams. This was the last medal which I was missing in my collection.

Two weeks before the Championship my new fan Matthew was born and I could not take part in the first trainings. I chose classic practice before the Championship. I arrived as the last one of our team, but some guys went home to see families and we somehow changed during the trainings. I will not describe in detail what all we were testing. Simply said, we tried all fly fishing styles and with all styles we caught something. Who knows the Vltava River, must know that the river is full of fish and you can fish with anything. However, it is important to choose the important things. And now to the competition itself …

 

By Karel Křivanec

01 Nastup tymu v HerbertoveBetween 6 and 11 June 2018, 24th European Fly Fishing Championship was held in South Bohemia. Fourteen male and three female teams applied for this competition. Two competition sectors were marked on the Vltava 28 between Vyšší Brod and Rožmberk and one sector was marked on the Vltava 29 in “Devil’s  Rapids”, which is a bouldered stream flowing from the Lipno Reservoir and ending in the Lipno 2 Equalizing Reservoir. Two lake competitions in the trout reservoir called Květoňov (6 ha) located near a small town of Kaplice were added into the competition scheme.

written by Ivan Vančura

01This year’s European Fly Fishing Championship was held in Portugal between 14. 5 – 21 .5. 2017.

The Czech team consisted of Lukáš Starýchfojtů (Lukyn), Tomáš Adam (Ogar), Lukáš Jahn, Miloslav Hosenseidl (Milda) and me - Ivan Vančura. With respect to winter turbulences in our National Fly Fishing Committee, when both the Manager, Martin, and the Coach of the National team, Tomáš, resigned, we went to this Championship without these two important officials and I was forced to take over their responsibility. The flew to Portugal without any bigger problems. The only obstacle was the pick-up of booked and paid cars in Porto. This cost us almost 3 hours of time and nerves.

by Karel Křivanec

grayling european championship in poland 2016 01Between 3rd and 8th October, the 22nd European Fly Fishing Championship was held in the surroundings of the town of Slupsk in the North of Poland. Sixteen teams including three women teams took part. With respect to this year’s World Championship in the USA, traditional teams from Italy, Slovakia and Luxembourg were missing and also the Czech Republic sent only 5 competitors without the coach and a Team Manager for financial reasons. These competitors were Lukáš Jahn, Miloslav Hosenseidl, David Chlumský, Vojtěch Ungr and Miloslav Šenkýř. I was there with my shop, because I was invited by Polish friends and I could watch this championship a little from the background.

The centre of the Championship was the Lupawa (Slupia) river, were four sufficiently long sectors were marked. A speciality of this Championship was the fact that only grayling was regarded as eligible species on the beautiful river, but there were enough brown trout, and rainbow trout and practically all other fish species were eligible (minimal size 15 cm) in the competition which took place on a local lake in the city park, excluding pike, which influenced the final competition results from the Czech point of view.

By Luboš Roza

01After about a 14-hour long flight, we landed in Denver where we rented a car and travelled to Vail, a skiing resort located about 2,500 m above sea level, where our fried Kristen and her husband Tom were waiting for us. They have a holiday house here and they provided us asylum for the two weeks of our preparation.

The sun and a great view surprised us on the morning and this in fact remained for the entire length of our stay. There was almost no rain, except only one day and one night and this was very little. We firstly met water on the Eagle River. A medium-size river could be compared to the Otava River in our country. We took our things, put on goratex waders by Agama and I could see only the backs of the other guys. Thus, I am going down the parking place and I choose slow water, where I can try cling and ding fishing. I see first few raises and then it starts getting tough as the fish are going to eat me. Before I get ready, they are eating a lot on the surface. Sobering up came after a few casts. Fish are eating everything and everywhere, but they are not interested only in the place, where my fly is. I start using the best of the best flies with the idea that I must get to know what they are eating and then I will show them. I catch a few smaller fish, but compared to what kind of party there is I am quite bored. I apologize it by saying – they are white fish really difficult to be caught with a dry fly. Unfortunately, later I had to confess to myself that this was a lame excuse. But this was later.