Author: Karel Krivanec

The Vltava river hosted young fly fishers in the third week of July. They arrived in Rozmberk to participate in the IVth World Championship. 53 young people took part and the same number counted their accompaniment. Some teams arrived because of training one week earlier, but the official opening was on Wednesday 20 July in the Rozmberk castle where also the Governor of South Bohemian Region Jan Zahradnik was present. Under the head of the Czech Republic there were two teams. Czech Republic 1 represented: Lubos Roza, Roman Jorka, Ondrej Misar, Vit Pavlacky, Lukas Sobolcik and reserve Jaroslav Masek. Czech second team consisted of Petr Jilek, Petr Drastik, Jan Buchtela, Bohumil Sares, Pavel Steuer and the reserve was Pavel Haloun.

The competition itself took part from Thursday afternoon to Sunday's lunch. Next to two venues on the Vltava 29 in Loucovice and near Certova stena another venue was in the Vltava 28 from Vyssi Brod almost to Rozmberk and two more venues were in the area of Kaplice on the Malse river in Skoronice and the salmonid reservoir Kvetonov. Young competitors were divided into five groups, which were rotating in four venues and on Sunday morning all of them were fishing on the Vltava 28. There were six eligible species from 18 cm, which were after official measuring released back. Barbless hook were used and the time limit of the competition was 2.5 hours. Therefore the organizers had to arrange one controller for every competitor and every venue was observed by the three sector judges. Fair-play of the Czech controllers were watched by the observers, chosen from the guests of the other teams. Czech youth and French youth were the main favourites and these expectations came true and they fully confirmed.

In the first session the Czech youth took the lead immediately, when they used their knowledge of short upstream nymphing. Pavel Steuer from North Moravia won his sector in the venue downstream just under the Lipno reservoir (40 fish) and Ondra Misar from Ceske Budejovice he had the same score upstream the Lipno II. - equalising reservoir and the next three Czechs were second in their sectors. However, Florian Caraveo from France won in the Malse river and on the Květoňov lake Alex Jardine from England tightly defeated L. Roza, when they both had 20 fish. Alex is the son of famous Charles Jardin, who has written many books about the still water fly fishing and who was also personally present at this championship. The first day finished by the winning of the Czech team 1 (total placings 7), before France (13) and Czech Republic 2 (15).

On Friday morning the competition carried on under control of the Czech team 1 and it looked very clear. Three young Czechs won their sectors, Pavlacky caught 16 fish on the Kvetonov, Jorka had 20 fish from the Malse and Misar had 28 trouts under Lipno and only in the lower Vltava 29 Florian Caraveo from France won again. Lukáš Sobolcik from Strakonice did not do well on the Vltava 29 near the train stop called Certova stena (Devil's Wall). No wonder that on the most fished beat of this venue he did not succeed with orange line and a very short nymphing. Wild brown trout does not like when someone places the rod tip above its head and Lukas must have been happy to catch those 8 trouts and this was enough for the fourth place in the group. From the foreigners Aitor Garcia from Spain was successful. He was second on the Malse river, only four fish after Jorka from the Czech team. After first two sessions the Czechs were the first ten placings before the French (24) and the B-team was the third (35).

On Friday afternoon was overcast and there were some showers and over water some Mayflies might have been seen, simply said ideal weather for fishing. The beginning of the competition was still according to the Czechs, but after the shower the trouts stopped taking the Czech goldhead nymphs and they were interested in the stuff that was floating on the surface.

I waited this change on the Malse, where our Vit Pavlacky and downstream of him Flavien Granier were fishing next to each other. Vit had 8 catches after 50 minutes and Flavien only four. All had changed then and the young French was getting one trout after another. Granier was fishing with dry fly, casting alongside both banks and he was sweeping the shallow water and around the stones. He had a five-meter leader and this was enough for excellent fishing and the line practically did not leave the rod.

On the same 200-meter-long beat of the Malše, where Jorka won with twenty fish, this French caught other 24 fish in 2.5 hours! Pavlacký finished here with 11 trouts and this was only fifth place in the sector. This was also good, because the French had fully shown their tactics, which has brought them on the top in the adult competitions. This was a clear example that neither nymph is the almighty weapon which you have to rely on without any feedback. Similarly, the situation developed on the other venues, so a well promising advantage of 10 placings had finished with the three-point loss. After the third session the French took the lead and the French had total placings 34, second was Czech Republic 1 (37) and third Czech Republic 2 with placings 51. Czech captain Milan Janus and the team manager Milan Cubík had a very hard night, because they had to cope with this cold French shower.

On Saturday morning all started again and this was a very tough fight. Even the Spanish Jordi Casas played for the victory and he won the venue on the upper Vltava 29 near Loucovice with 22 fish and the same tactics like on the venue below the Certova stena. Another French, Benjamin Noris, won on the Malse with 12 fish and on the Kvetonov Kieron Jenkins from Wales was the first with 13 rainbows. From Czech competitors Sobolcik completely failed, because he caught only 4 fish on the Kvetonov Lake and this was the ninth place in the sector. A similar disaster reached the French team as well, because Nicolas Siry was on the Vltava 29 below the Lipno reservoir on the sixth place with five trouts. His captain was very angry, however, this was not fair, because this was probably the worst place in all the venue. However, even the winning Florian Caraveo "failed" on the Kvetonov, when he was the eighth with 4 rainbows and so even this session finished with the draw 14:14. The French were still first with the total placings 48, second was the Czech Republic 1 (51) and third Czech Republic 2 (67).

Saturday's late afternoon promised a very thrilling competition and there were lots to see, because the fish were rather hurt from the hooks after four previous sessions and this might have been seen on the number of catches. Sean Jones, the fishing reserve of Welsh team, won on the Kvetonov Lake after the excellent performance with a record number of 21 fish and the last rainbow 51.5 cm was caught on the black "pike" streamer. Ondra Misar, who was fourth with nine catches, did not fish very well in here, but all the rest of the sectors were won by the Czechs only. On the Malse river Lubos Roza completed winning French series and so he had shown himself off. He managed to catch 15 fish in here and even if he had one fish less than the second French Flavien Granier, Lubos' catches were longer in total. Jorka had 19 trouts in the Devil's streams and this was enough for the victory and Bohumil Sares was the first with 14 trouts on the Vltava 29 upstream of Loucovice. After five sessions all youth had four competitions over and on the top of the individuals was Flavien Granier (total placings 6), the second was Ondra Misar (placings 9) and the third place had Lubos Roza with placings 10. In the team competitons the Czech Republic 1 took the lead (60), before France (64) and Czech Republic 2 (82).

On Sunday 24 July the breakfast was already served at 5:00AM and the coaches departed at 5:30 on the Vltava 28. Two sectors were in clearly fly fishing parts between Vyssi Brod and Herbertov and three after the confluence with the Vetsi Vltavice Brook almost to Rozmberk. Fishing was so early because of the rafters to keep water calm and this was managed, because there was nor a boat. In the first beat Lubos Roza was very happy, because he was fishing in the "Food store" and he managed to get 15 rainbows in here and one more than half-a-meter long rainbow. Padraig Sharkey from Ireland had also 15, but they all were by 62 cm shorter! In the second beat upstream the weir in Herbertov finally Lukas Sobolcik won with the great difference and 21 fish, however, he had worse score in points than Roza.

We all were very curious about the results from the third venue, because Flavien Granier was fishing there and this was on the excellent beat. French captain Jan Astier ordered him a dry fly and fishing alongside up the stream and so Flavien had two eligible fish after 140 minutes only. He had lost one big trout, which the French parabolic rod was too soft for. Ten minutes before the end of the session he left disappointed and the young French changed for the nymph and in ten minutes he caught next five fish! Neither this was enough and he finished fifth in the sector, which was won by the English Chris Tuck. However, this boy was fishing as the individual only and for the team competition was the winner second in line, Czech Bohumil Sares.

In the fourth sector there was a surprising winner Liam Sheehan from Ireland, who caught seven big trouts and both Czech competitors were beaten, even if they caught two more fish. In the last sector Ondra Misar, who was second before the last session, was fishing. Now he got into the stretch, where normally hunts a big hutchin and only a miracle might have meant better score. However, this did not happen and so the young boy from South Bohemia and this was fourth place in the sector, where Scott Nellins from England won with the great difference. This last competition on the Vltava 28 should have tested the streamer techniques of the competitors on the big river and the French did not probably know about this, because they finished behind the second Czech team and they lost other eleven points to the first Czech team and this technical mistake made the loss of the trophy in the individual competition as well.

This was defended with a great piece of luck by best Czech youth Lubos Roza from Bojkovice, but this time this was a very tight victory. In the first session on the salmonid reservoir in Kvetonov near Kaplice and his performance is possible to be evaluated as the faultless, because he caught here twenty fish (the biggest one was 48 cm long). This was the third best performance on this lake, when fishing Alex Jardine defeated him by couple of centimeters. In the second round his group A had free time thanks to the assessment programme of the FIPS-Mouche he fell deeper into the field of competitors and so he was not seen on the top of the competition, which probably did not mind him much. In the third session his group was fishing in the Devil's streams on the Vltava 29 and his beat was in the middle of this venue in a very good beat 5. And so the fifth position for 7 trouts was a sure disappointment for him. This was, however, the black Friday's afternoon, when trout preferred floating insects and ignored nymphs. As I have mentioned, wild brown cannot be fished like grayling in this water and this is even more true in the third round of competition when it is a very careful fish.

Different situation on the upper venue of the Vltava 29 below Lipno reservoir. It is not possible to fish differently in such a deep water than with the nymph, which was fine for Lubos and even if his place was again in number 5, his 17 trouts were great performance from this really hard beat with exceptional slope of the river bed. This was second place in the group and more could not be done. The fifth session brought him the small river Malse in Skoronice, beat No. 4 to the small cottage area. Our competitor used one heavy nymph in the middle and two micronymphs and this was the new tactics, which was a success. He had caught there the biggest fish of this sector, brown trout 38 cm and without the problem he won with the great difference.

After five sessions Luboš was the third, when he was 4 placings behind the Frenchman and 2,500 points behind, which did not provide him with great chance to defend the trophy, but sometimes near the river even the miracle may happen. Czech competitor was fishing in beat 6 in sector A and his place was in a famous pool under the fast stream. He started with the streamer immediately and he managed to win his group again, while his biggest rival was struggling two more kilometers down the stream. If the French captain left his competitor five minutes earlier, Lubos would be silver, because even 18 cm long dace would bring a gold medal for the French, but this did not happen so!

In the second place Flavien Granier finished and even if he had the same number of placings like the winner (11) and two more fish (76), Luboš was 4,380 points behind. Young French was second in his group C in Kvetonov (13 pcs), first on the Malše (24 pcs), first on the Vltava 29 in Devil's streams (22 pcs), second on the Lubos' place below Lipno (10 pcs) and the fifth in that unhappy last competition on the Vltava 28 (7 pcs). When I look back at the draw of his beats, I have to say that he had a very good draw.

The third place in the individual competition was finally for Ondra Misar from Ceske Budějovice. He was fishing in home waters, however this does not decrease his great result. He won the first competition on the lower Vltava 29 with the best score from this venue - 31 trouts, he won the second competition on the upper part below Lipno (28 pcs), compared to the expectations he was the third on the Malse (8 pcs) and fourth on the Kvetonov Lake (9 fish) and to his bad luck in the last competition on the Vltava 28, as I have mentioned, this was that fourth place for 5 fish, but even so he had the highest fish score then (81). Even if he did not catch one bigger rainbow more, than he would not miss the silver medal.

In the first dozen there were 5 Czechs (1. Lubos Roza, 3. Ondrej Misar, 4. Roman Jorka, 6. Pavel Steuer and 7. Vit Pavlacky, next three French (2. Flavien Granier, 9. Damien Firoud and 10. Florian Caraveo) and one competitor from Wales (5. Sean Jones) and Spain (8. Jordi Casas). As a very remarkable performance we may consider the performace of 15-year-old Sean, who was not modestly taken into the team of Wales by his father, but he surprised all as a reserve, because he defeated all British, but also four French. I think that we all will hear about him soon. Also the performance of the young Spanish boy was excellent, because his team did not have any unofficial practice before the championship and this was seen. The best English was Scott Nellins on the fourteenth place, the best Irish was the twentieth Padraig Sharkey and the best American was Mike Hemkens, who placed 26^th place. Also a very good score had even the only girl in the competition Lisa Isles (England 1), who finished on 33^rd place.

In the team competition the order was as follows: 1. Czech Republic 1 (70), 2. France (85), 3. Czech Republic 2 (98), 4. Spain (131), 5. England 1 (132), 6. England 2 (140), 7. Wales (151), 8. Ireland (155), 9. USA (162) and the tenth was the International team consisted of the reserves. When we look back at the single venues we can say that Czech Republic 1 won the venue on the river Malse (placings 12), even if one placing before France and the third were surprisingly Americans (24). On the upper Vltava 29 both Czech teams had the same sum of placings (17) and France was only one placing behind again. However, the lower part of the Vltava 29 was the French, who had the lowest number of placings in this competition (9) second was the Czech Republic 1 (13) and third was Spain (14). On the Kvetonov Lake the first was England 2, with the same sum as well as Wales (22), one more placing behind was Czech Republic 1 and Ireland and this was followed by France (27), Czech Republic 2 (28) and England 1 (29). The decisive was the victory of the Czechs, which came in the last session on the Vltava 28, where the Czech Republic 1 had sum of placings 12, Czech Republic 2 total placings 18 and on the third place was France (20).

Altogether 1968 fish of eligible size and species were caught at this Championship (brown trout, rainbow, brook trout, grayling, chub, dace). The biggest fish was the rainbow trout from Vltava 28, which was 56 cm long and was caught by the French Benjamin Noris. The biggest brown trout was caught by the Czech competitor Pavel Steuer (45 cm), who had even the highest number of fish in two-and-a-half-hour long session (40 brown trouts) and the biggest number of points (50 352).

The end of the championship and the announcement of the results was on Sunday afternoon on the square in Vyšší Brod where Minister of Agriculture of the Czech Republic Petr Zgarba, president of CFU Petr Semeniuk, mayors of Loucovice, Vyssi Brod and Rozmberk and managing director of the Lipno dam Zdenek Zidek were present and they also presented medals and trophies for the winners. At the last party in the courtyard of the Rozmberk castle, prizes for winners were presented and in this place it is important to mention even the sponsors of the championship. These were companies SAGE, Hanák, Rudi Heger, Hends, Gammarus, Byron, Tvrdek, Burian, Weber, Vela, Povodí Vltavy, ZD Podkletan Kremze, Hasicská vzajemna pojistovna, Dobra voda, Greiner and others. All foreign participants of the Championship liked all very much and they repeteadly thanked to the organizers for the excellent organization of the competition, big catches and excellent job of the sector judges and controllers from the local organizations of CFU.