Rutland Water recently hosted the Airflo Spring Invitational. This is a 2-day competition consisting of the top 21 teams in Europe. It’s the “Champions League” of fly fishing. Entry is gained on a points system based on recent past performances in the major competitions. At this level literally any of the teams could win the title provided they get their tactics right and put in a good performance over the 2 days. Like many other teams we practiced hard, ensuring areas of the reservoir holding fish were identified and our tactics perfected.
The Conditions
Spring undoubtably offers the best nymph fishing of the season, and with the recent spell of warm weather buzzer hatches were a regular feature on Rutland from 11:00am and our catch rate improved noticeably after this time. However we were confident our fellow competitors had also identified how the water was reacting. That, coupled with gin clear water (25ft visibility), a very light ripple and sunny conditions coupled with fish that had received sustained angling pressure meant that the fishing was challenging.
Practice
Practice had been going exceptionally well for Fulling Mill Team Tequila with all team members averaging over 10 fish per day. After covering the whole reservoir and fishing a variety of tactics it was clear that a natural imitative approach on light leaders was best. Dries fished in the shallows over weedbeds or small diawl bachs fished on the washing line in literally 5 or 7ft of water was consistently producing fish. Not only that, but it was regularly producing some of Rutland’s Specimen browns. In just 2 days of practice we caught 8 fish over 6 lb between us on dries or nymphs, which in itself is pretty remarkable.
Airflo Spring Invitational Day 1
On day one we split up the team. There were many area’s on Rutland holding fish including the Blue Pipes, Church Bay, East Creek, Sailing Club and Yellowstone. As all these areas were conveniently located within 20 minutes of each other we reasoned that it was sensible to spread the team. This also spread out the risk in case one area didn’t produce fish from the “off.”
Despite fishing different areas our plan was for the whole team to adopt the same method and fish the same band of water all-round the reservoir. This was the water 50m out to literally the bank. It was an attempt to concentrate our efforts in water approximately 4 – 12ft deep. This is where the fish were holding and feeding on the vast amounts of natural food. In this case, black buzzer, olives and shrimps. Due to the difficult conditions (clarity of water and light wind) we all opted to use a very thin premium fluorocarbon, the Fulling Mill Masterclass Fluorocarbon in 7.2lb 3x. We felt it gave us a better presentation and an edge.
Photo: Patrick Tillard
Our “washing line” set up was as follows:
Airflo 3ft Mini Tip or Airflo 6ft Slow Tip with 7ft of 7.2lb Masterclass to the top dropper. The top dropper was a size 12 Foam Daddy. Then a further 4ft to the second dropper, a Nemo Cruncher. Another 4ft to the 3rd dropper, a KJ black diawl bach. And, finally, 3.5ft to the point fly—another Foam Daddy.
We felt that this natural combination could be fished in the top 5ft of water easily and effectively, with team members literally just keeping in touch with their fly-line and fishing their flies almost on the drop. Any straightening of the line resulted in a strike as takes were so tentative. By fishing a foam daddy on the point and top dropper it allowed the cast to literally hold in the surface film for 10 seconds of so. The daddies initially fished as a “dries” before being pulled under by the fluorocarbon leader and nymphs. It was a hybrid method of “dries” and the “washing line” and had served us well in practice.
At the end of day 1 we had averaged over 9 fish an angler for the team, a reasonable tally in most matches, however it clearly wasn’t good enough as a couple teams had significantly more and a commanding lead.
The Results After Day 1
- Greys Menteith Ospreys 66 Fish – 168lb
- Welsh Hawks 65 Fish – 145lb
- Fulling Mill Nymphomaniacs 64 Fish – 142lb
- Ospreys 55 Fish -118lb
We were lying in 7th Place with 55 Fish for 115 lb. A reasonable performance but we felt somewhat disappointed.
Airflo Spring Invitational Day 2
Following a team talk we hatched a plan for the second half of the match. We were over 50lb behind the leading team and approximately 30lb behind third place. In competition fishing these are huge margins. For us to win now would be practically impossible, even a top 3 position was seen as pretty much unattainable. And, we knew the second day is always harder as the fish have received a lot of angling pressure. Also, this match is predominantly “catch & release” so it’s pointless targeting the larger fish at the top of Rutland’s North and South Arms. All we could do is target the remaining fish in the known holding areas and catch them quickly. If they were to “go off” and stop feeding then it may give us a chance to improve our overall position on the leaderboard which in reality was all we could hope for. This is unless all the top 3 teams had a disaster which seemed unlikely given their skill and experience.
The Conditions
We were greeted by a blazing sun and a 3mph wind. These calm conditions meant that we couldn’t cover any water and move on to the fish. The lack of ripple also highlighted any imperfections in our presentation meaning that it was going to be even more difficult.
The majority of the boats returned to the same areas and employed the same tactics. As expected, it was considerably more difficult. All teams struggled to catch consistently. The only real change was that the flies had to be presented static in order to get takes and dries were becoming a more important factor.
We all began building good bags consistently picking up fish while all around us anglers were struggling. Three of the team reached our 12 fish limit with the rest all catching good supporting bags. We finished the day with 62 fish an increase of 7 fish. To an extent that further confirms our day 1 performance was below par.
The Result
The weigh-in was very tense. We knew we had performed well as a team on the second day. In fact, we won the day. But just how far would our performance allow us to climb up the leaderboard?
The results were confirmed as follows:
- Greys Menteith Ospreys 114 Fish – 266lb
- Welsh Hawks 65 Fish – 115 Fish – 258lb
- Fulling Mill Nymphomaniacs 116 Fish – 248lb
- Fulling Mill Team Tequila 117 Fish – 246lb
Huge Congratulations to Menteith Ospreys for winning the event for a second time, and to Peter Auchterlonie as top individual angler. He caught his 12 fish limit both days, which is an absolutely stunning performance.
The Conclusion
Despite catching the most fish in the competition, we finished 4th. We were just 2lb outside the top 3 and restored some credibility. Looking back our performance, mine especially, just wasn’t good enough on the first day of the competition. In addition, early bag limits played a decisive part in the final result. A time bonus is awarded at 2lb per hour, when the limit was reached. “Time bonus” is a somewhat contentious issue but in our opinion it’s essential in competitive fishing if you want to achieve the correct result. Those anglers who are skilled enough to reach their limit early should undoubtably be rewarded, as if they had been allowed to continue fishing they would undoubtably caught more fish. Usually they would weigh in excess of the 2lb per hour “time bonus.”
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