Diary of a Competitive Angler

Conditions
Again the conditions and the field was tough, tough, tough. Air temperatures where a cold 18 degrees and water temps where at 37. It would eventually warm up during the day, but the starting conditions where just brutal. The water levels where high yet again at around 900 cfs and slowly dropping. The water clarity was crystal clear.
Session 1 (Beat #4 of Trophy Water)
Started off fishing the first session in Beat #4 (High School Bridge). I have drawn this beat a few times before and usually know where the fish are and what they are wanting. If you draw this beat in the morning the sun will hit you directly in the eyes as it rises over the Cherokee High School and will put a glare on the water that is simply blinding. Couple that with the fact that at 18 degrees your guides would freeze up and lock down on your fly line, and you are definitely up against it.

Talk about being in a slump, I am sure in one. In a technique application and beat drawing slump. I have drawn the worst beats of the entire tournament for the past two tournaments and I have not been able to overcome them. I have seen top anglers overcome them, but when top anglers are also getting really good beats, it makes things awfully difficult. With that being said, I will reiterate one of my favorite passages from the Serenity Prayer written by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. You talk about one of the most appropriate sayings in all history relative to competitive fly angling………..this one is it! One of the things that I know that I cannot and never will be able to change is the beat draw, so that just leaves us with technique in which to alter.

In the book “A Hero’s Journey” by Joseph Campbell, he describes the similarities of all real life’s hero’s, the mythical ones, and the common paths that each take. Each journey begins with the CALL TO ADVENTURE, where the character is awakened by his ambitious calling and sets out on accomplishing some audacious feat or goal. They cross the threshold of everyday routine here and begin the ROAD OF TRIALS into the abyss. The abyss is where they experience rock bottom due to their failures and can either stay there or be transformed by virtue of a great METAMORPHISES into an area of what the author calls the ULTIMATE BOON. The “Ultimate Boon” is the benefit, favor, or blessing that is bestowed upon the hero figure. It is the actual deeming or the awarding of the title of hero or the title of champion.
Participating in this year’s Cherokee Championship was definitely my journey of trials……………..straight into the abyss.

Venues were the Davidson, East Fork of the French Broad, Tanasee Creek Lake, and Wolf Creek Lake. I had only fished one of these venues before, that being Tanasee Lake. One of my teammates and I had fished it fairly close to the boat launch back in September and had moderate success finding a few…...

I may sound like a broken record at times when conducting these tournament studies, but when it seems like things are being repeated (hence the sounding like a broken record), you need to recognize the patterns and learn from them. Recognizing patterns can only come from experience, and we all know what kind of factor experience plays in any competitive sport.
Two of the things we cannot control when it comes to competition fly angling, but unfortunately play a giant role in our outcomes, is group and beat draws. The group draws rarely ever bothers me, because you are really not against the other anglers, you are up against your beat or more specifically, the fish within your beat.
Drawing a good beat or a bad beat in itself is not the only factor…………but in addition to which beat you draw is when you draw them. My partner Peyton and I learned that difficult lesson yet once again at this year’s version of the Rumble in the Rhododendron.

It never fails. With each passing competition and the reflection there of, it never fails to amaze me, the enormous amount of knowledge gained from each and every competition. As the amount of competitions completed stacks up over time, so goes the knowledge gained. This past weekend’s Wilsons Creek Oyster Roast was no different.
Wilsons Creek, as a one day tournament offers the competitive angler several, several challenges. For one, it is extremely beat dependent, and being a one day tournament, this fact alone is very difficult to overcome. It appears that some sections of the river get stocked with an

Well you go into a tournament thinking you have the roadmap to success, and things go completely different than planned. I had fished this same tournament before almost exactly one year ago. I take extensive notes on every tournament, so with what I had learned from the previous, I felt really good going into this one. The problem with that assumption, is that although the venue may be the same, and the time of year maybe the same, the conditions rarely are. That was definitely the case for this year’s Casting For Hope Fall Bash.
It takes many things in order to win a tournament in today’s competitive fly fishing scene, especially with so many top quality anglers. You need to have a good game plan, a lot of

What a humbling experience. Just when you think you have the game whipped, you are faced with a situation that makes you truly question your abilities. I must say that to be successful in competition fly angling, you have to have all of your ducks in a row, and be totally focused. The competition is just too good, not to be. This was the situation that I found myself in competing this past weekend (July 27th, 2019) in Cherokee, NC. My usual partner Peyton was gone doing something else on this particular weekend and I fished with one of our teammates father (who is a good angler) but one that I had never fished with before. Needless to say my heart just wasn’t into it. True to form however, I took some very valuable information away from this competition, as I usually do in every one that I compete in. I firmly believe in knowing the water and the fish contained therein is absolutely imperative to being successful in competition. Like I said before…………the competition is just too good not to.