Diary of a Competitive Angler

Dates of the competition were Saturday June 22nd and Sunday June 23rd. I would say the water conditions were medium flows and just ever so slightly tinted. Air temps were in the high 80’s and the water temps would get to around 71 after lunch time. I wished I would have checked temps early in the morning but I didn’t. I really, really need to start recording more information. I checked the stocking schedule after the competition and apparently the stream was freshly stocked on that Thursday, June 20th. I think this and the water temps being high played a big factor in the behavior of the fish.
Peyton was away at a Trout Unlimited camp all that week, so my partner for

May 18, 2019 Today I fished on Spring Creek with Pat Weiss. We started around 9:00 am after he answered my hundreds of questions that I had been saving up until now. I will try to summarize the answers to some of those questions. Flashy Flies vs. Naturals In regards to fly selection and non-flashy…...

This was a great competition with lots of different water types. An angler really had to have a lot of different techniques in his possession to finish high in this competition. There were some dominate beats and some terrible beats, and I absolutely need to find a way around this. The search continues, but I feel like it is possible.
Going into Session 1 Friday evening, I had drawn Little Rock Creek at the retreat center, beat number 6. I have fished this beat before at previous tournaments and had a good idea where the fish would be holding. Beat 6 held a good number of fish, but the biggest obstacle to taking a first place in this session was the fact that Eli Buchanan and Devin Olsen drew beats 2 and 3 respectively and those two beats hold many, many more fish.
I believe I heard that the creeks had been

Well I had only eaten about 5 ribs and a small portion of steamed vegetables for lunch, had skipped breakfast that morning and was anxiously awaiting our dinner at Basils on Friday night in Boone. This dinner was a fund raiser for a greenway project that would allow additional public access to the local river there. It was a great cause, but…………………………..the dinner was not a dinner at all…………..it was only hors d’oevres. I had been on a no/low carb diet the past few weeks and almost all food offered involved some sort of bread or cracker. I was out of luck, but was having such a good time that I just went the rest of the night without eating. So for a fun little Rog fact, with my metabolism, I simply cannot go long periods of time without eating. If stranded at sea

Session 1
Fishing Smith Creek DH water in Helen Ga. Conditions on day one were rainy with high water. Temps were about 47 degrees and like an idiot, I didn’t get water temperatures……… again.
Our first beat was Beat 1 on the upper section. On initial scouting, it appeared to be a short beat, with only two likely looking spots for holding fish. It’s funny that I say that now that I have thought long and hard about the spots in which to search for trout within a beat. My beat management philosophy for hour and a half sessions, has been to park on the A water and drain it dry for the entire session. I think “A” water can be further defined:

Where were in Clarksville Georgia to fish the 2019 Gold Cup
fly fishing tournament. It was cloudy with no rain in our first session. The
rain wasn’t expected to hit until the second session, but we were up to fish the
first session at Fern Valley on beat 4. Air temps were 46 and I didn’t get
water temps. From now on get Water Temps!! Water was a bit high and dingy. I
had forgotten how incredibly strong these fish on the Soque were. This is the
second year in a row that I had the thought that a seven weight rod would be
better suited than a 3 wt. I started off with 6x tippet, but later switched to
5x which ended up being perfectly ok. I honestly think that landing the fish is
much more of an obstacle than hooking one up. No sign of bug activity.

Session 1

Where to start?

Water was a little high and a little dingy but was slowly coming down and clearing up. Here’s the thing with fishing new water………You don’t know where to start and how the fish are going to respond and you only have an hour and a half to figure it out. Aligning the proper technique and fly choice, to the appropriate situation is the key that unlocks the door. Ok Captain Obvious, you might be thinking, how do I know when to use what? I think the very first thing you can do, is to gather the information that is readily available. Water level, water clarity

1st Session
Started out picking fish up on red squirmies. I broke a ton of fish off due to poor knots. (need to switch from the Improved clinch to the Double Davy). Was pretty rusty, and had several tangles in the trees etc.
Mike started out with a streamer to locate the pods of holding fish. Then would sit on them and work them.