Despite some solid preparation, the Canadian fly fishing team couldn't reel in a win at the 30th annual Fips Mouche World Fly Fishing Championships in Poland, earlier this month.
The five-man team, including Squamish's Clint Goyette, finished in 23rd place out of 25 competing national teams. The Czech Republic took top honours, followed by France and Slovakia in third.
Goyette chalks the poor team performance up to inexperience on the Polish competition site, the San River. Team Canada arrived 10 days prior to the competition but couldn't manage to secure a spot along the San due to competition regulations.
"So we ended up fishing in water totally irrelevant in respect to the conditions we'd be fishing in the competition. We spent 10 days fishing small creeks where in competition the river we were going to fish was ten times as large as what we were practicing on, so that was a bit frustrating," said the Valley Fishing Guides owner.
Individually, Goyette finished in 119th place out of 134 contenders, while Canadian team mates Tom Irvine finished in 112th place, John Nishi placed at 106th, Byron Shepherd broke into the top 100 by placing 94th and Sorin Comsa lead the team with a 36th place finish.
Once the mid- June competition finally started, the five Canadians were met with a surprisingly muddy river - unlike the gin clear waters they were expecting.
"In Poland they don't do sediment control at all, in fact they had dozers and that right in the rivers. The San River wasn't the San we were told about."
The European grayling species the anglers were hoping to hook in had incredibly soft mouths, which proved to be a bit problematic for Goyette.
"If you try to horse a fish in - pull it in- the hook will just tear out Again this came down to the fact that we didn't have practice on these fish."
Eventually, Goyette learned once a grayling was hooked he had to walk into the river and grab it, rather than just reeling it in.
"It was just something I wasn't used to."
Most of the difficulties Goyette and the rest of the team experienced could have been avoided had the team practiced more in local water but since the team pays for most of its own travel expenses, they can't afford to fly to Europe to practice as much as some European teams can. This, according to Goyette, must change if the team is expected to perform better.
"Practice time was really a big thing and money is involved in this. The other teams their countries put a lot of money towards the competitions. France for example arrived with an entourage of film, videographers, a massage therapist, a team captain, a manager, and obviously all of their team - and they were paid for. These guys weren't forking out of their own pockets. I think at the end money is really going to be a critical thing for Canada to really do better in the future."
All in all the experience was an eye opener for the local fisherman and the team.
"I would say it was definitely a learning experience for much of the team including myself. It was impressive to see the abilities of the people that were there."
Although he would have like to catch more fish than the four he caught that were large enough to count for points, he said he did his best.
"I caught at almost every venue but they didn't count because they weren't over 25 centimetres. I think with the skill set that I have, I did as good as I could have done."
Goyette is looking forward to competing at the national fly fishing competition in September and possibly even competing at the next World Fly Fishing Competition in Italy next June.
For full 2010 World Fly Fishing results visit san2010.pl.
