Competition Fishers here?

[jkilroy]

You learn to catch fish under the hardest conditions which you can apply anywhere

 

[dave1918]

Jkill---- I think you can do that without competing.

 

[InTheMend]

You keep saying the same thing. If YOU don't want to make fly fishing competitive, don't. But if I and others enjoy completive fly fishing, why can't I enjoy myself. It is silly to try to control how others enjoy the sport. Everyone can enjoy fly fishing in their on way, not the way you want them to!

 

[jkilroy]

Dave1918, you are correct to a point but, fishing by yourself does not push you to get better. Least I have noticed that. You have a lot more folks around and you talk and learn different tactics. For example;

Today I fished the quite, low clear and difficult. I caught 5 in 2 hrs in a small stretch. I floated my slighter, and new tactic which is the ultimate in strike detection. Size 16 waltz 2.5 tungsten bead, single fly. Now before I was into this I struggled to catch any fish there, now I usually get some, which I greatly appreciate. It's quite obvious a lot on this forum have a problem with competitive fly fishers and that's just fine your entitled to your opinion. I know one thing for sure it has made me a better fly angler hands down. I love this hobby so much I have intention on quitting the comp thing, it very fun and your continuing to learn, period dot.

 

[midnightangler]

Having somebody else tell you where and when to fish would definitely ruin it for me. I don't understand why a fishing expert would pay their own money to have somebody else tell them where and when to fish. It seems dumb.

 

[pcray1231]

midnight, you and I think alike, lol. I'm interested in competition, but would rather the participants can go where and when they'd like, to make it more realistic.

 

[midnightangler]

If I'm fishing nymphs or streamers I tend to fish 3-5 miles in a day, more than that on small streams or if I'm in a boat. Tournaments can't really accommodate that kind of fishing and there is no doubt it's more effective than hammering a 300-yard stretch to death. If I'm fishing a hatch I may do a lot of walking to try to find one big fish, but I tend to hang around in one place once I find it. Sometimes surface action is only good for a half hour and it's worth hanging out in a prime spot and waiting for the action to happen.

There are a lot of different strategies in fly-fishing. Tournament fishing is focused on a very narrow part of that spectrum due to the way the rules are set up. It is definitely a skill to catch fish in difficult conditions, but I don't personally have any interest in trying to catch trout during low water in the middle of a sunny afternoon.

The one-fly tournaments I think are neat. I tend to support charity tournaments if they are for a good cause. The euro-nymphing tournaments seem to have a huge ego component. I'm not a fan.

 

[pcray1231]

You fish a lot like I do, and you're 2nd paragraph sums up the my views on comps quite well. I took pages to try to explain that!!

I'm not opposed to comps. I have a slight interest in them. If they were set up to test skills I have more interest in, I'd be much more interested. Where I disagree with you is that, I do think it's possible to set up a comp that way. Why not? They don't rope off sections of streams or anything.

Just set the anglers loose, to go wherever they want, with a controller in tow. I'd say set loose at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. Anglers have 8 hours of streamtime, which can be done anywhere, anytime that day, the controller keeps track. Meet back Sunday morning....

If you want to encourage a variety of tactics, then weight the results for the stream. i.e. 30 brookies from stream X equals 10 browns from stream Y. Could discuss the weighting, but I see it as feasible. May take some trial and error, but when you notice everyone using the same tactic repeatedly, you know it's overweighted. Adjust until you zone in on a good scoring method.

I'd love to see what the "pro's" do, given the opportunity to maximize their results, like the rest of us can. Bass tournaments already do this to some extent. They're limited to a large lake or river system, but they can go wherever they want within those confines, and the controller comes along. Likewise, you could put, say, a 30 mile radius on it or something, to keep people in the general area.

 

[pcray1231]

As was said, people may go to where they're comfortable, but I think that would be really cool.

You'd get to saying, John Doe is the best hatch chaser, Jim Smith is the best pocket water nympher, and Joe Johnson is the best small stream/tight brush fisherman. Now lets see what happens when we set this pack loose in central PA, vs. what happened when we set them loose in western Montana.

If, as an observer, I followed something like this, I'd truly learn a lot, from all of them. You'd get the real, full picture of each location, and how to approach them when setting up a trip. Pick up tips on a much wider variety of techniques, etc. It would help me much more than watching everyone try to do the same thing a little better than everyone else.

 

[magi123]

The Harman's North Fork Invitational is a competitive event built to have fun and catch a lot of trout along the whole stream. We stock before the competition, but it would be almost impossible to have a competition at Harman's and not stock before it. Why? Because we stock about every two weeks. In general we stock a percentage of 10% 4Lbs+, 40% 2-3lbers, and 50% 1lbers 10 months a year.

We do not modify or change the percentages based on the competition.

Remember the competitions rarely raise money or generate profit for the local businesses. They typically cost us thousands of dollars and months of effort. In 2014 Harman's has 2 Project Healing Waters events, one legends competition event, the HNFI, 1 wounded warrior event, and multiple other events.

Again, none of these events would ever occur at Harman's without a stocking program.

 

[lestrout]

sipe - re the OP, yes.

tl
les