On Sunday 3rd February, 20 hardy fly anglers gathered to fish the superb Maelor beats of the River Dee for the Severn Trent Rivers Championship. Places for the English National Rivers Final were also up for grabs.

Despite the river being 2 feet above normal level the grayling fed avidly. On the day a total of 159 grayling, the largest 44 cm, were caught and carefully returned.

The top 3 anglers employed contrasting tactics to great effect. Winner Martin Dixon targeted areas well away from other anglers and fished small bugs close in on a tight line. The ever consistent Dave Critchlow from Stoke was second with a team of small bugs fished on a longer line swung into bankside lies. Young gun Phil Dixon came third with his aggressive style of deep (scary!) wading and Czech nymphing using a very heavy controller fly to get his lighter, smaller fishing flies down to the fish.

Special mention must be made of Shrewsbury’s Paul Hopwood. Paul was a late entrant who had never even walked the beats used. He came 4th catching 16 grayling.

Winner Martin Dixon said after the event “the real winner today was the River Dee - fantastic fishing!”.

Final Results – Top 10 placings:-

1. Martin Dixon 29 fish 2 place points
2. Dave Critchlow 11 4
3. Phil Dixon 18 5
4. Paul Hopwood 16 5
5. Tim Burn 11 6
6. Graham Willis 8 6
7. Mark Macleod 8 6
8. Gary Owen 14 8
9. Mike Dixon 7 8
10. Gary Hedges 8 11

Pictures from the events will shortly follow.

Hi Mike,

Hope you don't mind that I have posted the above from the other thread.

For my future reference, could you please explain how the points and positions are worked out?

Many thanks

Basically in each session fish caught by each angler are recorded with points per fish over the minimum size and then points per cm. The winner of each session gets 1 placing point and the 2nd placed angler gets 2 placing points and so on, anyone blanking gets equal last so if there are 20 anglers any one with a blank gets 20 placing points.

The winner of the comp is the angler with the least aggregated placing points and from this you can see that the key is to catch at least one fish in each session as you can even win sessions and be taken out of the major placings by one blank session.

__________________
“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

Thanks for the clarification Sewinbasher

Just trying to get my head round all these different rules and ways of scoring for different comps.

I appreciate what you say about not blanking in a session as it automatically puts you way behind, and while I now have a little more understanding of how the points work, I still don't understand it fully.

I'll have to sit down and play with some examples to grasp it.

Thanks again for the info!

I'd like to express my thanks to Martin (organiser), the volunteer controllers and the Maelor Club for hosting the event.

It was my first experience of a river competition and it was a blast - tough, but a blast! I'll certainly repeat the experience, if only to watch Paul Hopwood catch fish!

Next time I'll be better prepared - more practise, more flies and breathables that don't leak around the crotch - it's very difficult to concentrate with icicles on your dangly bits!

__________________
[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

The other salient fact in most comps is that it is far better to catch a lot of small fish right on the size limit than fewer big fish. The extra points for a big fish are far fewer than you get for catching another of minimum size.

I learnt this the hard way when I wasted time chasing a few 35 cm fish when my opposition were banging out 8" (20cm) juveniles one after the other and stuffing me in the process.

__________________
“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

Now is that what fly-fishing is all about! I sometimes despair.

We are talking about a competition, the rules and scoring.

Competitions are won with a greater number of small fish, rather than a fewer number of big fish.

If you don't understand what is being discussed, or don't like what is being said, then simply refrain from posting.

You don't have to post disparaging remarks.

.

You are talking about catching a wild creature to satisfy a human craving for recognition, of course I can comment on that.

It's horses for courses. If you enter a competition it is usual to do so to try and win and that sometimes means adopting tactics that you may not adopt when pleasure fishing. If you understand how the scores are compiled you fish in the way most likely to give you a good score and much as I wanted to catch even just one of the 50cm+ browns on offer that was not the way to win the competition.

I managed to do well enough in trials to qualify without resorting to bugging, a method that I don't much enjoy, but realised that on some occasions I would have to. You have a responsibility to your county, your team mates and those who are helping to pay for your trip to do as well as possible.

I was lucky in that when I fished internationals it was on brown trout streams and my favoured method of dries and nymphs were the best methods and I enjoyed my fishing and learnt a huge amount from the other world class anglers.

However I now prefer to fish entirely for pleasure and I have moved on from competitions. I've also moved on from catching easy small stillwater rainbows and now concentrate on wild browns, salmon, sea trout and grayling with methods I enjoy.

Most people progress during their fishing career and move through the stages of any fish, lots of fish, big fish etc etc to a point where they settle on the one that fulfils them the most. For some this is testing themselves against the best of other countries. Don't knock it - it might not be what floats your boat but competition anglers enjoy their fishing as much as you and fish caught in river competitions get treated as well if not better than most fish caught by fly anglers in this country.

I wouldn't have missed my chance to represent my country for the world but I've moved on, others will follow me some will not.

As long as every angler has the opportunity to fish in a way that they enjoy and which is legal then everything is fine. I sometimes despair of anglers who are limited to stripping lures back or fishing too heavy as they are missing so much in my view but it's their choice and I wouldn't try and stop them or be too critical as there isn't enough room on the rivers for everyone to fish in my favourite way even if they wanted to.

__________________
“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary