Good morning everyone.

I wonder if you can help me.

I'm looking for as much information as possible about Trout & Grayling competitions in England. I really want to start entering some competitions in and around the south east, although I will also travel. I don't enjoy fly fishing on lakes, I prefer the chalk streams and rivers.

Can anyone offer me any info as to clubs to join or people to contact? I think there is one each year on the lower Itchen fishery, is this an eliminator for the England rivers team?

Sorry for all the questions, thanks for reading! Any input would be great.

Tight lines.

Hello nickyh and welcome from Warrington google trout fishing clubs in england that will give you a couple I think and just log on to them to see what waters they have.

Alan

There are two comps on the lower itchen, the southern and the south east, both qualifiers for the "Rivers National" which is the qualifying event for the England team. (you can only fish one of them).

You can get details here: http://www.ceff.org.uk/

The SE qualifier is a friendly bunch with the majority there for a good days fishing....the fishing can be superb with grayling to 44cm every year. You fish for half a day and control for the other half. Most of us fish the Saturday for fun, stay locally and fish the comp on the Sunday.

I am not aware of any other river comps in SE/Southern England.

__________________

Thanks for the replies chaps!

I'll look into the qualifier for the "rivers national" at the Lower Itchen, I love that stretch of water and have taken Grayling to 3lbs from there in the past. Also great for a September Salmon!!

Sorry to be a real pain, but are there any other places to enter a qualifier for the "rivers national" ?

And also what's the etiquette or process used to get all the anglers on the day fishing the same section of river (I assume it's the lower of the two Salmon beats at the Itchen)? Do you draw for a particular area? Or work your way upstream in 20min intervals for example?

Thanks for all your help!

---------- Post added at 06:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:38 AM ----------

And just to be clear I'm not really looking for a club with access to water, I have some season rods on the Test. But I would join any club if it allowed me to enter a comp. If that makes sense

The CEFF web site will give you all the info you need. One of the CEFF's main purposes in life is to produce the national teams for the various disciplines eg rivers, lough style etc at home international, european and world levels.

For the rivers there's about 5 or 6 eliminators fished around the country each year- details on the web site. The top 32 rods nationally from these eliminators go on to fish the National Rivers Final and the top six rods from there will then constitute the following years Home International English Rivers Team. Continued good performances at a national level then make eligibility for the European or World Team a possibility.

The basis for each eliminator is usually (but not always) along the following lines:-

i) a draw to divide the entries into two halves and more specifically pairs of anglers

ii) one member of each pair will fish in the morning session (the draw dictates which one) and the other in the afternoon. Anglers are usually free to fish anywhere within the specified beat subject to certain rules about proximity to other anglers and time spent at any one point- again all on the website in detail

iii) the non fishing partner will control (umpire for want of a better word) the angler who is fishing i.e measure and record the number of fish caught and keep an eye out that the rules are being adhered to.

iv) points are awarded for each qualifying fish caught (only trout and/or grayling over a certain length depending upon the venue and season) Typically 20 points for each fish caught above the minimum length plus one point for each cm the fish measures.

v) the most points win

vi) swap roles for the afternoon session, which may or may not be on a different beat

vii) results from the two sessions are usually kept separate and the top rods from each session go through to the national final.

You've missed all the action for this year as only the final remains to be fished on the Tees in September but i can't recommend giving it a go next year highly enough. Win or lose it'll do amazing things for your own fishing as you'll pick up plenty by controlling for the top guys for three hours- you get a birds eye view of everything they do

Good luck for next year hopefully

CJ

That a fantastic reply CJ, thanks for taking the time to write it! I've spoken to the relevent people at the CEFF with regard to the Southern eliminator and will hopefully meet some of you at the Itchen in October

Thanks again! Take care and be lucky!