Country: WALES
Venue: Llyn Trawsfynydd
Dates: 26th to 30th September (incl.)
Match date: Thursday 29th September
Accommodation: Celtic Royal Hotel, Caernavon

RESULTS

1st Scotland 112 fish 4477.1cms 6764pts
2nd Wales 92 fish 3731.5cms 5601pts
3rd England 77 fish 3085.3cms 4652pts
4th Ireland 74 fish 3029.3cms 4534pts

Best Basket: Ronnie Gilbert (Scotland) 16 fish 634.3cms 961pts

Largest Trout: Robert Flaherty (Ireland) 50.0cms

Full Results here>>

Congratulations to Scotland on a convincing victory.

AT Team England FF was represented by: Craig Barr (captain), Sam Bailey, David Currie, Bart Farmer, Ryan Faber, Si Gaines, Neil Hodgson, John Horsey, Pablo Mullings, Terry Phillips, John Pearn, Mark Rose, Tony Smith, Daniel Tranter & Ian Colclough (manager).

Ian Colclough (Team Manager) reports: Ten members of AT Team England Fly Fishing gathered at the lake on Monday 26th for the unofficial practice day. Despite unfavourable conditions, a rod average of 6.5 was attained.

Day 2 saw the whole team practicing. It was similar conditions, but the rod average fell to 4.6. This was to be expected as there was a lot of pressure on the main fish-holding areas, and we had decided not to fish them so intently.

The final practice day saw a change in weather with light breezes and sun / cloud. The fish appeared to remain in the same areas and our average catch increased. The feeling of the team was that we knew areas to try on match day, five or six with plenty of fish, and that we had about 10 patterns that were working for us. It was felt that the fish were no deeper than 3 feet so most were using Slow Sink or Di3 lines. Many fish were hard on the bank and a fly cast to within a foot or two had a good chance of taking a fish. The problem was that we had no idea what the other teams were averaging, but the team and I felt that a catch of around 80 fish on the day would put us in with a change of gold.

Match day arrived. and the breeze had freshened and swung to the North East. It was generally sunny and cool. Many boats went to one main area – an area that we had identified as being the one with the highest concentration of fish. As the day wore on boats began to move from this area and seek out other places. Many anglers had their most fish in the first three hours. As the match ended it was apparent that, as a team, we had not improved on our average. Both the Scots and Welsh had some large bags in their team weights. As England weighed in first it was nail-biting to see if the Irish had beaten us. Thankfully, our 77 fish beat their 74 so we attained a third place bronze.

Congratulations to first cap Terry Phillips for weighing in the best England basket with 13 fish for 784 points. Well done to Scotland for a resounding win. Thanks to the fishery and Welsh organisers.

I’d like to thank the whole team for what was a tremendous four days. The team spirit was second to none, all were fully committed and determined, but on the day we came up a little short. Thank you, especially to Craig Barr team captain, who took much of the pressure off me. Also to Paul Angell who came along on Day 1 to help.

Ian Colclough – Team Manager