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Veteran heads back to Bosnia for fishing champs
Del Spry completed three tours of the Balkans in the 1990s and early 2000s
Mark McAlindon and Hannah Mitchell, North East and Cumbria
An army veteran who served in the Bosnian war is to return to the country to compete in the European Fly Fishing Championship.
Derek Spry, known as Del, is the captain of the England team.
The former soldier, from Carlisle, served with the UN Forces during the Bosnian war, and his return for the competition in June will be the first time he has visited the country since then.
“I said I never wanted to go back,” Spry said. “The destruction throughout the country was eye-opening.”
He completed three tours of the Balkans in the 1990s and early 2000s.
“The difference I saw was quite dramatic in terms of the country’s recovery,” he said.
“I initially wasn’t going to go back, but I know some of the Bosnian fishing team and they say it’s a nice place these days.
“Twenty-five years later, I think it’s going to be a nice experience.”
Spry said the competition would be “tough”
Spry also served in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, where he was injured by an improvised explosive device.
The veteran first started fly-fishing when he was 12 and found returning to the sport after serving in the army to be “very relaxing”.
“Getting in the river, three hours can fly by,” he said. “It’s almost like meditation – the focus on everything, making a nice cast, tying flies, changing flies and trying to trick a wild fish into taking it.”
The 30th European Fly Fishing Championship will be held in Mostar and Livno regions of Bosnia-Herzegovina, with teams competing on the Buna River and Mostar Lake in Mostar, and the Sturba River in Livno.
“It’s going to be tough,” Spry said. “A lot of the other teams have easier access to fishing in those kinds of rivers than we have. They have a lot of skills, a lot of experience, a lot of funding.
“But we’ve got a pretty good team and we’ll do our best.”
Angling Trust Team England Fly Fishing 