Angling Trust Team England Fly Fishing

24th June 2022

Results:

1. Scotland 65 fish 2968 pts 47 placing pts
2. Wales 55 fish 2589 pts 50 placing pts
3. Ireland 59 fish 2621 pts 51 placing pts
4. England 56 fish 2517 pts 56 placing pts

Individual Winner: Ross McKeen, Scotland 5 placing pts

Largest Fish: Terry Bromwell, Wales 73.3 cms

AT TEFF was represented by: Cameron Craigs (capt), James Atkinson, Harry Fox, Chris Micallef & Carl Nixon. Congratulations to Scotland on their convincing victory.

Carl Nixon reports: Arriving for pre-match practice on Sat 18th, we were greeted with strong 35mph+ winds. Looking at the forecast we knew match week would be settled, very warm and with sporadic cloud, all teams were in for some excellent fishing.

These gusts stayed until late Sunday where we covered Beats B & C in relative shelter from the weather. On beats B & C, known as the Streams and Upper Parkhill, we were soon experiencing the excellent fishing we had been told about. Although the deceptive flow to the river and some of the hardest wading we’ve experienced made the fishing unsteady under foot, the practice was off to a great start.

Monday we were joined by current EPP & National Champion James Atkinson, who had been taking part in an EPP event on the River Ure. James joined us on Parkhill, Beat D. Where we were lucky enough to encounter some brilliant fishing, with several of the team landing fish to 5lb. As the day progressed, a pattern and a possible match plan was starting to take shape. To that point we decided that to hopefully save increasing fishing pressure, we limited catches to 2/3 fish and move on. We progressed to Beat E in the afternoon. Where yet again we stuck to the 2/3 fish plan and steadily put together a comprehensive beat map and approach.

Tactics were discussed at length at the regular nightly team debrief, practice flies, thoughts on set-ups, and tales of lost monsters.

Beats were drawn Wednesday evening, with the surprising outcome of all teams having several anglers fishing their team mates’ water from the morning sessions. This alone made all teams have a slight rethink to their match plans.

Small drab flies in the 14-18 range, either fished at distance with floated sighter or nymphing style on the level line.
Emerger style patterns for the slow water
Duo in the streamy riffles.

Match Day

As we all headed off to our respective start points, the weather was extremely warm for the 09:30 start, 24 degrees, mist in the air, and a very high air pressure made fishing very sticky.

Harry drew Beat A, James Beat B, Beat C for myself, Chris drew the lovely beat D and Cam drew Beat E.

As we met for lunch after session 2, the scores were tentatively worked out, tales from all teams of blanks on some sessions, and some high catch returns for all teams, made the halfway score very tight. Scotland 20, Wales 26, Ireland 25, England 29. Unfortunately Harry failed to get on the score card in the morning session, which meant we needed a great afternoon session. Having a chat, we knew our match plan was correct, we had all generated fish or chances, so we regrouped and knew we could make the afternoon session ours.

As we met after session 4, we knew the scores would be tight, and after doing some quick maths, we knew that we had won both session 3 & 4, all we could have asked for and more.

As the result was announced, Scotland were congratulated and deserved winners. Sadly our session wins in 3 & 4 weren’t enough as the place points just weren’t where we needed them to be.

We stuck to our individual & team match plan, and unfortunately it didn’t quite pay off as we had hoped.

I couldn’t have asked any more from the rest of the team during practice & match day, we were 110% committed, just not our day.

Thank you to Team Captain Cameron Craigs who led from the front all week.

Fellow team mates Chris Micallef, James Atkinson, Harry Fox, Mark Lynch & myself.

Thank you to the following who kindly supported Team England.

Jason Lieverst & Nicole Darland of MasterNymph USA
Mike Laycock of Craghoppers
Franta Hanak of Hanak Competiton.
Glasgow Angling Centre.

Last but certainly not least, every angler, and family members who very kindly bought raffle tickets, bonus ball tickets and donated where they could.

1. Ireland 36 fish 1030.8cms 1761pts
2. Scotland 31 fish 894.8cms 1526pts
3. Wales 21 fish 604.8cms 1029pts
4. England 18 fish 517.3cms 882pts

Best Basket: Denis Goulding (Ireland) 7 fish 190.3cms 332pts

Largest Trout: Toby Bracey (Scotland) 33.4cms

Top England rod: Tony Baldwin 3 fish 79.1cms 140pts

There is more coverage of this event on the BBC News website – Northern Ireland, see here

AT Team England Fly Fishing was represented by: Paul Angell (manager), Andy Cottam (captain), Tony Baldwin, Martin Burgess, Peter Crowe, Graham Currie, Ashley Davis, Kim Green, John Hood, Alex Johnstone, Eamon Mounter, Ben Race, Richard Slater, Paul Sweatman & Tim Wellman.

Congratulations to Ireland on a convincing victory.

Full Results:

What is the EPP?

The EPP is the Elite Performance Programme, which is a competitive fly fishing programme established in 2018 in order to develop elite anglers and provide a framework for selections teams to represent England in World, European and now 5 Nation Championships.

Who runs the EPP?

For the 2022 programme the official is Scott Nellins, however assistance is requested to peg river sections.

The programme is supported by staff at the Angling Trust (AT) and Team England Fly Fishers (TEFF).

What is the timeframe for EPP?

The Elite Performance Programme will run between June 2022 and September 2022, running over 7 days (2 x 2 days and 1 x 3 day).

What is the format of the EPP?

The programme will have 16 places available and is based on 4 events

Rivers: 3 x 2-day events
Lake: 1 x 1-day event

For more information, open the document below

The Angling Trust reports: We are delighted to announce the appointment of Steve Fitzpatrick as the new Head of Competitions at the Angling Trust.

Steve (48) joins the Senior Management Team following a 25-year career with Bauer Media’s angling portfolio where he was lately Editor-in-Chief, having stepped down earlier this year as Angling Times’ longest-serving member of staff and Editor.

Angling Trust CEO Jamie Cook described Steve as the “right person to take our competitions offering across sea, game and coarse to the next level.”

During his time at Bauer, Steve edited Match Angling Plus magazine and led the teams on Improve Your Coarse Fishing, Sea Angler, Trout & Salmon, and Trout Fisherman print titles along with their websites, video production, and social media channels.

A passionate match angler, sea fisherman and carper, Steve brings a wealth of experience from all sides of the angling industry, with experience of running a tackle shop while studying at the University of Liverpool where he completed a Master of Science Degree in Environmental Biology.

As Head of Competitions, Steve will lead the strategy and development of competition angling across all disciplines, ensuring gold-standard events are delivered both now and in the future. He will also play a leading role in driving the success of the England teams on the World and European stages.

“When the opportunity arose to work with the competitions side of the Angling Trust, I knew it would be a perfect fit,” Steve said.

“My most enjoyable role on Angling Times was as the title’s Match Editor and this saw me covering events from small club matches to National Championships and World Championships, travelling all over Europe with the England teams.

“I’m also proud to have launched and run the Clubman Supercup and Maver Pairs events and worked closely with the team in organising the Angling Times Team Championships (Winter League) for many years.

“This is an exciting new role and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to help shape the present and future gold-standard domestic events managed by a superb team at the Angling Trust and deliver competitions for every level of match angler from grassroots right up to the elite levels.

“I’ll be working hard with all the England teams and managers to ensure we not only bring home gold medals, but also host a World event on English soil within the next few years.”

Steve will take up his position in mid-April and will report directly to Jamie Cook.

Jamie said: “Competitions are a key part of what we do as the National Governing Body and in Steve I am confident we have found the right person to take our offering across sea, game and coarse to the next level.

“As a not-for-profit organisation our commitment is to invest back into promoting, protecting and developing angling at all levels. Steve’s appointment builds upon the work we have done for our customers and members in the competitions sphere over the past two years and will provide greater focus on developing the Team England brand to deliver international success at the highest level.”

The Loch-style Rules and FAQs have now been updated.

See the link from the National Loch-style menu.

Loch-style Rules 2022 – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q6smcFtXlDCnN9vs1PjLbdDvWQMtK59dM6oojE4AgVM/edit?usp=sharing

Loch-style – FAQs 2022 – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l4raW5f_hC2hA5wLS9PekIhSn3k8XNIAU-2raUiDjO4/edit?usp=sharing

As well as accessing the AT TEFF Match Calendar via the link on the top right, you can now download the full Angling Trust Game Competitions Calendar for 2022, including all current Angling Trust, AT TEFF, EYF, ELFF – Domestic, Home Nations (Home Internationals) and FIPS-Mouche – European & World events. (see link below)

This is their current programme and will be updated as the season progresses for all disciplines.

Note: The ‘AT TEFF Rivers National’ events on the 23rd January – R.Dee, 20th February – R.Dee, 10th April – R.Ure & 15th May – R.Wear are actually AT TEFF Rivers Qualifiers. The AT TEFF Rivers National Final is scheduled for 3rd-4th September on the R.Tees.

As you might have seen, the first ever Team England Fly Fishing email newsletter is now out. Its purpose is to engage with those that enter Team England Fly Fishing events, be that loch-style, rivers or bank competitions at national or international level.

For some time anglers have been saying that they struggle to get the latest information on what TEFF is doing, so the TEFF Executive has decided that the best way to engage with its entrants is by direct email, though much of what is in this newsletter is also here on this website.

Please spread the word, and encourage others to sign up, via the ‘TEFF Newsletter – Click To Sign Up’ panel on the right.

The Angling Trust states: ‘Keep us fishing’ is the Christmas message to Government ministers from the Angling Trust following the refusal of the Health Secretary, Saijid Javid, to rule out further Covid restrictions or even a fourth lockdown as is occurring right now in parts of Europe.

Angling Trust CEO Jamie Cook has written to senior members of the Government, including Michael Gove and the Secretaries of State for Environment, the Cabinet Office and Culture, Media and Sport, to remind them of how angling continued successfully and safely through the last two lockdowns and to press for similar treatment should new restrictions be introduced.

Speaking to the BBC on Sunday morning, the Health Secretary made clear that he did not rule out new coronavirus measures before Christmas – saying there are “no guarantees” in the pandemic.

In his letter to ministers, Jamie Cook said of previous lockdowns: “We were pleased that the Government agreed to permit and encourage individual outdoor recreation to continue so that those who were initially restricted in the first lockdown could once again participate in individual, socially distanced outdoor recreational activity. This delivered huge benefits to those whose recreation is not narrowly confined to running, walking or cycling. Experience has shown that socially distanced outdoor recreation such as angling is a safe and responsible activity and that its continuation does not contribute to the spread of infection.”

He added: “Whatever decisions you have to make in the coming weeks we urge you to allow angling to continue for all the reasons set out above and in the attached report. We stand ready to guide our sport through these difficult times in a safe and responsible manner as we have done throughout.”

Back in February, as the government prepared its stepped approach to easing lockdown provisions, the Angling Trust submitted it’s ‘Fishing out of Lockdown’ paper outlining the advantages of keeping people engaged in angling and the measures that were taken to keep people safe and to ensure that our sport delivers economic and social benefits and makes a significant contribution to improving mental health outcomes.

The paper, which has been resubmitted to ministers, outlines other reasons for permitting angling to continue including:

• a largely solitary sport where social distancing occurs naturally
• proven benefits for mental health and physical well-being
• appealing to people of all ages and backgrounds
• evidence that non-contact outdoor activities will not increase infection rates
• a reduction in pressure on other public open spaces

Martin Salter, Head of Policy at the Angling Trust said: “Angling has proved both popular and beneficial throughout this dreadful pandemic with more people getting closer to nature and enjoying a safe, healthy and naturally socially distanced activity within Covid secure guidelines. While other sports like golf were locked down, anglers were able to get out in the open air presenting no risk to themselves or anyone else. The Angling Trust is determined to do what we can to ensure that this remains the case through the difficult period that lies ahead.”