Angling Trust Team England Fly Fishing

AT TEFF has been informed by Stephen that he has stood down from his volunteer role as manager of one of the loch-style teams.

His track record was second to none, as he managed the team on six occasions, gaining gold medals at Lough Owel in 2014, Menteith in 2017, and Grafham in 2019. He was also involved in organising the recent Pro/Am events at Chew and Draycote, raising over £1200 to go towards team funds.

I’m sure you will join us in thanking Stephen for his dedication to our sport over the years he has been involved, not only as manager but also as a volunteer of many years. He will be sorely missed. We wish him well for the future, and hopefully we shall see him again around the loch-style competition scene in future years…

On behalf of Angling Trust Team England Fly Fishing Thank You!

Ian Colclough
Acting Secretary AT TEFF

The Covid Pandemic has disrupted the normal timetable and progression of events that lead to the identification of a Team to represent England in Bank Internationals. As a consequence, the recent Bank National Final has produced an England Team for October 2022 from Qualifiers etc. that started back in 2019.

The usual timetable and progression of events is for:

Qualifiers to be held November – March.

Semis to be held April.  

Final to be held in May, for the winners to represent England in October that year.

To restore this timetable, the 2022 Bank National Championship will start with Qualifiers in November 2022 leading to a final in May 2023. This will result in the Team to represent England in the 2023 Bank International to be hosted by England.

To support the Bank International Team, we are considering to take the opportunity during January – April 2022 to organise Cash Prized Bank Fundraising events, with the proceeds being ringfenced for the benefit of Bank International Team Members. This is still work in progress and the details will be posted by the Executive when confirmed.

After reviewing the progress of the proposed 2021 5N League, the selection of individuals to form future England 5N Teams will be incorporated into the Elite Performance Programme (EPP).

The impact of COVID restrictions has inevitably disrupted the normal timetables for selection and representation of World and European teams. We now need to bring these back in synch and incorporate the 5NFFC team selection.

For 2022 Teams:

World – selected from recent 2021 EPP

European – carried over from 2019 EPP selection

5NFFC – selection options being considered by ATTEFF exec

For 2023 Teams:

World – to be selected from 2022 EPP

European – selected from the recent 2021 EPP

5NFFC – 1 or 2 teams to be selected from 2022 EPP

For 2024, all team selections will be made from the 2023 EPP.

The Angling Trust reports: The Angling Trust brings you a unique opportunity to keep participating in loch-style competition during the winter. Thames Water’s Farmoor Reservoir Fishery has been selected as the host for our end of year loch-style match on Saturday 4th December, and the venue is the ideal for winter fly fishing. Farmoor has hosted many highly-respected competitions in December and January. The AT Brumal Loch-style match is a follow-on from the 2020 Loch Style Autumn Series, with the competition being hosted in the winter this year.

The competition will be fished from drifting boats from 9am until 3pm to international rules and full catch & release, using barbless or de-barbed hooks.

Entry is through the Angling Trust booking system only and is open to anglers aged 16 and over.

The entry fee for the match is £50.00, which covers the entry fee, boat fee & fishing permits. There will be cash prizes first to fourth placed anglers with the amount subject to the number of entries. First place will also receive a book of boat fishing tokens worth £100 courtesy of Thames Water.

To find out more & to book your ticket visit: https://anglingtrust.net/competitions/at-brumal-loch-style-2021-farmoor-reservoir-4th-december/ 

The AT TEFF Executive would like to thank Lee Cartmail for his dedicated service as a volunteer. Lee began organising the Bank Qualifiers back in 2018/19, and also introduced a series of fundraising events to help support the team financially. I’m sure that all those that knew Lee will join us in thanking him for all this hard work and wish him well for the future.

AT TEFF Executive

Elinor Fishery hosted this year’s AT TEFF Bank National, with 27 anglers fishing hard in awkward conditions for the prestigious trophy and places in the AT TEFF England bank team for 2022.

Congratulations James Stephenson on taking 1st place, Josh Piper on his runner-up position, and Andy Taylor for pushing them hard for 3rd.

Well done Lee Cartmail on running the event so smoothly, as well as all the guys who either fished or stewarded.

Lee Cartmail reports: 27 anglers made Sunday’s National Final at Elinor, bright sunshine and strong winds were not ideal conditions that day. Elinor is a phenomenal fishery and has a competition track record second to none. It had been well stocked leading up to this event, but wasn’t giving her fish up lightly on Sunday and rightly so, England caps have to be earned. Anglers needed to dig in deep and make every chance count, fine margins separated the top 9 anglers. I’d personally like to thank Ed Foster for hosting a superb venue and supplying some of his regulars to control today. Also, huge thanks to Kirsty from the Angling Trust for controlling again today, and all the work she does behind the scenes.

Czech Republic – Zábřeh, 5th-10th October 2021

RESULTS

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

Session 4 & Final Results

Czech Republic – Zábřeh, 5th-10th October 2021

The 6th FIPS-Mouche Masters World Fly Fishing Championships, for competitors aged over 50, will be held in Zábřeh, in the North Moravia Region of the Czech Republic, from 5th-10th October 2021.

REGISTERED TEAMS

Belgium – Czech Republic – Finland – France – Italy – Nederlands – Norway – Poland – Romania – Slovakia – Spain – USA

DRAW

PROGRAMME

Day 1 – Tuesday 5th October
14:00 Arrival of Teams at the official hotel
Presentation of the Participants & Captains’ Meeting
18:00 Official Start of the Masters (Hotel Diana) & Dinner

Day 2 – Wednesday 6th October
06:00-> Breakfast
08:00 – 11:00 Session 1
14:00 – 17:00 Session 2
20:00-> Dinner

Day 3 – Thursday 7th October
Day off
11:00 – 14:00 Visit to Local Brewery
14:00 Lunch

Day 4 – Friday 8th October
06:00-> Breakfast
08:00 – 11:00 Session 3
14:00 – 17:00 Session 4
20:00-> Dinner

Day 5 – Saturday 9th October
16:00 Announcement of Results
Closing Ceremony (Hotel Diana)

Day 6 – Sunday 10th October
Departure

SECTORS

Sector 1 – Morava River, Hanušovice
Beautiful mountain river with prevalence of the native brown trout, grayling and stocked rainbow trout.

Sector 2 – Morava River, Bohdíkov
Medium flow part of the Morava River with the native brown trout, grayling and stocked rainbow trout.

Sector 3 – Morava River 21, Postřelmov
Slowly flowing part of the Morava River will be stocked with rainbow trout, but it also holds good populations of chub and other river fish species.

Sector 4 – Lake / Jezero Nová Ves
Boat competition, lake will be stocked with rainbow trout.

For more information go to the competition website here>>

EPP Event 4 brought the anglers up to Dumfries (Scotland) to fish on the River Annan. Harry Fox was unable to make the event and was replaced by Peter Clark.

The river was low but holding a little colour, as is often the case with freestone rivers. Good numbers of fish were caught from the off, with Del Spry taking an early lead catching 17 fish across his four morning session pegs. The fishing was trickier in the afternoon, Gillaum Vermeulen being the only angler to catch in every one of his sessions.

The fishing was expected to get increasingly tougher on Day 2, however Howard Croston and Scott Nellins both caught good numbers of fish from pegs 2 and 6 early in the day to keep themselves in contention.

It was over to the afternoon anglers, with those now acting as controllers trying to figure out where they’d finished and if they’d done enough to make one of the teams. Del Spry continued his Day 1 form to win Group A, just ahead of Mark Withyman who was the only angler to catch on every peg. Howard Croston had done enough to win Group B and take the overall Event 4 victory.

The fishing went right down to the wire, and one more fish caught in the last few seconds of the match would have changed the anglers qualifying in both the World and European teams.

177 fish were caught and released by the anglers over the two days. Tactics largely focused on nymph fishing and dry fly.

The results from Event 4 are below:

2021 EPP League – Final Positions

Event 4 brought the 2021 EPP to a close, the final league positions are as below. As you can see, the results were incredibly close, with only 1 point separating anglers from 4th to 8th. The fishing really did go down to the wire for qualification places.

The anglers finishing in positions 1-5 are eligible to fish in the World Fly Fishing Championships in Spain 2022. The anglers finishing in positions 6-10 are eligible to represent England at the 2023 European Fly Fishing Championships (Venue TBC).

Congratulations to James Atkinson on becoming the 2021 EPP champion, winning the event at his first attempt with solid performances across each of the venues.

The 2022 EPP is currently being scoped, full details to follow. Due to Covid forcing the European Championships to be pushed back an additional year, there is currently a misalignment in the Team England qualification process. Therefore, it is expected that the 2022 EPP will be used as a vehicle to select only one team which will represent England at the 2023 World Fly Fishing Championships.

Report: Terry Phillips

Images: Terry Phillips & AT TEFF Press Officer