World Fly Fishing Championships 2023 as I experienced it. Session IV, Upper Vah River. By Ciprian Rafan
My 4th session of the World Fly Fishing Championship was on the Upper Vah river, a nice medium to low water section with lots of rapids and good grayling areas.
During practice, I had identified the types of water preferred by the fish and already had a good idea of how to approach the river. Yet after the challenging experience I had on the lower part of the same river, I left a gate open to less attractive areas such as deep pools and fast-moving water. Looking at the statistics, it seemed like the beats were pretty even with a few exceptions where the fish were becoming active later during the sessions due to the tree-covered banks and the position of the sun. Also, we had information that the upper part of the sector holds bigger rainbows: escapees from a hatchery.
September 16: I woke up at 5 am. to have enough time for breakfast and equipment preparation before the 6:40 a.m. departure to the sector. The beat rotation was announced shortly after boarding the bus. I was going to start at beat 16 and switch for the second half of the session with the angler from Holland at beat 15. Arriving at the river, I had enough time to set up my equipment and study the beat, which was not very long, about 250 meters. The records of 3 days of competition put the beat somewhere in the middle in terms of the fish numbers: 21 fish caught on the first day, down to 15 on the third.
At the bottom of the beat, there were some deep rapids flowing towards the opposite bank, forming a curve that continued downstream in beat 17. Above the fast water, there was a big, deep, and slow pool.
In the middle part of the beat, the river was a bit wider with medium speed riffles ideal for grayling. The upper part, at the limit with beat 15, was narrow with two deeper and faster runs.
The first sight of the beat gave me a good impression, and I was already making a plan how to fish and where to start. My strategy was to divide the beat into three sections: bottom, middle, and top, allocating 30 minutes for each part to cover all promising water. I decided to start right from the lower part of rapids.
I set up a 2wt nymphing rod with a three fly set-up: sizes 16 and 18 with beads from 2mm to 2.5mm. For the deeper water, I prepared a 3wt rod with 2 flies sized between 16 and 14 with beads from 3mm to 3.5mm. The flies used were the same as the day before: pheasant tail variants with yellow, silver, and copper beads. I set the timer on my phone to ring at intervals, alerting me when I had 5 minutes left before moving on to the next section I had mapped to fish.
At 9 o'clock sharp, my controller signaled the start of the session. A very nice guy who tried his best to communicate with me in English and was happy every time I landed a scoring fish: a great example of Slovak hospitality.
It took two casts to hook and land the first fish: a grayling that measured 22 cm. Another 3 casts, a meter above, and the second fish was on my score sheet followed by a take that did not result in a hook-up. After 15 minutes, I decided to switch rods and try right above the rapids in the deeper, slower pool. I persisted there without success until the alarm went off, and I knew I had only 5 minutes left for the lower part of the beat. In a heartbeat, I ran back to the spot where I had the last take and immediately scored another grayling.
It was time to move to the middle, slower part of the beat. Arriving there, I saw two currents flowing down the center and one short flowing into the opposite bank, passing under overhanging branches.
At the first spot, I caught 3 under-measure grayling, followed by a scoring fish. After about 15 minutes on that stretch I shifted my attention to the shorter run under the branches where on my first cast I got broken off: I was using a 0.09mm tippet, considering that by session 4 the fish were already quite pressured. I re-tied, tried the same spots for about 5 more minutes, and moved to the next spot where I scored another grayling and released 4 more under-measure fish. After 1h, I had 5 fish on the scoreboard, and It was time to move to the top of the beat where two fast riffles were dropping off into a deeper run. I fished the first without success for about 10 minutes, and I moved to the second where I had one empty take. Looking at the watch, I had 12 minutes left until the switch when I noticed at the limit with beat 15 in the near bank under the branches of the trees a short hole, about 2 by 1 meter, that looked promising. On the first cast there I caught a grayling, but to measure it, I had to make a detour below to avoid disturbing the spot. As soon as I managed to get back, I scored another fish, then tried for a few more minutes without success until my timer signaled 5 minutes left from the first half of the session. I went back to the spot where I had missed a fish, and in a few casts, I caught another good grayling. In the very last minute, I returned to the upstream spot. With a few seconds left, I caught another grayling with took me to a total of 9 fish. It was time to move to beat 15, where the fisherman from Holland had managed 5 scoring fish.
With a 30-minute break between rotation, I used the first 20 to scout my beat and the remainder to refresh my flies and tippet set-up.
Beat 15 was short, about 150 m. The lower part was wider with medium depth water and a few short rapids. In the middle, there was a deep, fast channel on the opposite bank. Near bank, the water flowed slower with depths between 20 and 30 cm. The upper part of the river was twice as wide and low: 10 to 5 cm with a slightly deeper riffle on the opposite bank. My strategy for the next 90 minutes was to divide the beat notionally into two, and the time into 3 parts: 30 minutes for the bottom where I was going to start, 30 for the upper part and the last 30 I was going to go back down insisting around the near shore where I assume the controller would release the fish and they would remain close to the shore in the softer water. Also, I chose to wade in the middle and fish the banks.
Right after the start in the first spot, I caught the first grayling, followed in the next 10 minutes by 2 more from in the same type of pocket water among boulders. For the next 20 minutes of fishing, things got quiet until the phone timer warned me that it was time to move. For another 20 minutes, I was moving up slowly casting towards the banks under the branches, which resulted in 2 nice grayling and 3 non-scoring fish. When I reached the upper limit of my beat, the only water left for fishing was a short, fast stretch about 4 meters long and 15 cm deep, flowing into the opposite bank. Deciding to keep a safe distance with long casts upstream, over the next 10 minutes, I had the most productive time of my entire session and added 5 scoring grayling between 22 and 27 cm.
In the last 30 minutes, fishing downstream close to the bank where the controller released the fish, I added 4 more grayling on the score sheet. This took me to a total of 23 fish for the entire session, a satisfying result considering that on the first day of the competition, the beat had produced 21 fish.
In conclusion, staying focused and following a strategy based on dividing the beats into equal parts and allocating the necessary time to cover the water adequately, led me to a good result that placed me 5th in my group for the session.
Tip: After I bent the points of my hooks to the side, I didn't drop a single fish, leaving aside the fish that broke me off in the first half.