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 Ciprian found this fly to work for wild trout and grayling between 10 am and 6 pm on various trout streams in several European countries. So we called it the Daytime Emerger. It is very likely that it works in the evenings, too :) Easy to tie and versatile! Vary the hook size and the color of the body to cover a variety of mayfly emergers and midges.

Finally, the fly fishing competition season kicked off after more than two years of pause, and I was very excited and hungry for it. A week before my first competition in 2022, which was a lake bank two sessions, my friend Adrian Vlasiu called me and proposed to join him in a competition on Dedinky lake in Slovakia.

At the beginning, I was hesitating, but then I remembered the payback I had to this lake from the 2017 World Fly Fishing Championship where I lost too many fish, and I ended up with only four after a three-hour session. But I try to learn from my mistakes otherwise, why are we doing competitions if not to learn. Now I had a chance to prove  myself that I'm a better angler.

After two weeks of preparation, tying flies, and thinking about strategies, I finally arrived at the hotel on the 5th of May, which happened to be my birthday. It was time to celebrate but Adrian and I were to tired, so we just discussed the schedule and got to bed.

The schedule was quite simple: Friday was the training day, Saturday was the competition, and Sunday morning was the return home. So we set up the alarm clock for the following day around 7h30 am. Next day weere supposed to meet with our competition host Peter Bienek to get fishing licenses and a boat for our training day.

After a good sleep, I could feel the excitement of going fishing on Friday morning. Around 9h30 am we get to the lake where we meet with Peter, we get all the preparation done: boat, rods, motor, fishing licenses, and I was finally ready to make my first cast on Dedinky lake in 2022. After a short discussion with Peter about the lake, I realized it's not going to be easy. The lake had mostly wild fish or holdovers from previous stocking. For this event they stocked only 450 fish: a low number for the size of the water. My courage came back when I saw lots of rises in the middle of the lake, giving me hope that will catch a few fish. We had a flat calm, no wind at all: that's pretty bad because it's impossible to cover it by doing natural drifts. We had to use the electric motor and constantly move to cover new water and find the fish. After we watched a few locals we understood that everybody is chasing the rises, a tactic that provides us at the end of the day with 8-9 fish for each of us: a good results for the fishing conditions. I got all my fish using a slow intermediate, and a floating line, a long leader with three flies, some leach patterns and chironomids. I tried faster-sinking lines like di3 and di5 and also dries but with no success.  The fish were on the surface feeding on buzzers.

Saturday, the competition was to start around 7h30 am. We arrived at the competition site and I was pleased to see so many competitors getting ready to fish and organizers working out last minute details. The atmosphere was amicable, peaceful, and people were very welcoming.

The competition format was quite different from what I already experienced, but I liked it. We were three people in a boat, two competitors and one controller fishing for 2h30 then one of the competitors and the controller switched roles. We were three groups of 18 anglers which made a total of fifty four. The lake was divided into sectors A and B, so each competitor fished 2 sessions and controlled one.

After the draw, I was lucky enough to get in the boat with Peter Bienek and Zdenek Marek, starting the first session in sector A with Peter as a boat partner and Zdenek as a controller. In the second session Peter controlled me and Zdenek fishing in sector B.

Finally we heard the gunshot, and the first session started. We decided to fish around the bank: apparently the fresh stoked fish liked to stay 5-6 meters from the shore and what we did in practice was good but not for getting good numbers of fish. The only problem with fishing close to the bank is that the lake has a good population of chub. I set up my 7wt rod with a fast intermediate line, a long leader, 3 flies with 3 feet apart. The top dropper was a pink salmon leach, middle dropper was a Tristan leach and the point a simple black leach with orange bead. Peter used a slow intermediate line with 3 leach patterns but with a bit less distance between them.

In about 10 minutes Peter landed a wild brown trout and two minutes after I landed a wild brook trout.  In another 45 minutes close to the bank Peter got another brown and I had a few inquiries. Then we decided to move towards the middle of the lake where Peter got a wild rainbow.

With only 30 minutes left to the session, at that point we decided to try one more time near the bank, but closer to the docks. On my first cast I landed my second fish: a rainbow. And in the last 5 minutes of the session I landed my third: a nice 38 cm rainbow. My first two fish took the flies on the hang and the last one came on figure-eight retrieve.

Our three fish each would got us good placing points. Only eight anglers got fish, and the other ten blanked. Peter placed second with 101cm and I placed 3rd with 95cm.

After 30 minutes break, the gunshot announced the start of the second session. I fished sector B with Zdenek Marek as a boat partner and Peter Bienek as a controller. After a short discussion with Zdenek we decided to start once again closer to the bank targeting the freshly stocked fish.

First cast: Zdenek landed a rainbow. The wind picked up then and we actually had drifts towards the shore, which gave us the possibility to cover more water. As soon as we reached our targeted zone about to five meters from the shore, Zdenek landed another fish and I got my first of the second session. That gave me a huge relief for saving the blank.

Another drift and Zdenek landed his third fish and I got broken off. On the the next cast I landed my second fish, then we moved towards the middle of the lake. Right at the start of our drift, while retrieving I got a hard hit, we saw a big splash and my point fly was missing…another fish broke me off… I have to mention that during the first session, some monster 50+ cm wild brown got caught. Slowly we drifted close to shore and Zdenek landed his 4th fish. With only 20 m left, we decided to try a short drift towards the bank wich gave me my 3rd fish and Zdenek landed his 5th.

I ended up with 3 fish and 4 placing. Zdenek got 2 placing points with 5 fish.

I used slow intermediate line with 12 foot long leader and 3 flies. Once again the salmon leach gave me two fish and one fish came on a small wet fly. A retrieve with long strips and stops worked well, the fish took on the pause.

At the end, I placed 6th with 7 placing points from a total of 54 competitors: a very satisfying result for me. But more satisfying was that I made a lot of new friends and I had the opportunity to fish with very good anglers.

Thank you to the organizers and all the competitors for this great event. I am very grateful for the positive experience I had on Dedinky lake.

Ciprian Rafan

May 2022

Ciprian named this nymph "the Driver". Another friend just called it a green ribbed hare's ear soft hackle thing...Whatever you call it, it is a great all-around pattern suggestive of many insects. Trout love it. Worth finding a place in any fly box.

Here is an early-season favourite tied by Ciprian. Simple and deadly. It pays to have this pattern with a few different butt colors. Chartreuse, hot orange and pink are probably the best. Enjoy!

If you have been following World and European Fly Fishing Championships you have inevitably seen the name Luboš Roza. Usually somewhere high up the rankings. We sat down for a candid interview with Luboš. Enjoy! 

Ivo: Luboš, tell us a bit about yourself first. When and how did you start fly fishing? How did you get involved in competitive fly fishing?

Luboš: I started when I was 14. My good friend Milan Cubik was my first teacher. I loved it immediately as I was able to catch a lot of fish in our stream. It was a killer  method. I had been fishing since I was 9 but found fly fishing later. Before this I was chasing carp and other species. I always had the passion to fish. Not sure how I managed to graduate university because all that was in my head was fishing. Competing came a year after I started fly fishing. I do different sports and just like opportunity to measure how good one is. Normally, I am not nervous, I enjoy every minute of competition. I take fly fishing as a relaxing activity even when competing. It is important to be successful but anyhow fly fishing competitions are still just fly fishing. Win or loose, nothing will change in your real life. In my first competitive year I was doing well and ended up being nominated for my first youth world champ: I won it and a year later I won again. So I won both youths champs that I took part in. After this my competition "life" got even more intense.

Ivo: Competitive fly fishing remains controversial in the fly fishing world. Even though its popularity is growing substantially each year, many anglers continue to believe that fly fishing should not be a competitive sport. What do you get from competitions? Why is it the right thing for you?

Lubos: Competitions are the only way how to be very happy even when catching  very small fish. You can compare your skills with others and then you know how good you really are. I know many good anglers that are not good competitors. During competition you need to keep in your mind a lot more. It is always easy to find a deep hole where you expect to find bigger fish. But during a comp you need to think about how to catch the smaller fish without putting down the big ones so you can catch them later. You need to net your catch fast and still not spook other fish. It is exciting. Most of the time you get a good sense of why you didn't win: too many small details to joggle. Thanks to competitions you grow faster, because after competition you know clearly that your style was not the best. In leisure fishing you don't have this reference point, you are just happy your wife let you spend a day on the water ;) If I am fishing for fun I don't care about loosing some fish, I don't worry about spooking fish and if I catch some all is good, I love it! When I am competing I focus on hooking and landing every fish. Again, I am not nervous and I enjoy the minutes in competition!

Ivo: Your fly-fishing journey is nothing short of impressive: world champion, multiple other medals at the World and European Championships at both the senior and youth level, and a lot more...How do you stay in shape?

Luboš: A friend of mine always says: It is a competition where you can win a bucket of noodles. That's it. I doesn't matter if you win once, twice or ten times. And it will never change nothing important in your life. So either you love competitive fly fishing or not. If yes, you are always happy to win! And every victory is a different story and we say… good stories are never enough! Every competition, even the small local one is a challenge and you want to get the best from you. It is a perfect break for your mind.

Ivo: What is your favourite fly fishing technique and why?

Luboš: Have to say I love all techniques. Every technique is difficult if you want to do it right. I tend to prefer the ones where you get to use the fly line. I think fly fishing is about it. I know that the long nymphing leaders are absolutely killing but I appreciate the fish that I can catch by other methods. If there are a lot of rising fish and one is somewhere where it seems it is impossible to catch, I am willing to stay on it for hours! Don't care about the other fish. I also love sight fishing. It is amazing to be able to see what the fish are doing, how they react, you have to present your fly in the right way…it's just so beautiful! This is what I love!

Ivo: You have fished around the world. What are your favourite places?

Luboš: I love one place…the world…Everywhere I go, I enjoy it. Doesn't matter how many fish you catch as long as its a different experience. Just make your own goal and try to accomplish it… Of course, I like destinations where I can get big fish. I am happy to live in Czech Republic on the border with Slovakia: beautiful country with  plenty of rivers full of fish. I love the lakes in England and Ireland, the nature of Yukon in Canada... all nice places in this world.

Ivo: Recently you wrote the book “Flyfishing World”. Its English language edition is coming out soon. I know many people are expecting it. Give us a little teaser. What is it about? New techniques? River fishing, lakes or both?

Luboš: Yes, I tried to share everything I know in this book. You will find a lot of information that I have not read about anywhere. It is not an ordinary fishing book. It shares concrete details on how to be a successful fisherman and at the same time my stories from competitions – real stories. I tried to pack in this book a bit of everything: stories, sketches, important information about lake and river fishing, flies and a lot of great photos. I trust that every fisherman will find something new in it and enjoy reading the book.

Ivo: If you can give one piece of advice to a new fly fisherman, what would be it?

Luboš: Stay in the water. Enjoy the fishing, perceive the nature…fly fishing is about that.

Ivo: And to an experienced fly fisherman?  

Luboš: If you are not successful then at least you should look good ;)

The book "Flyfishing World" by Luboš Roza will be available soon in Canada exclusively through Smart Angling.