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An interview with Chris Puchniak, Smart Anling Pro Staff

When and how did you start fly fishing?

My dad got me into fishing at a young age.  We did lots of salmon fishing in rivers and the ocean.  But it was probably around the age of 14 or 15 I witnessed a fly angler clean up on a tough lake of big fish while the rest of us on the lake caught next to nothing.  I kind of recall seeing that and going: "I want to do that!"  Then I got into flyfishing with a couple of friends in high school by exploring one of the local stocked ponds.  I think my first rig was one my parents bought me where you bought the fly line and the rod and reel came free with it...  and it's just continued from there.

What is your favourite type of water? You favourite technique?

Can I say 'any' water?  Even if it doesn't have fish.  As long as there is the possibility of a fish, I love any type of water.  From rivers to lakes to oceans.  But I generally like to fish the worst water I can find. The stuff that good (better) anglers get bored with and don't want to bother with. That's probably my favourite type of water - and of course this varies from system to system.  But generally if no one else wants to fish it, I probably DO want to fish it.

I don't like to put aside any techniques because any fishing is fun and everything is useful at some point or another, but I do like tightline nymphing. The fast, sudden and direct contact you have when a fish takes the fly. I think a lot of anglers like feeling that initial strike from a fish (it's coined the expression - the tug is the drug), but it is just emphasized that much more when your line has minimal slack in it and the fish is only 20' away.  Even soft takes can quickly turn into an explosive situation when you don't have 90' of fly line between you and the fish, absorbing all the pressure.

What do you like about competitive fly fishing? And what do you dislike?

There are two things I really like about competition fishing:  the great friends you make (team sports almost always create close friendships, whether it's with your own team mates or your rivals) and the vast amount of knowledge you learn.  As a learning tool, nothing can replace fishing with 30+ people in the same general waters, then finding out later how everyone did relative to each other (all scored precisely and objectively with no fishing exaggeration!).  You all start on relatively the same footing, and when the end of the day comes, you 'think' you have had a good run at it... but then you find out that someone did 'X' while you did 'Y', and they caught 25 fish to your 5 fish.  Then you realize there was potentially a lot more fish out there, and undoubtedly a much more effective approach than you were using.  Days like this can be humbling, but the information you take away from those scenarios is hard to match.

As for dislikes, sometimes competition fishing styles don't mix well with recreational angling styles, especially on lakes, where you have one group (competitors) drifting and avoiding any signs of anchoring in one place, and another group (recreational anglers) specifically wanting to anchor in one place.  Neither group is wrong in either style, but both are tough to do on the same waters.  I like everyone being happy, so this is a struggle for me.

I think too it is sometimes too easy for competition anglers to focus on small fish.  Not always, mind you, and small fish are just as nice as big fish - as well, sometimes there are ONLY small fish to target, so it cannot be avoided.  But there are times I think we 'avoid' big fish to catch more smaller fish, which are usually more eager to feed, and that just seems a shame as big fish are just so much fun. It's often times not a by product of the style of fishing, but more an active choice the angler/competitor makes, which makes it hard to fathom some days why anyone would do that.

What do you think is the biggest myth about competitive fly fishing?

That competition somehow removes the fun from fishing. That couldn't be further from the truth. Competition isn't for everyone, and perhaps some people take it too seriously causing a bit of a stigma, but fishing as a team and learning so much from each other, while being in the outdoors, is as much fun as you can get fishing.

What is the biggest challenge facing competitive fishing in Canada? What is the biggest success? 

One of our biggest challenges is the great distances there are between a lot of the competitors.  Yes, there are large groups in BC, Alberta, Quebec, etc... but it isn't easy for those in BC to fish with those in Ontario, for example, and that makes it tough to build national teams, and get together collectively to either compete or learn.  We can talk back and forth, but that doesn't replace time spent on the water together, where you can really share ideas.  It makes it tougher to expose each other to different techniques, and hence develop as well as those in smaller Nations perhaps.  It leads to us becoming more regionalized than I would like to see us be, and I think limits some of our ability to improve.

On the flip side, we've seen a huge growth in the sport these past 10 years, which is not only helping to counteract the above disadvantage by bringing in new highly skilled anglers, but is demonstrating that the sport is growing in popularity and is well-liked by those that give it a try.

Who is the person that has inspired and motivated you the most in fly fishing? 

Well, out west in BC, if your answer isn't in some way related to Todd Oishi, I'd be surprised.  Especially for those that try comp fishing.  So Todd is very high on that list.  But it is very difficult to pin it down to one person.  Certainly my Dad is on that list, as are a couple of my high school friends, as well as some of my team mates.  But I also have to look at anglers like Martin Droz and David Arcay who have shown me (us) how good you can be - and that drives me to continually want to improve.  When you see anglers on the top of the sport that well, you know that there is room for so much more to be learned.

What is Smart Angling for you? 

It used to be that in North America  if you wanted top end fly fishing gear, beyond the run of the mill mass-produced stuff, you had to shop overseas, in the Czech Republic, England, etc...  This was to get the leading edge materials and gear.  Now a couple of good sources have appeared in North America and Smart Angling is one of those leading the way.

Also, perhaps more significant is the degree of education and information being provided by Smart Angling, being a conduit for such instructors as David Arcay, and top-ranked Canadians. Good businesses not just sell good products - they also educate their customers and help them get better so that they can use their equipment more effectively. Smart angling, in other words.  Sounds like a cliche, but it is very true in almost any industry.

More About Chris:

Chris has been fly fishing for about 30 years, and his interests have sent him to many fishy locations between Canada and Tasmania. Since 2011 he has been active in the Competition scene, and  has been fortunate enough to fish on two consistently medal winning teams within Canada.  He has had the privilege to be selected to represent Canada for two International teams (in 2014 and 2017), and has competed in numerous events within Canada, where he has been fortunate enough to have won a number of individual and team medals.

For the past couple of years Chris has also been involved in helping the Canadian National Youth Team as an Assistant coach, as well as being involved with Trout Unlimited.

Ciprian demonstrates a caddis pattern utlising a technique for crafting an extended nymph body that can be used with a variety of natural and synthetic materials.

This time Ciprian ties his version of a classic leech pattern. A true work horse, this fly can used on rivers and lakes with a variety of techniques and setups. It is extremely reliable pattern for various trout species and is also a small mouth bass favorite. Always worth keeping a few in the box.      

Having devoted some energy to the lace moth challenge, in the next few days we focused on the other available river practice water: the Whanganui and another strench of the Tongariro.

New Zealand's third longest river, the Whanganui is known for being the world's second natural resource to be given its own legal identity, with the rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person. As we find out, it is also a great river to fish, with a healthy population of strong wild rainbows and browns of various sizes. The sectors we had for practice were below the competition water. This river is bigger than what most of us fish on a regular basis, with a variety of water to cover: pockets, runs, glides and rapids.

Team members practicing on the Whanganui under the watch of Captain Donald Thom and our local guide Neil Hirtzel. Photo: Ivo Balinov

There were no surface feeding fish here and we focused on other techniques. It did not take long to find out that some of the shallow tailouts hold good numbers of small rainbows willing to take a swang fly. Some of us were more comfortable using a traditional wet fly technique while others would just swing flies with their nymphing rig. The fish were responding well to both. Not all were of the minimum competition size, but there were enough counters to be worth targeting them. Unlike Whanganui's bigger fish these were easy and fast to land. Not surprisingly, it did not take us long to spot that the other teams practicing in the area had quickly figured this out, too. This alone was just a small part of what we needed to have in our arsenal to successfully fish a competition session.

Not surprisingly in the deeper runs, riffles and pocket water nymphing was best for us. We were not catching very high numbers of fish, but the action was steady with mostly rainbows of various sizes and the occasional nice brown. There was no lack of big, strong fish and, again, we had to figure out the right balance that would allow us to hook and land a maximum number of trout during a 3-hour competition session. Right or wrong, we settled to using 0.16 mm colored sighter and 0.135 mm Arcay XTR fluorocarbon tippet, which has a breaking strain of 4.2 lbs (1.9 kg). A sighter thicker than 0.16 mm was no fun handling in the wind, plus with us using 0.135 tippet we could use a sighter portion of the leader that is marginally stronger and benefit from the extra sensitivity. Using 3/4 wt, 10.6 nymphing rods with this leader setup allows us nice drifts and good sensitivity, while still giving us some backbone to handle big fish. We had, however, to accept the fact that some of Whanganui's big, energy loaded  fish would not be landed; in a competition session, depending on how productive the fishing is, we were even thinking of breaking off some big fish on purpose to avoid wasting time and disturbing long stretches of our beats. We did not get to compete so we did not get the chance to see if we have the guts to pursue this approach. It is definitely easier to plan than to be brave enough to execute it...we all like landing trophy trout:).

Colin Huff with a nice Whanganui brown. Photo: Keefer Pitfield

The river could be fished with various nymphing techniques, but for us a long distance tight-line approach (aka the Spanish style) worked best. The Whanganui is a big river and using long casts allows us to cover a lot of water, while also making it possible to reach spots that are hard to wade to. In smaller rivers the Spanish style also helps avoid spooking fish. I am not sure if Whanganui's trout were disturbed or not but getting too close to them. In case, if they were using this nymphing style would have addressed this issue, too. From what I have heard, the winning Czech team used an extra long leader on this very same river at the World Championships in 2008 starting a debate that eventually led to the present FIPS Mouche rule that limits leaders to two rod lengths. Good or bad, this has pushed the development of competition legal, low diameter extra soft nymphing fly lines that allow long-distance nymphing. I know there are different views on this, but having tried both approaches I personally tend to agree with those who believe that using a proper fly line for this style is actually better that an extra long piece of mono. The fly line is much easier to handle and at this distance one has to figure-8 or strip line to stay in contact and adjust the drift as needed. With no ambitions to be an expert, I can say that the best line that I have tried for this technique is the Arcay Spanish Nymph line, developed by our team's coach David along with a couple of other members of the Spanish national team. 

David Arcay posing with a Whanganui resident. Photo: Colin Huff.

Our setup, from anchor fly to fly line was: about 6ft of tippet with two flies 60 cm apart, followed by the length of level bicolor sighter material needed to bring the total leader to two rod lengths. After trying many nymphs it seemed like a few simple pheasant tail variations along with a classic Spanish Culirroja (red but) perdigon produced the best results. A combination of two size 14 or 16 nymphs with 3 mm copper and silver beads, or 3.5 mm bead on the anchor fly with a 3 mm on the top dropper, covered well most water. We tied our nymphs on Hanak BL 230: a very reliable, strong hook with the right profile for the nymph patterns of our choice. An extra heavy anchor fly was needed here and there in heavy currents and deeper pools. Once a spot was well covered, a repeat with black beaded nymphs seemed to keep some of the trout interested.

Having David as a coach, pushed our learning curve up once again. I am sure all members of our team can't wait for the COVID-19 craze to be over to get back to the streams and work on internalizing all the nymphing subtleties he showed us.  

We tried streamers and they produced some big aggressive fish, but for us the action was not consistent enough to consider this as a key technique. Some of us would have probably had a streamer set-up waiting on the bank as a last resort if nothing else was working.

After fishing the Whanganui a couple of times, we returned to the Tongariro, this time the upper stretches above the competition beats. We all fell in love with this piece of water: one of those special spots where beautiful surroundings and spectacular fishing merge together into pure happiness. The fish were not rising here, but there was plenty of great nymphing water and some seriously strong fish.

Beautiful pool on the Tongariro. Photo: Ivo Balinov

The nymphing technique and set-up we used was the same as the Whanganui but the Tongariro was producing higher numbers of fish.

Ian Troup releasing a Tongariro rainbow that took him for a walk. Photo: Ivo Balinov 

The Tongariro's fish seemed to be mostly in two size ranges: smaller fish of up to 30 cm and big trout of 45 cm and above, with many 55+ brutes. The Tongariro, we were told, has fish running up from lake Taupo year round so this explains the gap in sizes between the adolescents and the mature lake run fish. The majority were rainbows, with the occasional big brown holding close to the banks. I will remember for a long time "snagging" on the bottom in a shallow pocket and after reaching down to release my fly seeing the "snag" move into deeper water and one of the strongest, biggest browns I have ever hooked explode into several jumps and a fast long run before breaking me off and leaving me shaking.

Underwater shot of Tongariro rainbow. Photo: Keefer Pitfield

All of my teammates will have memories from the Tongariro. David and Colin will probably never forget a pod of extra big rainbows they took turns hooking in a deep run: "mamitas", as David nicknamed them. They lost some, but also landed some. Needless to say, we all want to be back one day...

Ivo Balinov, April 10, 2020

More about Ivo:

Ivo has been fishing for over 35 years. His experience covers North America, Europe and the Caribbean. He is an experienced instructor who has helped countless people with their first steps into fly fishing while also coaching many advanced anglers, including several national champions of Canada as well as members of Canada's National Youth Team. He himself has learned from some of the world's very best competition anglers from the Czech Republic, Spain and the UK.

Ivo has been a successful competition angler with top finishes at major tournaments including team gold and individual bronze at the 2016 Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships, team silver at the 2018  Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships and numerous top finishes at national, provincial and regional tournaments in Canada. He has served as Pro Staff for several fly fishing brands and is now Co-owner and Marketing Director of Smart Angling.   

This must be one of Ciprian's best ties to date. Look at the way he uses the same thread for both the body and the rib. 

Tied in different sizes and with a few different body colors this pattern will cover a range of hatches.