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The alarm went off early—Session 2 of the European Fly Fishing Championship was waiting, and today’s venue was the beautiful but unpredictable River Mera, about an hour’s drive from our hotel. The official bus had the same warm atmosphere as always. By now, many of us had already connected, and even though we were competitors, the main topic remained the same: fishing, more fishing, and… fishing. You would think we’d talk about something else, but no—this is who we are.

As we approached the venue, the beats were announced. When I heard “Romania, beat number 3,” I immediately checked the information our team had exchanged the night before. The Irish angler had caught 15 fish there on Day 1—not bad, but other beats had produced even higher numbers. I told myself one thing: give absolutely everything and catch as many fish as possible.

At the parking area, my controller—an Italian gentleman around 60, incredibly friendly—greeted me and walked me to the beat. I still had an hour to prepare and scout the water.

The Beat

The Mera was stunning—big rocks, medium-deep pockets between 60 and 120 cm, short fast runs, and small falls. Exactly the kind of water where hungry trout like to hide.
My beat was roughly 170 meters, which I divided into two zones:

• Lower section (about 100 m): big rocks, pocket water, perfect ambush spots for trout.

• Upper section: starting with a small fall, opening into shallower water with smaller rocks, medium-speed channels, and short pockets.

After walking the beat, I prepared my gear:

• Two nymphing rods—one with light nymphs, one with heavier ones.

• One dry fly rod, just in case.

• No streamer rod, as the water didn’t call for it.

After a quick call with my teammate who fished the river the day before, I settled on the flies that worked best:
Hare’s Ear with pink bead and Black Hare’s Ear with silver bead.

My controller confirmed that Day 1 fish were caught mostly in the lower pockets behind the rocks. So the plan was clear: start there, insist hard, then finish in the upper part during the last hour.

The Slow Start

10:00 a.m. Start.

I placed the first cast into the pocket in front of me… nothing. Moved to the next… still nothing. I rotated light flies, then heavy ones. Thirty minutes in—no touches, and the pressure started creeping in hard.

After 55 minutes and halfway through the lower section with a blank scorecard, I reached the small fall. On my second cast into the left run, I felt a soft touch—not enough to hook, but enough to give me a little hope. A couple more casts, still nothing.

So I crossed the river, changed angle, and cast again into the same spot. As the nymphs dropped—fish on! The first Mera trout was finally in the net, taking the pink-bead Hare’s Ear. The pressure lifted, but the worry remained… I only had about 70 meters of less promising water left.

The Turnaround

Above the fall, my very first cast into shallow water produced fish number two. A cast to the opposite bank—fish number three. Suddenly, things were moving.

Farther up, I reached a deeper channel between two rocks—around 3 meters long, 1.5 m wide, maybe 80 cm deep. On the second cast to the right side—another rainbow. This one took the black Hare’s Ear on the top dropper, a good sign the fish had become active.

Another hook-up came off after a couple seconds, but soon after, another trout on the left side of the channel.
Five fish by halftime, with 40 meters of untouched water ahead.

The uppermost section was shallow—nothing deeper than 40 cm—so I switched to the lighter rod and started picking the pockets. It paid off: five more fish, bringing me to 10 by the time I reached the end of the beat.

An hour left.

I revisited the lower part, but just like at the start—nothing. The fish from the previous day were clearly spooky.

The last 40 minutes were spent in the productive middle water. A brown. Under a branch—another rainbow. In the pockets—three more fish. Soon I was sitting at 15 fish, matching the previous day’s catch from this beat.

With 15 minutes left, I returned to the short channel. I noticed a small drop—no more than 50 cm—hidden on the left side of the main rock. A tiny pocket, almost unfishable. I cast in front of the rock, let the nymphs slide, changed angle, dropped them perfectly—fish number 16.

In the final minute, a last cast into a small fast run produced the final trout of the session.

17 fish.
Not bad at all, considering the brutal start.

The Result

Back at the parking area, I spoke with my friend from Montenegro, who had the beat below mine. He confirmed my feeling: the fish from Day 1 were spooky and uncooperative.

Talking with other competitors, I realized that 17 fish was actually a strong number—and it showed in the official rankings:
➡️ 5th place in the session.

The winning flies were clearly the pink-bead Hare’s Ear and black Hare’s Ear with silver bead, (In the picture below you can see 2 different Hanak hooks the already classic 450bl and the new 460bl RS) but more important than the fly choice was changing angles, presentations, and re-fishing productive spots with patience.

If I made one mistake, it was probably insisting too hard on the lower section early—but the water just looked too good to ignore.

A solid result overall. As we boarded the bus back, my mind was already on Session 3—the lake day.

When asked to write a blog on one of my venues from the World Fly Fishing Championships, my first reaction was to talk about one of the sessions I placed well in. But competitive fly fishing is a journey of learning, so, I picked my 4^th session, which was on an amazing stretch of the Vltava River at the Vyssi Brod Section. It was three hours of roller coaster emotions, and somewhere in there I came very close to breaking a couple of rods over my knee.

*2025 Team Canada

The session started with light rain and overcast conditions. It was hard to see much, except what looked like the obvious good water to cover. Walking the beat, I quickly saw it had every type of water we had trained for, from streamer to whitefish (chub, dace, roach and barbel) water. My first reaction was, this is a good beat, followed by damn, I’ve got a lot of rods to set up. My biggest worry was that there were too many options. Even though the beat looked good, there was the potential to waste time, which you can’t get away with at Worlds.

*One of my Czech controllers, all my controllers were fantastic.

Once I came up with a plan, I decided to set up five rods.

1) Arcay Otter11ft 2/3 dry/dropper

2) Arcay Otter 11ft 2/3 single nymph (or double but started with a single)

3) Arcay Otter 11 ft ¾ double nymph

4) Arcay Otter ¾ dry fly rod with a single dry

5) Arcay Otter 10 ft 6/7 for streamer fishing

I would have liked to set up more but there was a lot of brush and distance in the beat so more would have been too difficult to manage.

The research we had done had prepared me to expect good numbers of brown and rainbow trout, and few whitefish. Along the far bank of the middle section of my beat looked incredible for chub water. All fish species counted, so long as they were of size.

*Chub from the Vltava River

I had high hopes that the top section of the beat would produce on the streamer. Throughout every session, my first plan of attack was to get fish on streamers, for the simple reason that if the fish are on streamers, they are much faster to get to the net. After 10 minutes (which was 5 minutes too long, just willing it to happen), nothing. I changed rods in the middle of the river and started nymphing, nothing. SHIT, I had really counted on scoring a few fish by now.

I got to what I thought of as the start of the whitefish water. At this point, with no fish yet, I was getting concerned. I switched to a dry fly rod and instantly had a rise. A small chub, too small to count, then three more.  All too small, all chub. I changed to a Rockerka and started to work some longer casts along the bank, which looked like perfect chub water. First drift I hit a chub that was quite large. Finally, at about an hour and a half in, having at this point only caught a bunch of small fish, this was my first fish that counted.  I thought I might be on to something, but nothing else I caught was big enough to count.

At this point I am tripping out. One of the worst feelings in this game is the feeling of letting your teammates down. It’s terrible. It can make you second guess every decision you make, turning your head to mush.  It’s hard to fish anything well and efficiently when you lose your mental focus. I knew I had to change what was happening quickly.

I narrowed my focus to two rods, my dry fly rod and my 11ft ¾ weight Otter. As I got back into position the rain stopped and everything lightened just a little. I noticed some deeper depressions in what I thought were weird areas. As I moved down, I found what I was looking for. There was a trough in the faster water that I could not see before.

I switched flies to match the water and on the first drift I lost a brown at the net. With many choice words screaming in my head, I put another drift through. Right away another brown. With a sigh of relief, I scored the fish and went right back. Another brown right away. While I was super happy to find what was working, it was a bit of a wade to get back to my controller and it had taken me too long to figure out. Although I managed to score more fish, I simply ran out of time.

*Small brown from the Vltava

By the end of the session, I could have very easily ended up in the bottom of the pack and was relieved to land in the middle. There is no doubt that drawing this beat gave me an opportunity to place high in this session, and I did not capitalize fully. This was a session that will haunt me for awhile, but at the end of the day it’s all about learning. A year ago, I do not think I could have regained my focus and fished the last part of the session well.

*Team Canada Captain, Ian Troup, with our Czech guide Vojta

It was an honor to represent my country in a sport that I love with teammates that have offered me unlimited support and opportunity for development.  I would like to give a big thank you to Smart Angling for all they do to support Canadian growth in competitive fly fishing.

Morgan McLean – Rising Waters

This past September, I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Spain through Smart Angling’s educational program. There, I trained with multiple World Champions, David Arcay and Javi Lopez. Driven by my passion for competitive fly fishing and my commitment to continuous learning, I knew I couldn’t let this chance pass me by.

Nine of us traveled from various countries to meet in the city of Lugo, Spain. There, we were warmly welcomed by David and Javi, who shared the week’s plan: each day, we’d explore a new river. Because this was an educational trip, each river was selected for its unique characteristics, offering different challenges and learning experiences. For me, the diversity of these waters made the experience absolutely amazing.

Our journey took us to rivers near Santiago, and Leon where we got to witness the culture, food and architecture, which was more than expected. While the food and cities were interesting, I was there for the fishing. But could not help getting caught up in the history and culture of this incredible country. Not to mention there is a ridiculous number of wild trout streams in Spain. It was mind blowing.

I have studied videos of David Fishing, I have fished Arcay rods now exclusively for 3 years, but I cannot stress just how amazing was being on the water and witnessing first hand the little details that make such a difference. Being able to have David and Javi critique and discuss strategies, correct the little differences  ended up making such a difference.

We studied Spanish style long line nymphing, Spanish dry fly, along with various inter techniques. Techniques that are crucial to being a successful tournament angler in my mind, along with just maximizing time spent on the water.

This was an amazing trip, experience, that I would recommend to anyone that wants to continue learning and keep pushing the limits.

I would like to say a special thank you to Ivo Balinov of Smart Angling. Between trips like this, the online educational seminars and the work that Smart Angling does helps to introduce us to many new techniques and information we just would not have without his work.

Morgan McLean

I have recently returned from a trip to Spain to study with David Arcay and Javi Lopez as an education package facilitated by Ivo Balinov at Smart Angling, as part of the World-Class Fly-Fishing School program.

Let me first start by saying the trip exceeded any expectations. I had by far, from top notch accommodations, food that was not only plentiful but beyond outstanding and education that is truly second to none. From the start, Ivo was exceptional, communication was clear and concise throughout all stage and leading up to the trip departure. This includes advance knowledge of fly patterns one should tie, instruction on tying materials required, gear to bring and right down to accommodating the various arrival and departure times for the eight people in our group from various parts of the world. 

From the moment we arrived at our first hotel in the city of Lugo, I already knew the trip was going to be an incredible experience. David and Javi met us for dinner on our first evening and walked through what the week's agenda would consist of and discussions on our personal goals regarding our fly angling.Both David and Javi are truly warm souls with a patience and fun personality to put anyone at ease.The Spanish are multi world champions for a reason, they are innovators in the sport at multiple levels and their ability to improve my angling was significant, small details with big improvements.

We fished five rivers across two different provinces in Spain, the province of Galicia, where home base was the town of Lugo, along with an overnight in Santiago di Compostela and the province of Leon and stayed in the city of Leon as home base. Each river was pristine with plentiful very picky trout to challenge the most seasoned fly angler. 

Our days start with both David and Javi breaking us into groups of two, spreading us out on various sections of the respected rivers of the day and collaborating with us individually, focusing on our discreet areas of improvements. Specifically on both Spanish style long line Nymphing and Spanish Style Dry fly-fishing, along with the various inter-techniques such as dry drop for either a nymphing set up or dry fly set up.

In each region we had many opportunities to take in the Spanish countryside beauty and the equally beautiful cities, weather it be dinners out, or simply while on a river to take it all in.

One of my memorable daily moments were the incredible shore lunches David and Javi would have ready after a long day’s fishing. David and Javi are masterful educators, that I feel any fly angler would benefit from and exceptional hosts. 

Something that significantly sets Smart Angling and Ivo, apart from other Fly Shops, is his ability to package highly specialized equipment with education, to maximize one’s ability to take full advantage of the equipment and anglers' potential. Whether in person education such as the trip I just returned from, or one of the many online courses offered, Ivo is consistently bringing the latest knowledge from the worlds leading Fly Anglers to their customers.

In closing, I am so grateful to have had this opportunity, I’ve comeback from this trip as an improved fly angler with memories that will last a lifetime and made wonderful new fiends. To Ivo, thank you and keep pushing the boundaries of excellence. I am already looking forward to the next one.

Marco Petraglia

October 3, 2024