Canadian Nationals Fly fishing Championships Montebello 2011

[Jeremiah Hamilton]

See there is more then one way to skin a cat. If you ever get to watch Robbie prep before a comp you'll realize how much work goes in to his setup before he gets on the water, I learned alot  just by watching him build leaders.

[Pat Weiss]

Robbie, that sounds like my kind of crosstrianing!

[Robbie Bell]

Hi There,

Jeremiah I am glad you took my post in good part.

I was really fascinated by your post and look forward to reading the rest of the installments.

Pat...some of my post is true...... eeeeekkk!

Best Regards

robbie

[Bill Strickland]

speaking of leaders........ what was the tippet diameter most often used during the session, and did you ever deviate from that when you made your changes?

[Jeremiah Hamilton]

The leader was a straight 15ft 8lb fluorocarbon seaguar, dropper are set 5ft-10ft-15ft at the point that leader setup never changed when I was pulling. This leader setup worked with boobies, lures and wets. I had 2 tapered leaders setup with dries but never took them out of my box pulling was working.

speaking of leaders........ what was the tippet diameter most often used during the session, and did you ever deviate from that when you made your changes?

[Todd Oishi]

It's great to see such a wealth of information shared so openly on this thread! I’ll definitely have to give your preparation routine some serious thought and consideration Robbie!  

I’d like to add that this is truly a team sport and that having the strength and support of four team mates that are ALL working together to accomplish the same goal can make a world of difference.  There is definitely no place for the “what’s in it for me” mentality in this sport and everything must be done with the team’s best interests in mind.

After each and every session I want to be able to say with 100% certainty to my team-mates and myself that I gave it my very best effort and did all that I possibly could - as my goal has always been to beat my last performance rather than worrying about how my fellow competitors and “the rest of the pack” are doing.

Even after a tough session I never give up hope, but instead, I take it as a lesson in humility and learn from the experience, so that it will hopefully make me a stronger competitor. For I personally believe that the secret to success lies in a competitor’s ability to build on their mistakes and shortcomings, rather than accepting and dwelling on them…  

Cheers,
Todd

[Robbie Bell]

Hi There,

I mostly used 20 feet of 6lb Fulling Mill Flourocarbon for pulling, nymphing and dries.

Sometimes three flies mostly two

16 feet when I fished an indicator.

Best Regards

robbie

[Chris Puchniak]

Make no mistake about it - there was a lot to be learned by watching Robbie prepare.  I wished I had fished with him.

I used 3 flies 95% of the times, on a mix of Fluoroflex Plus 2x and 3x.

[Jeremiah Hamilton]

Session 2 Lac Sugarbush

Well session two we pull up to Sugarbush and butter flies set in, my targets have not changed, ran to get my intel that Arron left me, session started to get tough at the end of the session and he pulled 4 fish and showed me the drifts that Robbie and Todd did. Got my rig ready Clear intermediate with sparkler on the point, a Merganser middle and orange blob as to Arrons notes. I pulled Janos Boda as my boat partner, if you ever get to fish with him, he is a hoot, he always look so happy, and oh yes Janos I am telling them the 10min story. So we get out there quick I am rowing us to the top of the drift and I can see alot of teams trying to get there first but we staked our claim. Then the whistle blows and we are off, got a tug fast, thought I was going to have a fish right out of the gate, but nothing, ok we keep drifting nothing else. Ok Donald is next to us and he had nothing too, so I get up to the top of the drift. Right away Janos pulls in his first fish on a sparkler middle dropper, we keep drifting I see Donald pulls in his first fish damm! but a short while later Janos had a tug, still nothing for me, we keep drifting Donald had another one. We setup again I see Ernie get a fish he is Donalds boat partner. Doubt starts to set in and the dreaded blank is creeping in to my head, mean while Janos is still getting tugs and he has switch his flys a few times now and Donald has another to the boat. 20min with only one tug with only 2 hour sessions you have to make decisions faster then you planned too, Arrons intel not working for me, so off comes the sparkler on the point and on goes the mink boobie and switched to Di3. I set a new drift and a few cast later I had my first fish in the net blanker is gone. Janos seen I was fishing a booby and on his 15th fly change he put a bright orange boobie on the top dropper sure enough he pulls a fish in. I have been watching Donald and I know he had 5 already to the boat, I see Chris is moving alot so I am praying he is having a tough time. A little time later bump bump set, fish on fish off  I don't know what it took because I was fishing a Di3 and my flies where under the water. I set up over the same drift and when we hit the spot I just got a bump last drift, bump bump set fish on, I get this one up to surface fast and surfed it in my net, nice Janos and I are tied up but I know I am behind Donald. We did a few more drifts but nothing and Donald moved so we follow and started a drift where Arron got his fish in the first session. A little while later Janos gets another to the net, on his orange Booby the funny thing is he switched that fly back on after many fly changes. I see Donald have another one 6 or 7 for him and time is running out. The controller told us at the start he will blow the whistle 3x at the ten minute mark, there it was so I kept fishing knowing time is running out fast. A minute or two later Janos asks why are you still fishing? I answer because we have less then 10min. Janos really? I told him the three whistle sound just happen, he replies Oh I just cut off all my flies and I thought we where done. I started to laugh hard, as he told me he forgot about the 10min whistle, so I told him tie them back on you still have time. we fished the last 5mins with out a fish either of us. I new I didn't beat Donald and most likely didn't beat Chris. I row back to the dock Janos and I had some laughs, he was so happy that he beat me and I was very happy for him, he thanked me for putting him on fish he is really a very upstanding guy and I would have him as boat partner any day. Fishing was getting hard, I was not crushed like past comps I took this session on the chin, started to plan for the next one.

-Things I learned, you have to have sessions like these to ground you..
-Start your next sessions with a clear mind

Donald Thom
Jim Iredale
Chesley Shepherd
Janos Boda
Ernie Kalwa
Jeremiah Hamilton
Chris Pfohl
Brad Baker
Randy Patton

[Jeremiah Hamilton]

Two corrections not di3 but fast glass and sparkle booby not mink

[Janos Boda]

For sure, I enjoyed fishing with Jeremiah in couple of sessions at Kenauk. I really like his sharing attitude, his preparation for the competition, and his focus on the competition. I just hope we will have more competition sessions together in the future.

Cheers,
Janos

[Ivo Balinov]

This was indeed a very interesting championship. For me the main reward was the experience of being with my new team, the Mergansers.
Before this fall, I had taken a year off competitions, as a realised that competitive fishing was sometimes getting in the way of other things in my life (like tropical saltwater fishing, for example . What brought me back was the interest in the team experience. I felt that I am now on a team of people that I enjoy a lot as both friends and fishermen and was enthusiastic to try to capitalise on this.  
In September I jumped into the Quebec Championships pretty cold after a no-fishing vacation (yes, I have those;) and ended up having a blast because of the people I fished with (Jeremiah on Mergansers B, and Graham and Mark on Mergansers A). The fun of hanging around with such people along with Jeremiah's determination and enthusiasm re-lightened the competitive fishing fire in me again. But this time in a different way: I got really interested in the dynamics of teamwork, as I was starting to realise that the team experience and success is what counts. Just look at the scoreboards of the Worlds over the years: the people that get the individual top finishes vary a lot, but the same is not true for the teams. There must be something behind this...

As the preparations for the Nationals went along, it was awesome to see that everyone on the team was "mature" in the sense that they were ready to give priority to teamwork and they also realised that we all do this for fun and hanging around with people you enjoy is one of the ways to get it. We were able to divide between ourselves the tasks during the prep sessions in very selfless ways - this sometimes included going out and proving what does not work, while looking at some of the other teams catching tons of fish around you; also, fishing a lake during the comp, without pre-fishing it personally, based solely on the info from your team-mates; giving up on using your flies as they do not work, and getting some from Jeremiah...
And we had a very good system to exchange info during the comp, which helped each of use to monitor how the fishing is changing as the comp went on. I expected that most teams would be doing that, but was surprised to see that it was not the case...

Generally we shared the attitude that we would try our best, enjoy it, and if at the end we feel that we have done what we wanted and progressed from previous times, we would be satisfied no matter of the ranking. I believe that it also helped us a lot that we were on the same page with our approach to the team tactics: we did have team tactics and plans, but ultimately everyone was free to decide what to do when the competition sessions started. Realising that the team plan was not mandatory, actually made us more inclined to rely on it, because we trusted each other, an not because we were obliged to follow it. I have been on teams before where the captains have insisted on everyone following the "team" strategy at all cost and it was a sad experience as it deprived everyone of the flexibility to judge the situation and adapt to it as well as to fish what he is comfortable with; the latter is always better than using a "superior" tactic that you have no experience with; save that for your practice between comps...

Oh yes, and on this team we are all captains...well, Graham is of course the captain that is one head taller than us, making him more special...

It was sweet to see everything working during the comp and the medals were a bonus. I treated my individual one as a team medal, as I would not have had it without the joint work with Jeremiah, Graham, Arron and Chris. So not only we got second place as a team, but we also got two team medals. Now we can hide them in our drawers and think about fishing and teamwork at the next comp.  

Cheers,
Ivo