Chris and I set off early on Saturday (23/08/08 it's a late report) morning at about 5:45am. We arrived at Grafham in good time to sign in and have breakfast. We were assigned boats and partners. Each boat having two people from different teams (about 20 in all). Each team having four people and all had to be members of of the Fly Dressers Guild. There was a general talk on safety (all had to wear life jackets) and the competition rules, after which at 9am we all took to the water. The weather was much better than on Wednesday with a bit of sun, a bit of cloud and only a little wind.
I was teamed up with Ken, he was an experienced boatman with many years under his belt. We (well Ken) decided that we would fish somewhere different, all the others seemed to group together on the far side. Ken hooked two fish very quickly on a homemade green buzzer. He gave me one and I caught my first fish on it. He hooked another on the same fly.
This was the first time that I had tried to flies on the same leader I used a Mackay, that Chris gave me (these were the flies he had success with on Wednesday), as the point fly and the Green Buzzer that Ken had just given me. Ken then caught his second on the same buzzer. I then caught my first fish on the same buzzer that Ken had given me.
Later I hooked another which after a good fight, got off. We then returned to the lodge to quickley use the facilites and we were then off again. We decided to join the majority on the other side of the water. Ken hooked another here but lost it. I had no luck and we discussed it and went back to the area we had first fished. On the first drift Ken was just going to straighten the boat up when I hooked another, after a strong pull I lost it. As it turned out, I had been snapped off and lost the buzzer I had been given. Ken gave me his last one and I replaced the leader. Ken caught again and yet again on the same Green Buzzer, I found that he was using two of them as well as two other flies.
He then caught his fourth fish, again on the Green Buzzer. I then caught my second fish, this time it was on the Mackay. There was only a couple of other boats that had decided to fish the same area as we were but I only saw one other fish caught by them. I finally hooked another and after a long fight I was snapped off. The leader had gone about two foot from the top. It was all roughed up, Ken said that the fish (or me) must have managed touch the line on the boat. Ather that neither of us had any luck.
We got back to the dock just before 6pm (cut off time) and the weight in started. I all My team (Surrey) caught 29Lbs of fish. The rules were first four caught were killed and weighed. All others were returned but every one counted as 2Lbs. Surrey came about 11th, The winners were London 'A' with 79Lbs of fish. After food and lots of discussion everyone departed for home. Some had come from as far as Scotland!
