2007 Fly Fishing World Championships

[motroutbum]

Contratulations to Fly Fishing Team USA for finishing 6th overall in the WFFC. France yet again wins the overall team with the Czech Rep finishing second, Finland 3rd, Portugal 4th, Spain 5th, USA 6th. Also congratulations to the Team members in their respective finishes in an extremely tough river where a former world champion blanked in 4 of 5 sessions. Lance Egan from Salt Lake was the high US finisher at 27th (24th in 2006), Brian Capsay Durango at 36th, Jim Hickey Jackson Hole 38th, George Daniel 43th (5th in 2006), and Anthony Naranja 59th.

[Terry Beeson]

Pretty good finish I'd say. What did the team finish last year?

So, give us your opinion on what the French, Spainish, Portugese and Czechs are doing right that the US doesn't seem to be able to pick up on... Is it the stream? Technique? Flies? S#!thouse luck? Seems those guys are always on top...

[motroutbum]

The team got 9th last year. My opinion is that they have european grayling and we don't. most the the comps over there are for grayling. there arent alot of rainbows or browns there.(more browns than rainbows). So they get to practice for the european grayling. we cant afford to keep a team there to fish for them. I also Say EUROPEAN because the european and arctic grayling that we have behave totally different. the closest thing we have that behaves like the european grayling is the whitefish.

THey have mastered the nymphing the nymphing techniques. We however are still learning them. Those techniques were born there and utilized to fish for grayling.

They also fish 30-40 comps a year in their respective coutries. we have 4 plus the national championships.

They have enough financial backing to be able to fish year round. We are working on that.

They have been doing the world championships for an extremely long time where as we have only been competing since 1981.

do I need to keep going?

I mean dont get me wrong, we are catching up at a rapid rate, but they have been doing this for so long that they have it mastered.

[Terry Beeson]

Who are their sponsors? I know sponsoring BASS fishermen is much more popular here, but seems the US should have enough sponsorship to keep the team going. Of course, travelling around Europe is about like travelling around Texas... But that's only part of it.

I've heard the Czechs and Portugese are tough customers in fly fishing.

[motroutbum]

I have no idea who their sponsers are. But thats the whole thing, its not like bass. We do, but our sponsers just provide gear. The team is always looking for monetary compensation to help with the travel expenses and entry fees. Lets take a look at what it actually costs to to these for me in just the regional trials. Travel expenses, lodging for a week, liscense, flies, entry fee, food. All of that costs me about 1,000 per trial and that is only for 5 days of it.

For the worlds, you are looking at at least 1500 in airfare, food, lodging for 3 weeks, food for 3 weeks, travel expenses while in the other country, guides to help the learning curve, entry fee's alone are around 1000 per person, then compensation for missing work for 3 weeks. So for each person it costs about 10,000 for the worlds per person. with a 5 man team, plus coaches, and captain. its pretty expensive.

As for the czechs and portugese, czechs yes they are tough customers, but the french are the dominators especially if you look at their record the last 10 years, with 6 world championships