Alberta League - ACFFL Event 1

Competition 1 of the 2023 season was a toughie. Wild fish in the interior of Calgary is hard to beat, especially when the fishing on the Bow is as good as it is. Due to the fact they are wild makes for incredibly unpredictable fishing and without experience one might find it very difficult identifying where the fish go when they get spooked. This in my opinion was the difference maker in this week’s competition. 

The practice session we fished on April 7th was incredibly miserable angling on my part. The fish were exactly where they should have been. 6.81 m/secs flow rates and 42 degree surface temps on the river. I suspected they would be in the 5-6 ft. depth, and slower riffle water was what I considered to be my “A” water. Any water moving too slowly didn’t produce much and the moment the water got too quick same result. I did deem the depth of 5-6 ft. and moving too slow or too fast my “B” water. I hooked 9 and landed only 3. I only had myself to blame, but I had a good understanding of my approach strategy moving forward. 

Competition day when we were notified where the beats were located I won’t lie when I say it worked well in my favor given the competition was going to be held on known venue water that I have previous experience fishing. The format we used was 8 beats cut, 2 anglers to a beat scoring each other. Depending on the size of the fish the measurement was zoned to have 1, 2, 3 or 4 points a fish as opposed to measuring to the very cm and potentially having the fish in possession longer than intended. Any ties would result in a tie breaker in which whomever caught the first fish that session would win the tiebreaker. Sessions were 3 hours of fishing, 45 minutes to a beat before you had to travel to the next beat. Given that this league focuses on education and development this is to allow every angler competing that day to see 8 different beat settings. And 8 new opportunities to read the water effectively and make decisions accordingly. I drew beat 1 with my beat partner Jason Stephens an amazing river angler and a good friend of mine. With the draw I was looking forward to the day.

My strategy was as follows. I knew where the fish were located and what flies they liked. Depending on the depth presented to me in the beat I was going to switch back and forth between a Czech nymph setup and a Spanish nymph setup.

Beats 1, 2, 7, 8 had depth to them so Czech setup was used. I used a 16 ft leader of straight 6lb Seaguar Icex flouro and separated my flies by 2ft. 6ft sighter (3ft 0x, 3ft 2x)

Beats 3, 4, 5, 6 were shallow and fast. Many spots would knock you off your feet and very minimal “A” water. For these beats I used the Spanish setup. Same 16ft leader made entirely of 6lb Seaguar IceX, 4ft separation on my flies. 6ft sighter (3ft 0x, 3ft 2x)

Bow River
Interior Calgary
April 8th 2023

 Czech Rig 

Spanish Rig

I only took 1 rod with me for this entire competition the 11ft Gen1 Sage ESN. I wanted a minimalist approach and felt like I captured that perfectly. 10 leaders pre tied, 5 Spanish, 5 Czech Flies prettied on the leader and kept in an Orvis dropper box.

1st session: (beats 1,2,3,4 for myself)

Beats 1 and 2 were very deep. I lost a large what I think was a rainbow that crossed the river on me in beat 1 and ended up destroying my fly line after getting hung up on some roughage over 100 ft. from myself. This didn’t slow me though beat 2 I managed to pull my first scoring fish. By the time we hit beat 3, I noticed a major adaptation opportunity. Due to the number of anglers through the shallower 3,4,5,6 beats the fish were getting pushed off into awkward spots you wouldn’t typically see them. I started focusing on deeper and faster, and substantially slower/ not moving and ankle deep water. This in turn produced my second fish, a whitefish yanked out of water no deeper than my shin. The fish due to the sudden and abrupt pressure from all these anglers started holding in water I would never in a million years consider “A” water. Take this knowledge with you to any river if you show up on a Friday evening and the banks are loaded with people, start focusing on the odd areas you wouldn’t typically see a fish. When things get tough it’s not because the fish disappeared they simply aren’t where you think they are. I managed to poke a fish In all 4 beats but only managed the 2 to the net.

2nd Session. ( beats 6,7,8,5 for myself )

Having a really good idea of what my game plan was, at this point I figured after our small break I wasn’t going to change my setup or approach. Knowing these fish were going to be ultra-pressured pretty well right after the first 45 minute rotation My thoughts were as soon as the “A” water stopped producing, make the immediate switch to everywhere but where you think a fish would hold naturally. Beat 6 where I was starting in the afternoon was bordering whitewater… I worked where I felt a fish would hold and nothing. I worked deeper and deeper until I found myself in a rather uncomfortable spot with a ferocious current and constantly fluctuating bottom. First cast into the white water I hook up. The poor rainbow I had hooked was holding in water again I would never look at fishing by myself. I say poor rainbow because the 5 minutes he was on the line was me trying to get him out of the gross white water and along the shoreline to land him. Once he came off the seam he was landed rather effortlessly.

After landing that fish “A” water was dead to me now. I was 100% going to find all the weird areas these fish would hold and I managed. Beats 7 and 8 were not much nicer and in turn I found a couple more scoring fish bringing me to 3 total for the afternoon session. Luckily good scoring fish too which I found to be uncommon for that section. My other 2 fish were a small whitefish landed in less than 12” of water and super tight to the shore. The other was a very nice brown trout caught in frog water at the back half of beat 8. By the last portion of the session one needs to remember 90% of your competition has fished this stretch already and virtually every fish in the beat at this point could have been exposed to a fly. The last session of every competition is where stealth Is absolutely essential.

Once the competition concluded all competitors got together for the debriefing the league is famous for. We share all our knowledge and observations from the day and the different approaches each angler took. Jason Doucette was very interestingly on a streamer for a majority of the day, whereas most competitors either stuck entirely with a Spanish or entirely a Czech rig. The results were SUPER tight as a result of the tough fishing.

Similar to golf the goal with fly fishing is to have the lowest score in the end, And the secret to success is consistency. After a session the scores are tallied as shown above. The competitors are then given “Placing points (PP)” that represent their finish and represent how many points they accumulated for that session. After all sessions have concluded. Individual with the lowest placing points (PP) wins. At larger events the Team with the combined total lowest number of placing points would win the Gold medal. Local competitions consist typically of 2 sessions such as this one. Larger competitions such as the Canadian Nationals, Commonwealth Championship or World Championships will typically consist of 5 sessions and very commonly on 5 different bodies of water under the same scoring criteria.

The Final results for the day :

It was a much tighter finish then any of my finishes in the past. I managed to win the competition with a 2 minute difference and a serious tie. I was incredibly fortunate given my issue was keeping the fish on the hook practically the whole day. The individuals I was fishing against were far from inexperienced. Everyone had tricks they brought to the table and no one could be underestimated.

All in all it was a spectacular day with friends and a beautiful spring day on the river, no one was complaining. Our next competition is April 22nd on the Bow river again.

This is my first ever blog post and I hope it’s something that can be used as an educational tool for some. It’s also intended to build interest in the competition scene. I have been competing for 10 years now and have been fortunate enough to have been all over the world enjoying the incredible sport. Without competition I certainly wouldn’t be the angler I am today. The learning curve gets cut in half and opportunities that present themselves when you get serious about it can be once in a lifetime for some people. But beyond anything the point is to have fun and build a culture around education, conservation and bettering ourselves as anglers while enjoying the company of many amazing people. 

Please If you have any questions or comments I can be reached at [email protected] .

Anyone interested in becoming a part of the culture and joining us at our competitions please contact Jason Doucette at [email protected]

Thank you

Josh “Jelly” Gelinas