This is part two of a five part series on the 43rd World Fly Fishing Championships in France. To read part one about my Carlit Lakes session, click here. 

 

The team was in pretty good spirits going into session two. We were sitting in fourth and gaining some tenuous confidence in our program. I was heading to the Têt river, which was proving to be the most productive water in the competition. The first session it had put up a number of high teens to mid twenties scores, and I expected it to still take at least a high teens session to win. The Têt was split into an upper and lower section. Competitors would fish a two hour peg on the lower section, then move to the upper part for a second two hour peg. The upper and lower were virtually completely different rivers- the lower being murkier with a wide floodplain and low gradient, and the upper being crystal clear, fast, and chute-like.

I was following my teammate Devin Olsen through the remainder of the competition (you can read his full write up here). During our team debrief, he’d let me know that the Têt river fishing was as similarly to our home rivers as we’d seen in the country. He caught fish primarily on #16 and #18 perdigons in a few styles, both tightlining and suspended under a dry fly. Dry dropper was actually the more successful tactic, and he’d caught a number of fish suspended high over deeper water.

Probably the most important piece of info was that the fish were sitting in the best of the best water, and that Devin thought it would be worth skipping the B and C water to mainly focus on this A water. I filled my box with some of his more successful patterns, mostly Gasolinas and cranberry perdigons, focusing on larger beads to fish the heavier A water. I pre-rigged my rods in the same way as I did for the lakes, but this time brought two Diamondback 10’6” 2wt Ideal Nymph rods for nymphing and dry dropper, and a Diamondback 10’ 3wt Aeroflex for dries. 

Peg one on the lower Têt River

The next day I had a short bus ride to the meeting area on the lower river. When we got off, the sector judge announced our beats and we met up with our respective controllers. I drew beat ten, which multi-time world champion David Arcay (Spain) had fished the day prior. He had caught twenty and taken a four for the session, so I knew the beat could produce. I took a short drive over to the parking area (in someone’s driveway) with my controller, and we walked the trail down to the water. The lowland farm fields and small, lime tinted river reminded me a lot of my home waters of Central Pennsylvania, which raised my confidence just a little bit.

The first thing I realized was that my beat was long, probably close to five hundred meters. It was something that I prepared for in practice, but it’s always a daunting task to manage that much water. The beat started in the tail of a large bend pool with a deep, fast head. A steep cliff bordered the outside bend, and looked like it would hold tons of fish back home. There was then about twenty five meters of mid grade pocket water and another twenty five of mediocre pocket water. Past the there was a good chute under a dead tree on the river right. The middle of the beat was a long stretch of uninspiring skinny flat, which I figured from the start I would blow past. A nice, mid speed run poured into the flat, and not far above that, around a small turn, the beat ended in another large pool. I was pretty pleased with what I saw, and figured I’d be able to pull a few from each likely spot. 

I decided to start off throwing a short dry dropper in the tail of the bottom pool. My dry was the larger black shuttlecock I used on the lake, and a 3mm #16 Gasolina on the dropper. I fished through the back of the pool a bit slower than I should have with nothing to show for it. After around ten minutes I lost confidence in the dry dropper and switched over to a single 3.5mm Gasolina on 7x.

In hindsight, the water wasn’t quite good enough to lose confidence in the tactic so quickly, and I wish I’d at least kept it in the rotation for the head of the pool. I fished further into the middle towards the fallen tree. The water was probably eight feet deep here, so I was making pretty heavy tuck casts and sinking a good portion of my leader to get down. I dropped a cast right at the lower branches of the tree, and just as it reached the bottom my line twitched slightly. I made a questionable set into a decent sized brown, and after a few harrowing runs toward the tree, got him into the net. 

After a quick look at my watch I realized I was more than fifteen minutes in, which was a slower pace than I planned for. I jumped above the tree, and made some drifts under the branches that I was almost sure would get eaten. For whatever reason no one was home, and I continued toward the head. The heaviest current was on the far side, and I made my first cast around thirty feet up and across to fish it. It was a little more complex than I thought it was, and I saw my sighter lose contact a few seconds in. Right as it did though, it slid upstream ever so slightly, and I set into another solid fish. After a brief fight I was up to two in just under twenty five minutes. I made a few more good drifts through the best looking water and got no reaction, so I added a #18 2mm cranberry perdigon above my Gasolina in the hopes it might entice something. I spent another five minutes covering the water but still found nothing aside from one possible hit where I caught the first fish. 

I moved on from the pool into the pocket water. I didn’t seem like high margin water, so I covered the pockets with only one or two casts each, and blew through the fifty yards of pockets in just over five minutes with no action. In hindsight I wish I’d adjusted my weights and spent a little more time in the pockets. My controller said after the session that Arcay had caught a fish there and after seeing where I caught the rest of my fish, I think I could have pulled one too. 

I ran through the shallow top of the pockets to get to the chute under the tree. I underhanded my flies to the edge of the fast water and pretty quickly had a fish eat the cranberry perdigon dropper. In a rush to get my flies back into the chute after getting the fish scored, I accidentally flung my rig right into the overhanging tree. Not wanting to spook any other fish, I snapped my 7x and took the time to rerig.

That proved to be the right decision, and on my next cast I landed another small brown. Sadly, it measured 19.9mm, 1mm under the minimum size. I released the fish and turned back to the run, where just two casts later I hooked another good fish. As soon as I set, it took off toward the base of the fallen tree. I tried to put the brakes on it, but over cranked a bit too much. My tippet snapped and the fish shot off to its refuge. 

Again, I took the time to retie the same two fly rig. I was around forty five minutes in with only three fish to show for it, and getting a bit nervous. I contemplated moving on to better looking water, but decided to change positions and hit the head of the chute from a different angle. There was a small ledge right where the main flow dropped in that was hard to see from where I had been. It took a few tries to get the drift right, but when I did I saw my sighter jump forward as soon as my flies passed the drop off. I set into another fish, which I played a little more cautiously than the last. I handed it off to my controller and considered my options for the rest of the session. With fifty minutes left, I decided to spend twenty or so in the run above the flat, and the last half hour in the top pool. 

I ran through the flat water as fast as I could. It felt like a much longer way than it looked, but I could just be out of shape. When I got to the run above it, I was a little disappointed to realize it wasn’t quite as good as it had looked from the bank while scouting. It was shallower and more laminar than I had thought- still good water but not outstanding. It looked to me like dry dropper water, so I switched back to the shuttlecock and a 2.5mm cranberry perdigon, which accounted for all my fish in the last area. I made searching casts up the run, focusing on the main flow along the river left. I spent ten minutes or so covering things thoroughly with the duo but didn’t convince anything. Knowing there had to be at least one fish in there, I switched back to a single 3.5mm Gasolina.

 I circled back to the bottom and worked my way back through the run. When I was near the top, I started working back down with slow downstream drifts. One drift took the fly through a manhole sized depression. As the drift was nearing its end at the front of a larger rock, the sighter ticked. I figured it was the fly hitting the rock, and half heartedly set. When I came tight, there was a fish on the other end. The set was bad, the downstream angle made it worse, and the fish was off after two head shakes. 

I finished out the run and ran up to the top pool, covering some B and C spots briefly in between. I kept the 3.5mm Gasolina on and started covering the back end of the pool with a little less than thirty minutes left. There was some good structure- boulders scattered throughout and fallen trees in the bank water breaking up the main flow. After ten minutes trying every drift I could think of with both the Gasolina alone and with a cranberry above it, I figured I would heed Devin’s advice and switch up to a dry dropper. 

I switched my flies out for the shuttlecock and a 3mm Gasolina combo. On my first drift through the best part of the run my dry dipped and I was into a fish. Two casts after scoring that one the same thing happened again. After repeating that a few more times, I ended up pulling five fish from a five by five meter spot, with two scoring. When the action dried up, I moved out and began covering some of the wood on the far bank. After a few casts, my dry went down hard two inches in front of a large log. Based on the location I figured it was more likely a branch, but when I lifted into it I was met with some hard head shakes. A nerve wracking fight around the trees later, and I was up to seven fish for the session. 

With about 15 minutes left I continued covering the deep lower pool and worked my way to the faster top. There was some great looking water near the flag with the right speed and depth, but nothing seemed to be home. With five minutes left I switched back to the single Gasolina and re-covered the top. I still found nothing. As a last ditch effort I took the last two minutes to throw a cream colored mop around to no avail. 

When the session ended I was feeling OK with my finish. I think I had fished the beat pretty well, but failed to convert two good fish. I was also kicking myself for not throwing the dry dropper in the head of the lower pool. There were definitely fish that were preferentially eating the laminar, suspended presentation, I just lost confidence in it too fast. Had I tried it I believe I could have gotten another opportunity. 

Peg two on the Upper Têt River

My controller let me know it was over a twenty minute drive to the next venue, so I quickly packed up and hopped in his car. Closer to a half hour later we pulled up to the parking area. I grabbed my gear and we headed down a white gravel path to the beat. I did my best to hurry, but I was exhausted after the last two sessions, and walking in the beating sun and nearly one hundred degree heat was killing me. 

By the time we made it to my flag, there was only twenty minutes left to the start. I chugged the last of my water and did a quick walk of the beat. Surprisingly, the size and flow of the river seemed to have barely changed for being ten or more river miles upstream. That was the only similarity though. This river was gin clear and ripping fast. The bottom twenty yards of the beat was a nice pockety run. Above that, the river became a chutey run against a rocky cliff. For seventy five yards the water spiraled and churned against the wall. It looked like good water, but also incredibly technical drift wise.

Past that there was another seventy five yards of high gradient pockets that spilled out of a large, channelized bend pool. I couldn’t walk the beat past that because the path ran directly into the side of a cliff. From what I could gather though, there was another hundred meters of mid gradient pocket water above the big bend, with the beat ending at a shallower bend at the top. 

I ran back to the flag and got ready to fish. I started with a single 3mm Gasolina in the pockets. As I worked through progressively heavier water towards the tail of the run above, I didn’t feel like the 3mm fly was getting me enough purchase, so I switched to a 3.5mm version. A cast or two later I was rewarded with my first fish just a few minutes in. 

The pockets ended not long after that and I entered the tail of the big run. I made searching casts through good looking water but brought back nothing. The left side had a few slower seams and swirls, so I added the shuttlecock above my Gasolina to help ride the current. I covered the holding water from a little further back, but still found nothing. 

I was starting to get a little worried as the clock ticked on. Around twenty minutes in and nearly halfway through the chute, I came to a large boulder near the far side with a narrow underwater slot between it and the wall. I made a far upstream cast get the fly to the slot’s depth and drifted right down the middle. Just as the fly reached the end if the slot, a fish snagged it from the column and I was up to two. 

Before resuming fishing, I switched out the 3.5mm Gasolina for a 4mm version to get some more efficient drifts. Two or three casts later I landed another from just behind the spot I caught the previous one. I searched around a while longer, but it seemed like I’d cleaned out the area. The water above the boulder was a bit heavier and deeper, with some good looking dead spots along the cliff. I searched through the area with no luck, so I switched to a 3.5mm cranberry perdigon. I landed one short fish but nothing that could score. 

Not far above the river widened and shallowed just enough that I thought a dry dropper may do well. I worked it through a large glide on the left side and found another short fish. To the right there was a weak seam before the water dropped off into the heavier main flow. I made a cast far up drifted back towards me. Just as the fly broke the seam and got pulled into the faster middle, the dry shot down. I set into a good fish and popped it out of the current into my net.

I fished the dry dropper for a few more minutes, landing only some unscorable fish from the left side. As I came to the top of the run, there was a good manhole sized eddy against the cliff. I let the dry dropper swirl in it a few times with no success. Since the dry dropper didn’t seem to be the ticket, I replaced it with the 3.5mm cranberry. I landed two in the next five minutes fishing deep in the middle. Before leaving the run behind, I made a cast right up against the wall and hooked a third, but it ran through some underwater branches and broke me off. I tied an identical rig back on, but didn’t have any more success through the rest of the run. 

With about forty five minutes left I continued up through the long stretch of pocket water. I was in a bit of a rush to fish the large bend pool, so I was fishing a faster than I maybe should have. There was at least one good pocket every ten yards, but none gave up a scorable fish. I landed a few shorts up through, but made it to the bend with nothing new on the score card. 

I started with a dry dropper in the tail, focusing on the heavy current against the impassable cliff on the left side. With no takers up to the main pool, I switched back to a single cranberry perdigon. Unfortunately, the pool was much more turbulent than it looked from the path. The currents flowed in seemingly random directions, with a few different upheavals that pushed the fly towards the surface. This water makes it hard for fish to comfortably sit, and even harder for anglers to make good drifts. 

I switched up to a 4mm fly and longer tippet and made the best drifts I could. There was likely one or two fish sitting against the far wall at least but getting there proved difficult. I received a few strikes, but they seemed to be from small fish, which are usually what occupies this type of water. I switched flies a few times, but even in the more fishable head of the pool I couldn’t get a strike. This had looked like some of my best water, and it hurt to move on without pulling a single fish from it. 

Now, with about twenty minutes left, I was in uncharted territory. I couldn’t see this water while walking the beat, and had no clue how much further it went or what was in store. Ahead of me appeared to be some mid-tier pockets. I switched to a 3mm Gasolina and started casting through them quickly. I made a cast to a slightly larger pocket near the right bank and was met with a near immediate eat. The water was so much more marginal than what I had been having success in I was almost surprised when I netted a scorable fish. 

After getting that fish scored, I skipped the next twenty meters of skinny water to reach what looked like a small pool. It was a mid-speed four or five foot deep area the size of a minivan, much better water than I expected to find in this section. On my second cast through the middle, I saw a flash around where my fly should have been. Nothing registered on my sighter, but I set anyways. I was met with the resistance of a small but scorable fish. Knowing it may be my last for the session, I gingerly played and netted it. 

Once it was on the paper, I turned back to the pool. It seemed like it would hold another fish, but after another five minutes, nothing came. With just a few minutes left I chose to move up to fresh fish and what looked like some possibly decent pockets. Unfortunately, as far as I ran up the water never looked worth casting to. Though it could have held a fish, it was unlikely, and I wasted the last few minutes of the session searching for holding water. 

After the session

In talking with my controller on the walk back to the car, I learned that Arcay had caught twelve from this beat the day prior. Most from the long lower run, but also an additional one from the large bend pool and one from the pockets below it where I caught none. He hadn’t caught any near the top flag bend, which made me feel better about not making it there. I feel like I could have made another fish or two happen on that peg, especially in the last pool I fished, but I don’t think eight was too shabby.  

Peg two brought my total to fifteen fish for the session. Based on the previous days numbers I didn’t feel like that would do me particularly well. It took a while to get all the scores, but by the time we got back to the chalet I had learned I took a seven. Not an optimal finish, but it was still high enough to help keep the team in position. My teammates had all had decent days as well, and we slid into third place by a few points.

My beat here put up 20 for Arcay, my 15, 18 from the French angler Lionel Fournier, 11 from the Romanian angler Palcza Szilard, and 16 for the Czech angler Lukas Starychfojtu. Though the spread was fairly close, I certainly left some fish on the table. There were a few areas I think I could have pulled one or two more. I already mentioned what I would change in peg one. In peg two, I think a few more fly changes in some of the best looking water, especially the last pool, may have helped. I would also have dropped to 8x for a few of the more turbulent areas where I wasted time trying to get a better drift. Most importantly, there were some areas I would have spent less time and some I would have spent more (as there almost always are). Being able to walk the whole beat would have helped, but theres not much you can do about that in this situation. Competing is always a learning experience, and I hoped I could put some of these lessons to use during my next session on the Aude River.

 

Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for following along!

 

– Mike Komara