Darren
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Lexus European Fly Fishing Individual Championship ReportLexus European Individual Fly Fishing Championships 2008
The Grand Final of the Lexus European Individual Fly Fishing Championships recently took place on Chew Valley Lake, Bristol, England with 100 of the top anglers from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and from as far away as Belgium, France and Czech Republic, all fishing for the title of European Champion and a top of the range Lexus car for a year.
There were 6 Irish representatives, who qualified at Woodford Fly Fishery, Carrickfergus, and 5 of who fish for the successful Team Woodford Greys Ireland fly-fishing team current Lexus European Team Champions. All though this is an Individual event the six Irish lads practiced together sharing information on areas that held fish as well as those areas that didn’t hold fish around the 900acres of Chew Valley. The point of this is to get as many of them into a top 10 place as possible.
With Chew Valley not being stocked for 3 weeks prior to the competition and a forecast of bright sunshine and light winds this was going to make this one of the hardest finals for some years.
Practice had shown that the fish where well spread out from Wick Green, across the open water of the Roman Shallows, Morton Bank and up along the nature reserve into Stratford Bay. Best methods found in practice were dry flies, nymphs washing line style on a floater and pulling blobs on a di3.
The day of the final had the 100 anglers heading out onto a flat calm lake with not a cloud in the sky, a great day for sun bathing but not for fishing. Fishing was slow with the odd rod bending into fish across the open water from Wick Green to Morton Bank and right up Stratford Bay with the odd boat picking up fish along Spring Bay to East Shore.
As the day went on conditions hardened and boats could be spotted moving all over the lake trying to find feeding fish, switching franticly from floating line and dries to sinking lines and lures just trying to catch that extra fish.
The 6pm finish brought a sigh of relief from most anglers, but out of the 100 anglers 257 fish were caught giving a rod average of 2.57 fish per angler, (well down on last years 393 fish between 100 anglers). Non of who had caught the 10 fish bag.
Winner for the 2nd time in 5years was Richard Slater, England with 8 fish weighing 17lb 7oz, Campbell Baird, Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland had to be content with second place with 7 fish weighing 16lb 10oz, missing top spot by just 13 ounces, but beating his previous best of 4th place in 2005. Third place went to Jim Youngman, Scotland with 6 fish weighing 16lb 5oz.
The other Woodford qualifiers had faired well with 4 finishing in the top 50, Brian Kerr 49th, Ross Hill 24th, Darren Haggan 14th and Campbell Baird in 2nd place. This was the 8th time in a row that Campbell had qualified for the finals and his 2nd spot was the highest placing ever by an Irish man, with 4th place being the previous highest Irish finish on 4 occasions. This has been a good year for Campbell, not only did he finish 2nd in the Lexus Individual’s, he Captained his Team Woodford Greys Ireland to their win in the Lexus Team’s, finished 2nd in the Troutmasters and qualified to represent Ireland at next years World Championships in Scotland, after finishing 4th at the TAFI Interprovincals on Lough Leane, Killarney.
Darren 
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fossil-fish
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Darren,
Thanks for the report. Sounds like a real challenge. Glad to see the Woodford guys do well again, though how on earth do you follow the team win. Glad to see Campbell doing so well, he is a great angler and a true gentleman. He has certainly been a great help to me, along with yourself, in my struggles to come to terms with fly fishing. He really deserves this success.
Well done to all involved.
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Watty's Rock
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Very well done to the Woodford guys, great result for CB. 
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FIREY BROWN
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lLexus CompExcellent report Darren
yet again the Woodford lads representing Ireland in the Lexus have proved themselves a force to be reconed with on the international scene and must be applauded for their fine effort,,well done to everyone envolved and congratulations to Campbell Baird on gaining 2nd place....
Regards
FIREY BROWN
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tack4
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congrats to the woodford anglers on a tough tough day
campbell is having a blinding year
must be the tips he picked up from kyle lol
darren can you point him in the direcrtion of our forum ??????
he can hold a master class for us mere mortals
sure kyle and Harrylfc would help him if he was stuck lol
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harry_lfc
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great report darren lol tack
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