Less Than 3 Hours Sleep?

So here I am, tying flies.  Turns out that glass beads are not allowed on flies in the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships, which begin at 7AM – 6 hours from now. I’ll have to leave my home around 5:30 to ensure I get to the meeting place, where we’ll learn where our first beat is.

I’m sure it is a big job to arrange and plan the competition, but there are some areas I think could have been improved.  For one, the rule changes – it seems that there were several rule changes from the first set of rules that were published on the website.  This is just not good enough. Once rules are published, there shouldn’t be any changes.

Secondly, the Captains of each team received a package with the information on where the beats would be, but they didn’t match up to the actual schedule.  As well, there was only one set of maps and information.  For guys that don’t have access to a photo-copy machine, this makes it awfully difficult for everyone to have the necessary information.  I can understand that they’d want to provide information to captains only, but surely printing off copies for each individual on a team would not have been that expensive or hard to do.

So between that and having to retie a bunch of flies that I originally tied up with glass beads, I’m a bit frustrate as I’m going to get less than 3 hours sleep before the competition starts. Ah well.. should be a great day anyhow! My team captain is very gung ho – so much so that I didn’t have time to do much flirting with any of the women on the “All Ladies” team – The Featherweights.  But, this evening at the barb-que, I did get to meet them!  And what a fine bunch they all are. Dil is as pretty in real life as she was in the centrefold spread of the Sunday Toronto Star a couple of weeks ago.  Actually, they are all great! Sylvia drew the same rotation as me, so maybe I’ll have a chance to speak with her and check out her fly fishing skills, you know? ;

I also had an opportunity to speak with Jeanne Jenkins who just flew in from P.E.I.  She seems like a very knowledgeable and great angler, and very engaging to talk with.  Maybe I’ll have to take some time and go down east one of these days for some fly fishing.

The Bar-B-Que was great! Steaks provided by “Better Beef” of Guelph, Ontario – very very good steaks, along with baked potato and salad.  And I sampled a beer I’ve never had before, but I can’t recall the name of it right now.

I also had the opportunity to meet with some of Canada’s greatest fly fishing personalities as well.  Ian Martin was there, and I was able to chat with him over dinner as he sat right across from me.  How’s that for feeling intimidated at a gathering of fly fishers?

I also was able to meet with the team from Quebec – very funny and charming guys, all of them.  Claude (last name escapes me right now) has won the World Championships of Fly Tying three times.  Wow!  Here I am shaking his hand!  And his teammates are going to put on a very strong showing as well – Bernard, who I spoke for a while, fly fishes about 40 hours  per week during the spring and early summer months.

John, from the North West Territories team and I shared some thoughts and discussions about the differences between fly fishing here in Ontario and what they are used to way up north.   Imagine going for walleye on the fly!  I’ve never tried that, before.

I should try to get a few hours of shut-eye here – and hopefully won’t have any problems waking up at 5AM in order to be on time at the Elora Conservation Area first thing in the morning.  I do know that my first beat will be on the Conestoga River – which will be interesting.  Getting the Conestoga first thing is a bit intimidating as well.  That is going to be some tough fishing, I know.

I should also throw some fly tying gear into the back of the van, so that between sessions, I can tie some more flies up that I’ll probably need.  Too much to do!!