Howard and Stefan getting ready to fish the first session on Penstock Lagoon. Photos courtesy Norm Cibbin.
My Flies — My Techniques World Champion, Howard Croston explains his tips, flies and techniques he used to win the World Fly Fishing Championships in Tasmania 2019. Session One: Penstock Lagoon
T
he 39th Fips Mouche World Fly Fishing Championships were held in Tasmania - an island state of Australia. Blessed with countless bodies of water and connecting rivers and streams, Tasmania is a wild Trout fishers paradise. The Trout in Tasmania are predominantly wild brown trout stock reared from eggs imported from England in 1864, but with a few rainbows here and there which are now also effectively wild. There is a unique combination of shallow food rich lakes, low rod pressure and active fisheries management equals one thing – simply unbelievable wild trout fishing in a unique and inspiring wildliferich landscape. ‘Team England this year comprised of myself as Captain, Manager, Competitor and chief cook and
bottle washer with Tony Baldwin, Lee Bartlett, Steve Cullen and Mike Dixon fishing five sessions each and Bernie Maher as acting Captain and reserve. It would take a small novel for me to recount each day from a Team perspective so here is my 2019 championships session by session in what turned out to be the most memorable week of my fishing life to date.
Day One ‘The first draw for me was Penstock Lagoon. Penstock was the most sheltered venue and offered the best chance of the legendary ‘dun hatch’ making an appearance. As we decanted from the coach the strong wind was cold and the lake, although well fishable, was still rough with ‘lumpy’ waves crashing into the
downwind shore making it quite frankly looking a long way away from producing any kind of dun hatch in the unseasonably late spring weather that persisted for the whole event. ‘My boat partner for the session was Stefan from the Slovakian Team and, after a brief discussion in broken English we decided that as he had control of the boat for the first two hours he would fish from the bow (a decision that suited me) but I would control where we fished, as I was a more experienced boat angler. This is actually quite a common occurrence as usually the home nations have far more boat fishing experience. Visiting teams are often happy to relinquish a lot of the decision making. Our boatman was Norm Cribbin – a local angler and fly tier of some repute.
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