World Champion’s Winning Techniques – Part Two — Howard Croston

My Journey

to a World Title

Howard Croston planning his fishing session on the upper Meaner River. All photos courtesy Ben Carden.

World Champion, Howard Croston explains his tips, flies and techniques he used to win the World Fly Fishing Championships in Tasmania December 2019.

Session two saw me bound for the Meander River, a medium sized venue with a deceptively powerful flow and clear water, Well populated with wild browns, but not always equally distributed as is the norm in river-based sessions, and particularly apparent in the early season Tasmanian rivers. The draw would play a crucial role in obtaining a good result. My beat was number 4 a good draw as it turned out with around 400m of generally very fishy looking water on a fair gradient that created lots of pocket water over a large substrate bottom. The beat was split about two thirds

of the way up by a high bluff that made the access a bit tricky in places, but as I surveyed the water, I was quite hopeful for a good session. I had ample time to prepare so spent a good hour walking the beat and formulating a plan, our river fishing practice, although useful had not been on representative waters, both the competition venues of the Meander and the Mersey where fairly unique in terms of size and fish stock. What we had discovered was that the fly was not all that important and as is often the case good watercraft and approach were key. www.tasfish.com - Get the knowledge - Get the fish.

I set three rods up, the first being my Zephrus Ultralite 9’9” 4# with a WF4 floater and an 11ft Hand tied tapered butt section, this ended in a duo set up consisting of a large indicator sedge and a 3.5mm silver bead quill, the fly was a full bead size too heavy for the water but was the only way I could even hope to anchor my leader and fish effectively in the crazy strong wind. My second set up being a prototype 10.8ft Nymph rod rated for a 0-2# line with a level euro-nymph style line and a long parallel leader of 0.20 in diameter, ending in a short section of indicator line of 0.17 with a two fly rig of a 3.5mm point fly and a 3mm dropper fly. My third rod was a spare Nymph set up in case I suffered any kind of disaster with my main line of attack.

As the session started,

I slipped into the water at the bottom of my beat and started to systematically fish all the prime looking areas with my Double nymph rig to quickly try and assess the opportunity the good-looking water offered. It quickly became apparent that although the water looked fantastic the fish density was either not as high as I expected or not as well distributed as the water suggested. I struggled for my first take until an accurate cast right under a very low hanging branch into a particularly good-looking pot gave up a nice brown.

The fish was recorded by Ben my controller (another great guy and keen angler) and I reasoned that tight to the banks under and around the heavy deadfall and large rocks that covered the banks may be the way forward. I snipped off my dropper at the knot to improve accuracy, shortened the drop to the point to improve take detection and restarted in the next likely spot, I fished 3 or 4 more good areas under cover for nothing, so back tracked and worked further out into the river covering pots and holes I had missed with a combination of a single heavy nymph or my Duo rod. The next fish took a nymph on the duo but on a downstream drift tight to a big rock. As my second fish was recorded I used the time to take stock, I was well into the first hour and with only two fish and a seemingly low fish population in the beat I needed to re-plan to have any chance of hitting my pre session target of 10 fish plus.

I waded out into the centre of the river and started a faster than usual zig zag pattern across the river, working shallow- deep - shallow again, switching rods depending on the general water type. After 1.45hrs gone I was up to 8 fish with two others dropped. Comfortable with my recovery so far, I relaxed a little and slipped into a groove that I felt would probably see me reach mid-teens in the three hours with a lot of good looking water still to cover. As the time ticked by good pot after good pot failed to produce fish number 9 , slightly concerned at the sudden slow down I reached the bluff and needed to decide on back tracking or hiking over the hill and covering the last part of the beat that also held a few larger pools. With the decision made I dropped down around the bluff and from my higher vantage point realised the water had started to colour slightly, this possibly being the reason for the slowdown in action. I switched my tippet back to a two-fly setup, both black gold bead flash backs as the water clarity had deteriorated further. I started to hit the prime looking water with multiple drifts and a slower progression through the good water than I had earlier in the session. This tactical change paid off and quickly fish number 9, then 10 then 11 came in the last 15 mins of the session from two small areas of particularly good-looking water.

Session over I signed for my last fish and folded my duplicate score card in four and stuffed in my pocket with the one from the day before, hoping to carry some luck. Eleven was less than expected, but certainly not a disaster and that evening placed me 4th in the group and 3rd overall with 5 place points.

That evening as we sat at our team meeting I gave little thought to my personal position, as a Team we had moved into 2nd place – only 1 point behind 1st and 16 points ahead of third. Our conversation that night revolved around holding onto that position as a team.

Day three dawned and I was off to Woods lake,

the largest of the lakes in the event and one that was proving tougher than expected. I had good info from my teammates who had fished before me regarding possible areas and I made my call based on the wind, their findings and the maps we had produced ahead of the event. As we motored for the far end of the lake, waterspouts whipped down the middle of the lake and frequent storm force gusts battered the large sturdy aluminium boat of our controller Peter Rasmussen. I had control and had taken the engine side of the boat putting my Spanish boat partner Julen Aguado on the point, this was a purely tactical decision as it put me closest to the bank side structure and hopefully the prime water of my intended drift.

We motored up wide and slow before cutting in at the top of the wind into the slack edge created by the tree line, as we trimmed the boat, I could see large amounts of weed with odd clear areas. I was rigged with my reliable Di3 sweep, a Magoo on top dropper, dabbler in the middle and a Bitch on point. As we started to drift, I noticed a strip of clearer water on the inside of the main weed line and quickly asked Peter to reverse us further in so I could fish down the “inside” line. As it was session three and fish had been caught late in session two in this area I reasoned that the inside line may have been missed or at least not fished as hard in what was quite an obvious area given the poor wind conditions on the lake. I had a solid contact and a big brown jumped clear of the water hooked on the top dropper, I played it as hard as possible fearing the weed and let out a shout of relief as it went in the net less than a minute later.

Recorded and released, Peter bumped the boat back in tight as the swirly wind in the relative shelter of the trees was playing havoc with our drift, a few casts later two strips into my retrieve Fish number two nailed the point fly and again went airborne towards the weeds, giving me the same “all or nothing “ option, despite applying maximum pressure this one gave me a few tense minuets around the weeds as it refused to give in, eventually and again with much relief it made the net- a great start to the session .

Then followed probably the most frustrating 3 hours of the event to that point. No matter what we did we could not get that boat to drift even remotely straight. The wind in our chosen area became so extreme and variable that we managed no more than two casts each before having to reposition sometimes not even one! We drifted diagonally, backwards, left, right you name it – if I put us close to the bank we were blown into it. If Peter set us up further off we were propelled out towards the middle of the lake.

During the constant battle for boat control Julen managed to level the score at two fish each, both taken as the boat swept his flies round in an arc as we battled the wind, not really a repeatable tactic we could build on.

Suddenly from nowhere a brief window of steady wind appeared and we managed one short drift into the bank, we both had two maybe three offers to the flies from what seemed to be much smaller fish, none of them actually staying hooked but it gave us hope for improving conditions. No sooner had we started our second drift back came the wind and we turned 180 degrees and drifted right into the bank again, fouling the engine. Frustrated, we made the call and ran for the far end of the lake with only 40 mins left.

As we arrived it became apparent it was a mistake, the water had been heavily coloured by a combination of boat traffic and wind that had beaten the water into a mix of weed filled coco, it looked hopeless. We both made speculative casts and immediately both stripped in 3 strands of broken weed each, another cast another 3 strands of broken weed, with time dangerously short and a fairly unimpressive 2 fish each landed, Julen indicated for me to take control of the boat again, for probably our last drift of the session.

Faced with no easy choice I asked Peter to run us as fast as legally possible back to the area we had contacted the smaller fish. As we motored, I retied my cast dropping the streamers down to a size 12 hook and the middle dropper down to a size 14 dabbler.

Peter turned the boat onto the drift and I saw a small fish jump from the water close to the bank. Quickly I stripped more line from the reel to reach it before we again blew out into the lake, two strips in I felt the take but this time the fish stayed hooked, as I stripped

the line in long smooth pulls with the rod held low to the water I could tell from the resistance and the fairly weak fight that the fish was borderline measurable at the very best, as the fish approached the boat I lifted the rod and swung the small brown over the net, as the fish hit the mesh and the pressure came off the hooks, all three flies blew out of the net.

Peter hunched over the measuring tray trying to get an accurate measurement in the moving boat – the wait was painful but eventually 20.1 cm was announced, and the fish presented in the tray for Julen to check as it was so close.

Signing for the fish I quickly started to fish again, two casts later and it was over. Three fish I felt was not enough, again I folded my score card and stuffed in the same pocket, hoping for a break. That night when the results where posted I was pleasantly surprised to see a 7th place finish, my 21cm fish saving me 6 place points.

Little did I know but two days later that 21cm fish would be one of the three most important fish of my life.

The last two sessions.

At the end of day three Team England had slipped to 5th place, although a fall of three places it was a long way from a disaster and still with everything to play for. Individually my 7th place on Woods Lake helped me stay in medal contention and with 12 place points for three sessions fished, I was only trailing bronze by 2 points and Gold by 4 as I sat in 4th place overall.

Session 4, day 4 for my group was the Mersey River and again the draw was a contributing factor to the results with an uneven spread of fish in some areas. For this session, three separate buses were used and anglers sent to the relevant bus by the rough area that they would fish, prior to the actual beat draw being announced.

Over the prior three days it became clear if you where directed to board the first bus you had drawn the higher, more difficult beats in this particular sector and whilst your fate wasn’t sealed it would be an uphill struggle against the lower beats. As I was called and directed towards the first bus in the line my heart sank a little, as did the other 8 anglers who boarded the same bus.

As we sat waiting, I recalled to myself the number of times that I have previously seen “sleeper” beats appear mid competition. “Sleeper beats” are beats that fail to produce a good result in an event until session 4 or even 5, for any number of reasons, including the ability of the anglers who have fished them prior, changing water and weather conditions and even fish movement from one beat to another. As I reassured myself all was not lost the sector judge boarded the bus, shouted “everybody off - wrong bus” and we were directed to the last bus in the line. It was nine relieved anglers that settled in for the drive to the river.

I arrived at my beat having been decanted from the bus into my controller’s car, along with Bernie Maher the team reserve and stand in Captain. It was a long beat with two areas of good-looking water and a fair amount of “B” water as a fall back. Walk through complete and with a few moving fish spotted I set up 4 rods, The duo, the Single nymph on a level Euro style leader of 0.17 with a 0.12 tippet and two fall back rods of a single dry fly and a double streamer set up – both of these really being last resorts. As I set my gear up I asked Bernie to sit and watch a wide flat at the upper end of the beat for rising fish and to position my Dry Fly rod in a tree close to the best looking water in case I needed to resort to plan B.

With thirty mins to go I asked Bernie to watch the flat and only come and get me if the fish became active, as acting captain the only support Bernie can offer is verbal during the actual session. I walked quickly to the end of the beat and settled in, sitting on a large rock at the very end of my beat behind a wall of hard to penetrate brush directly opposite a nice run that marked the end of my beat.

My controller shouted go and I flicked my Duo rig into a perfect mid river seam, a short drift and the dry slid away, I struck and a large brown went airborne hooked on the nymph before it ran down stream out of bounds, a few frantic minuets later, including me fully submersing as I slid off my rock into much deeper water than I expected, then the fish bolting back upstream between my legs it hit the net and I was on the card.

I worked upstream through the “B” water – prospecting quite quickly where I had seen some smaller fish move but pushing to reach the “A” water within 30 mins, On route a large fish head and tailed tight to a big rock over deep water, I hung back a few moments to see if the wind would drop – it didn’t so I covered the fish with the Duo and immediately saw a big flash below the dry as it ate the Nymph, again this one ran me ragged before making the net, again on the thread quill nymph, checking my watch I had burned more time than expected so skipped a chunk of the average water to try and get back on track.

As I hit the “A” water it seemed suspiciously quiet, that said the wind was incredibly strong, actually picking flies, leader , line the whole lot out on the water on more than one occasion and I was struggling for any real control. I switched rods from Duo to heavy single nymph a couple of times to gain better control but to no real avail. Reaching the top of the run I found some fish, landing three but losing four on the duo, mainly due to the horrendous wind robbing me of any kind of contact- it was so bad it actually blew two of them off the hook as they jumped in play, something I have never seen happen before.

With 5 on the card and the obvious “A” water about expended I looked upstream at the wide shallow run above me, on the walk down it looked good, but it became clear it was shallower than expected. With time running out I decided to increase work rate and ditched my nymph rod on the bank, re-rigged my Duo to the minimum permissible length between flies (50cm), cut the dry fly dropper down to 4cm to increase indication speed and over weighted the point fly to 3.5mm -way too heavy for the shallow run, but the only way I could get my flies consistently in play with any kind of accuracy and contact . I started to work fast -crouching, occasionally kneeling and peppering anything that looked promising with short drifts. As I moved upstream I started to find fish and big ones at that, fantastic quality Browns hiding in 5-6” of water – the 3.5mm nymph actually fished well and didn’t foul bottom too much as the wind pushed the leader

Howard drew Beat 4 for the second session on the Meander.

and large dry downstream balancing out the overly heavy nymph and giving me a workable drift of sorts, when the wind dropped back I held more line clear of the water with my prototype 10.8ft Hardy Ultralite nymph rod and “carried “ the nymph through the thinner water .

I still lost a couple of fish, but another 7 made the card and as I signed for the last one as the session expired my controller remarked they had been the biggest fish he had seen in four days of controlling the beat and the only ones caught in the areas I had fished, despite other good anglers fishing the same water. Until one of us catch’s a talking fish some things will always just remain a mystery, but my gut feeling was the rivers had started to switch on following a few days of warmer weather at lower altitude and those larger fish simply hadn’t actively fed in the earlier sessions.

As we drove back to the bus pick up point I silently cursed my lost fish fearing they had cost me many points, as it happened I came 2nd in the group helped by my larger fish beating the 13 caught by Vojtech ungr of Czech, Julen Aguado of Spain had also drawn well and fished exceptionally well to score 21 fish and win the session.

That night at our final Team meeting we stood in 8th position 23 points away from the Team medals, not impossible to recover but unlikely. Individually I had moved into 1st place by a single point ahead of Valario Santi Amantini of Italy. The Team rallied round and gave me every drop of info they could from the previous 4 sessions on Little Pine Lagoon, I tied three flies and hit the sack.

DAY 5

On the final morning as the bus headed to little pine it started to really sink in that I was fishing to be world champion, a position that I had been close to before and a situation I had dreamed about many times, and as this was a boat session my fate was in my own hands to a degree. My mind raced as I reviewed the venue info over and over again, halfway to the lake I realised my mind set of the last few days had contributed to my success and as pressured a situation as it was if I just “Fished” I would probably perform better than if I tried to force it and with that I put my note book and comp map away and attempted to switch off .

My boat partner was Rene Koops a great guy I know well but a left hander with a low side arm casting style that effectively put me on the pointy end of the boat for the whole session, not ideal as I had found far more success fishing the engine side. As we motored out for our first drift I looked for Valario, by chance as well as sitting in 2nd place he was also in my group meaning in four hours I would know if he had overtaken me or not, I couldn’t see him and decided that wasn’t a bad thing.

We started our drift over the clearer water of the incoming river, a hot spot on Pine that had produced well, unfortunately so did everyone else and fresh water was at a premium. Two drifts in I had a fish on the card but Rene had 3 with probably three times as many moved by pulling an orange lure and sparkler combo at high speed on a slow intermediate, whilst I had stuck to my di 3 and streamer / dabbler set up. I changed to similar tactics but just couldn’t generate the same amount of interest , as I had control of the boat we switched ends but with Rene’s bad shoulder and low arm casting style we just couldn’t make it work with too many tangles to be effective . Reluctantly I went back to the point.

With time ticking and fresh water becoming increasingly hard to find in the “good” area I made a big call and we bolted for the opposite end of the lake that despite being heavily coloured hadn’t been fished that day. I changed lines to a slow intermediate but kept my Hot Head Shrek (Mike Dixon’s variant he had won Little Pine with and the fly I had tied the night before), a Dabbler in the middle and an orange beaded black streamer on point. First drift at the top of the lake and just as we were about to turn the boat for another drift my flies pulled through an unseen weed bed in the brown water, I quickly cleared the flies and threw short to try and fish close to the hidden structure, one pull and everything locked solid as a big brown thrashed the surface hooked on the orange bead head, with my adrenaline racing before I realised it I had bullied the fish into the net, at 49.5 cm and thickly set pressuring it into the net was probably the right move in the shallow weedy water. Relieved I set another drift and Rene quickly took another fish in the same area whilst I momentarily hooked another one that thrashed free in the shallow water.

After a quiet drift or two we slid closer to the dam wall, as soon as the boat settled, I hit another fish on Mike’s Green headed Shrek and after a few heart stopping leaps and one botched netting attempt number three made the card. Rene was now sitting on 4 fish and with only 30 mins left and a slowdown in action we decided to run back to the favoured area at the bottom of the lake for a last few drifts.

When we arrived it became clear it was still a busy area so we started our drift well back behind the pack and Rene quickly took fish number 5 within a few casts, as the minutes ticked down I fished the hardest I had for 4 days – one back, cast, pull and hang, constantly working the angles and practically willing a fish to take but cast after cast nothing. Starting to despair slightly and feeling my chances start to slip away I felt a slight pluck towards the end of the retrieve as I came onto the hang, concentrating I hung the flies and jigged them slightly, eyes straining on the line for an indication, nothing …. I made a blind strike before recasting (something that Steve Cullen had found to produce fish in practice) but made no contact. I dropped the rod tip slightly for a second to shake some weed that had fouled the rod tip free and then threw a roll cast to clear the flies, nothing happened and the flies remained buried, half knowing the probable reason I hit the roll cast again as hard as I could whilst frantically stripping to recover the line I had shot into my aborted roll cast unsure if I was pinned in weed or….. as the line came tight the fish cleared the water with the Hot head Shrek clearly visible in the end of its nose. As soon as I regained tension the fish shot upwind behind the boat towards the drogue forcing me to bury the rod over the front of the boat to prevent fouling the hull, as you would expect this fish made me sweat, boring deep into the weed and constantly trying to get under the boat before eventually dropping into the net.

With no more than a few minuets left we had one more short drift and that was it — the 2019 World Fly Fishing Championships was over and I could do no more. For the last time I folded my copy of the score sheet into the same pocket as the previous 4 and made the short motor back to the landing point.

As we beached, I was collared by other competitors looking for scores – mainly trying to work out their own placings, but a few wondering if I had done enough individually, an impossible question to answer at that stage!

Talking with the Canadian captain I learned that Valario had suffered boat trouble so was still out on the lake, as I pressed him he revealed they had been watching him fish and seen two fish caught in no more than 15 mins, with my score of 4 hard won fish I felt a sense of dread that maybe I just hadn’t done enough.

Trying to keep busy I helped Tim Urbanc one of the

boat men and our guide in the practice week to haul his boat out of the lake whilst scanning the horizon for Valario, eventually the boat appeared and as I grabbed the front end to help it beach Valario gave the universal point of the finger signal for “how many fish”, I held up 4 fingers and he shook my hand “only 3” . Although Valario was my most immediate threat David Garcia of Spain was only 3 points a drift so my brief relief and elation was quickly replaced with uncertainty.!

Mandatory end of session beer consumed we boarded the bus and I prepared for the torture of waiting for the official results. I have to say the bus drive back was the most stressful part of the whole event. Former World Champion Marek Walczyk from Poland was also on my bus and quickly started to call around the other coachs for the scores.

After 15 or so minutes he waved and gave me a thumbs up followed by “You are world Champion by 1 point”, the bus cheered and started to stamp there feet but I still had my doubts until the official results were published. Twice in my competition career I have been congratulated for winning a major event , once a rivers national and once a rivers international, on both occasions quirks in the scoring saw me miss first place by a point or two and I was well aware in an event as tight as a world championships and with information often coming second or third hand and occasionally even false information being circulated the result was far from clear at this point.

When we arrived at the hotel I was swamped by many of my fellow competitors many asking the impossible question “Have you done it” , exhausted from the last 5 days but sky high on adrenaline I couldn’t cope so grabbed the rest of the England team and retreated to a small restaurant and bar around the corner to eat and try and stay calm until the results where official.

About an hour into dinner I started to receive dozens of Facebook messages and notifications, picking my phone up expecting either a wave of commiserations or congratulations I was met with more uncertainty … Facebook comments questioning who had “Actually won” – following one of the links it became clear that the image of the official results had been posted blurred and unreadable ! whilst the team huddled around trying to second guess the blurred image a clear one was posted ….

PLACE NAME TEAM PLACINGS POINTS FISH NO LONGEST FISH 1 France FRA 190 109420 144 576 2 Czech Rep. CZE 191 108040 146 583 3 Spain ESP 192 111220 150 538 4 Finland FIN 204 100920 134 545 5 Italy ITA 212 98720 129 574 6 USA USA 220 92300 118 542 7 Australia AUS 222 109420 134 575 8 England ENG 233 96220 122 542 9 Slovakia SVK 236 96600 129 523 10 Ireland IRL 237 82180 104 616 11 South Africa RSA 260 74520 97 533 12 Poland POL 267 72480 94 575 13 New Zealand NZL 301 59980 74 527 14 Scotland SCO 322 60440 72 537 15 Belgium BEL 328 59420 74 570 16 Nederland NED 363 46180 59 505 17 Luxembourg LUX 389 37440 48 542 18 Canada CAN 395 36180 43 540 19 Kiribati KIR 406 35120 44 550 20 Japan JPN 413 34460 42 580 21 Mongolia MGL 417 30800 39 510 22 Wales WAL 424 33640 45 531

I had done it — not by one point, but drawn on points with a higher fish point score, the tightest of margins possible to make me 2019 World Fly Fishing Champion.

The closing ceremony was a grand affair and the best I have ever attended, with the medals presented Marek tapped me on the shoulder and said “We must take the picture” and with that I was welcomed, in his words, into “The most exclusive fishing club in the world”.

I owe many people thanks and it would be impossible to list them all, but I must call out the Team who did a sterling job under a great deal of adversity and pressure, the host organisers for laying on an incredible event and my girlfriend, Lucy for putting up with the many hours of practice and weeks away from home competing, my Uncle Sid who encouraged my interest in fly tying and my late father Eric who sadly didn’t live to see me become world champion but without whom I wouldn’t have had the chance to pick up a fly rod.

As I write this locked in the house due to the Corona Pandemic, the incredible month I spent in Tasmania last Nov/ December last year seems a million miles away and frankly it still hasn’t sunk in fully.

I always said if I managed to medal individually in a world championship to compliment my Team gold from 2009 and Team Bronze from 2014 I would happily retire …… maybe not just yet though …

Howard Croston