Report from CLA Game Fair at Belvoir Castle – July 2009

There were three of us. Three fly casters leaving Norway for the CLA Game Fair in England with brand new prototype lines from Zpey in our bags. We came to learn, but also to measure our strengths against an almost invincible Carron Team that, with a few exceptions, had won most of the important spey casting competitions during the last few years. Knut Syrstad had won twice during 2008 (in Norway and in Ireland), but this time; unfortunately, he was not able to go.

The three of us were:
Knut Ekelund, the designer of the competition lines we were all going to use and a style caster of unimaginable dimensions. In this story I will call him “The Designer”. Tommy Aarkvisla, the bearded giant that had spent most of the previous winter with his 18 foot rod in freezing salt water conditions to crack the codes of spey casting. In this story I will call him “The Viking”. And at last, me, Mathias Lilleheim, the man from Zpey who had won a few medals in over head fly casting competitions and was now probing into the mysteries of spey casting with increasing amounts of energy. In this story I will call me “I”.

We were all here to compete, but I had an extra obligation during this Game Fair. The Irish Company: “The Donegal Fly Company” had recently signed a contract with Zpey System AS to distribute Zpey equipment in Ireland and in the UK. I was also here to help them promote our rods, lines and reels to interesting fly fishing shops and to the public. I had to divide my time between these two obligations and had no problems filling my days with things to do.

THURSDAY 
(transport, taxi, brick, confusion, beers and sleep)
I needed to be at the Game Fair on Friday morning and that meant leaving Norway already on Thursday evening on an SAS flight to Manchester. As the English public transport system seems to close down between seven and eight every evening, I had no choice but to grab a 200 £ (2000 NKr) Taxi for the two and a half hour drive to Belvoir Castle. During this drive, Alfie (the Taxi driver) was a couple of inches away from getting a two pound brick in the head on the motorway. The brick hit the upper part of the wind screen, but luckily also the frame of the roof, while we were driving in 130 kilometers per hour. A slightly lower hit would probably have gone through the wind screen and into the drivers face, leaving me to deal with the rather interesting task of stopping the car from the passenger seat with an unconscious 120 kg man in the drivers seat. Anyway, the hypothetical disaster did not take place and I arrived at Belvoir Castle around ten. The guard was reluctant to let in a seemingly confused Norwegian without neither wrist band nor any kind of written material, so I had to sneak in, walk 20 minutes, guided by phone and a little less confused Irishman, through enormous areas with all kinds of tents and stands, before I finally reached the so called “Fishermans Village” and the rented caravan of the Donegal guys. Steve, Malcolm and Dirk met me half way with cold beers and shaking heads, wondering how Norwegian Vikings were able to raid English and Irish villages a thousand years ago, when their poor ancestors couldn’t find a caravan on an open grass field. We had some beers, went to bed and snored ourselves through the night.

FRIDAY
(qualification, Zpey equipment, demonstrations and lack of food)
We rose and shone around seven and started the day with a cappuccino, a bacon roll and a bottle of water. Then we assembled all the rods and placed them on our stand, ready to be assaulted by customers. There were less people than the veterans were used to, but everyone trying were impressed and a bit awe struck by the performance of our rods and lines. They loved the handles and the actions of the both new Instinct rods and the numerous Switch rods and were reluctant to put the rods back on the rack. Many of these admirers were representatives for important Fishing Shops in the UK and next year we think many of these will sell Zpey fly fishing equipment to equally impressed customers.

The spey casting competition is arranged in the following way: You can qualify any time on Friday and Saturday (between 09.00 and 13.00 and between 14.00 and 18.00) and on Sunday (between 09.00 and 12.00). The six best casters at 12.00 on Sunday go on to the final that takes place on the Grandstand at 16.00. Every competitor will pay £ 5 for 4 minutes of casting and there is no limit of attempts throughout the weekend.

I started out a bit nervously, but after a few attempt I was third with 58 meters after Ruairi Costello with 62 meters and Gordon Armstrong (the winner of the last two CLA spey casting competitions) with 60 meters, both from the famous Carron Team. I had lost a monster cast because the judges were looking another way and had a queasy feeling in my gut about the quality of the measurements taking place from a drifting boat out on the lake.

Between qualification attempts, we were discussing rod actions, line profiles, casting techniques, wind directions and anything else connected to competitive spey casting. Even though we are all serious competitors, we are also friends and our conversational topics vary from  the already mentioned spey casting to less serious banter involving friendly insults, fly fishing and, of course, women. Next year we intend to expand our discussions to more intellectual topics like philosophy, religion and world peace. There is no doubt that most Norwegians are freshmen when it comes to competition spey casting. Therefore we ask questions, test equipment and generally try our best uncover as many secrets as possible. Luckily, our competitors are willingly sharing from their seemingly bottomless pools of experience. When they see us do things that they know won’t work, they are honest enough to tell us and polite enough to tell us in a nice way. Every time we meet these guys, we learn something new and we gradually get better. Knut Syrstad has been a part of this game a lot longer than the rest of us Norwegians and he has also given us a lot of necessary information, of course, and being around these experienced guys helps the rest of us enormously.

The Designer (Knut Ekelund) and The Viking (Tommy Aarkvisla) had taken a Ryan Air flight from Torp Airport (Sandefjord) to Liverpool and arrived Friday evening via a back road, because of the lack of the same kind of wristbands as me. We practised until it got dark and all the restaurants had closed, drank a few beers, accompanied by vast amounts of pretzels (the only edible things we could find) and went to bed reasonably early.

SATURDAY
(more qualification, questionable judges, salt water single hand casting, wind problems and training)
More cappuccino, more bacon rolls and more water before once more focusing on qualifying. This time we also had to prioritize the Salt Water Single Hand Competition which, just like the spey casting competition, had a £ 1000 (around eleven thousand Norwegian Kroner) first price award.

In the spey qualification The Designer managed 53 meters, I managed 57 meters and The Viking equalled my 58 meters from Friday and then we had to change venues to qualify for the Salt Water Single Hand. We tried twice; the first time with a very strong head wind and the last time with a not so strong head wind. In the end, we all made it into the final. The Viking was 6th with 32 meters, The Designer was second with 36 meters and I had the best cast of the qualification with 38 meters. Good results in bad conditions. We were all using a 16 meter and 27 gram line designed by The Designer for difficult conditions like these. A wonderful line that many of our fellow competitors were very interested in.

After this qualification success, I had to take a few customers out to try the new Zpey rods and lines. While I was doing this, the wind changed on the spey qualification arena. Everybody improved by several meters. Gordon Armstrong made a cast of 65 meters and lost one several meters longer because the judges could not see it, Ruairi Costello did 63, The Viking did 62, Andrew Toft did 62, James Chalmers did 60and a lucky sixth man did 60. Suddenly I was out of next days final and had to hope for good conditions during tomorrow’s qualification. Afterwards I heard from several spectators that the cast of the sixth man was 8-10 meters shorter than the judges had given him. They had tried to protest, but to no avail, but were very sorry for me. There was, of course, no reason to blame the poor caster and I have to stress that I personally didn’t see this and only have these spectators view of what really took place.

In the final of the Saltwater Competition we were all using the new Zpey Competition 18 meter and 28 gram line. The Viking started; casting with a little wind from behind, but the wind was varying all the time. He managed 39,5 meters and was not satisfied with his casting, but the line performed beautifully. The three next casters were all from the UK or Ireland, and both our good friend Ruairi Costello and another caster managed 40 meters; just half a meter longer than The Viking. Now there were only two casters left: The Designer and myself. As The Designer entered the podium the wind started to change direction; and not in favourable way. Casting over 40 meters into a headwind is almost impossible with a single hand rod and the poor Designer was also struggling a little bit with his shooting line. He still managed 36 meters. I was next and the wind was still blowing into my face. My best cast was 38 meters and even though the fly actually passed the 40 meter mark in the air, the wind blew the leader and the fly back several meters. Afterwards, the wind changed back to its original state and there was a castoff between Ruairi and the other caster that made 40 meters; a castoff that Ruairi won with only half a meter after having struggled mightily with his shooting line. A fabulous focus made his last cast travel that extra half meter that won him the £ 1000,- first price. Congratulations Ruairi!

In the evening, we casted for a few hours and things were really starting to fall into the right places for all of us. The Viking was casting beautifully in a not too strong tailwind, The Designer was really starting to increase his distances and I was doing the same. Afterwards, we barely managed to find something to eat before it was too late.

SUNDAY
Any hopes of a Sunday qualification were crushed when we woke up to a very strong wind from the right. Spey casting more than 60 meters in conditions like these is not possible, and neither me, nor The Designer bothered to even try. We were not going to be in the final and we had to make sure we did everything to help The Viking perform to the very best of his abilities. I spent most of the day working for the Donegal guys, convincing lots of people that Zpey had some fantastic rods, lines and reels. The Viking was practising and The Designer made sure that his equipment was in perfect condition. The wind was constantly blowing from the same direction, but the final was to take place on a different arena, in front of a lot of spectators on the Grandstand, and the wind would then be coming from behind. The Designer convinced The Viking to use a longer leader, 7,5 meters, because of the strong tail wind and this would prove to be a wise decision.

A couple of hours before the final started, Ian Gordon, the former competition caster and a good friend of mine, told me to grab my rod and accompany him down to the lake. He had something to show me. Ian had watched me casting and thought that my back cast could be much better with a few adjustments, especially in a strong tail wind, but also under normal conditions. I was not using my lower hand enough during my back cast. What I wanted to do was start with good contact between rod and line, move slightly backwards, gradually increase the speed of the rod tip and finish the back cast with a strong, but controlled snap with the lower hand to set the loop. I also had to travel lower with the rod tip during the same back cast. The last important thing in this wind was to travel forwards with my body before the line landed in the water, so that I didn’t loose too much contact before delivering the forward cast. This worked wonderfully and soon I was delivering very long casts in the difficult wind.

Later in the day I also tried casting from the platform that was used in the final and managed to cast much longer than I had ever been close to earlier. Here I also had some help from Scott McKenzie. Warm thanks to Ian and Scott and to Ruairi, James and Gordon from the Carron Team. I learn something new every time I meet you.

The final started at 16.00 hours and most of the finalists were struggling with the wind and the waves. The Viking was third man out and the best result so far was James Chalmers with 55 meters. The Viking kept his cool in an impressive way. He even looked calm. Even when a very good cast blew just outside the sector line, he came back with another long cast just after. With 61 meters he was leading when Andrew Toft started his four minutes. Andrew also struggled with the back cast in the wind, but managed 57 meters and was second so far. Ruairi Costello tried casting from both sides, but was still struggling and ended up with 54 meters. Only Gordon Armstrong was left to cast; the caster that had won this competition two years in a row and was strong favourite to win another one. Even he was struggling with the wind and as his four minutes were slowly ticking away, The Designer and I began to realise that this might be Norwegian day. It took some time for the judges to deliver their verdict and for the speaker to tell us. Suspense hang in the air until the speaker announced that we had a Norwegian winner of this years CLA Spey Casting Competition: Tommy Aarkvisla had won the unofficial world championships in Spey Casting, using a new competition line from Zpey System, designed by The Designer, Knut Ekelund. Norwegian cheers were heard all over the Grandstand, male hugging took place and during the price ceremony Tommy could lift his trophy and a gigantic cheque for a thousand pounds sterling high up in the air. Congratulations, Tommy!!!!

Finally, we would like to offer our warm thanks to Steve, Malcolm and Dirk from Donegal, Zpey’s Distributor in Ireland and the UK, for taking so good care of us. Norwegians let loose in foreign countries will always have problems, but with guys like you around every problem disappears.

Best regards
Mathias Lilleheim