2025 World Fly Fishing Championships Review: Session 4 on the Devil's Stones
Session 4 brought my turn to fish the stretch of the Vltava River known as the Devil’s Stones. This is a stretch of river in between Lipno I and Lipno II reservoirs. It got its name from the car size boulders that litter the canyon it flows through. When the tannin-stained water is factored in, it can be a treacherous place to wade. You never know whether your next step will stop in knee deep water, or if you’ll find a hole that you sink into over your waders.
Going into session 4, some obvious patterns had emerged. The top ten beats and the bottom 3 to 5 beats were the best beats to draw. The upper beats were closest to the cooler water of the dam, and they encompassed the “trophy” stretch of the river where some large rainbows were previously stocked. In a twist, the rainbows that were stocked into Lipno II for the lake session were also migrating up through the lowest beats which subsidized the catches there. If you drew somewhere between beat 11 and around 25 or 26, you were in for a potentially tough time. When our sector judge read our assigned beats as we left the hotel, I knew I had an uphill battle ahead of me. I had drawn beat 22.
The Devil’s Stones was another good illustration of the poor state of the brown trout population in the Vltava River currently. I drew one of these same interior beats when we fished the Devil’s Stones in the 2014 World Fly Fishing Championship. In session 3 of that championship, I finished in 2nd place with 35 fish in the session. It took a similar amount of fish to score high throughout that championship and nearly all of the fish that scored in my session were wild brown trout.
Flashing forward back to the current championship, I looked at the beat production page on flycomps.com before my session. My assigned beat (22) had produced 9, 7, and 6 fish in the sessions before I fished there. These catches resulted in a 26th, 26th, and 28th place finishes in the first 3 sessions. The session following me produced 3 fish and a 30th place finish. When I looked through the beat production page after the championship, there were only two beats that had worse cumulative finishes than mine. One of those beats my teammate Cody Burgdorff was unlucky enough to draw.
When I arrived at my beat and started scouting, there was not an obvious reason why my beat had been poor. There was plenty of classic pocketwater that had a lot of places for trout to hold in a beat that was around 150 m long. There were three areas where the gradient eased a bit and the current slowed and deepened. In between these three areas there was a jumble of boulders with nooks and crannies that could shelter brown trout.
A look at the mix of flatter water and pockets near the top of my beat.
Given the type of water, I set up three Euro nymph rods for the session. One rod was dedicated to a single nymph rig for smaller and more turbulent pockets. Another rod could be swapped between a dry and nymph or two nymphs. The last rod I rigged with a jig streamer. I didn’t expect to use the jig streamer rod much, but I stashed it at the lowest “pool” in case I was struggling to catch fish on the nymph rigs.
My basic plan was to start about 20 meters up from the bottom of my beat where the first deeper pockets and “pool” were. I would spend 20-30 minutes dissecting the three main deeper areas of my beat and then rapid fire fish as many of the secondary pockets as I could.
I started in a couple of pockets under some trees. I hooked several fish in these pockets on a peacock-colored Blowtorch. However, both of these fish were 18-19 cm long and short of the minimum scorable length which is 20 cm. Catching undersized trout became the theme of much of the rest of my session.
I worked my way into the first “pool” in my beat. It had a fast tongue of current down the river right side and a slower edge and eddy on the river left side. I started with the dry and nymph but had no interest. Apparently, the fish were not suspended and willing to eat mid column. I switched to the single nymph rod with a 2.8 mm bead Blowtorch. My drifts were sailing through the current more quickly than I wanted. I then switched to a 3.3 mm bead pink chenille worm pattern. A few drifts in I had my first fish in the net. I made the slow crossing below the rocky pool to my controller and had my first fish on the board.
The best pool near the bottom of my beat. This spot produced two fish both times I fished it.
I decided to fish the eddy side of the pool from near where my controller was. This was a tricky spot where I had to kneel on the bank and keep my back casts from hooking trees. I worked a few more drifts and then hooked my second fish. I spent another 5 minutes in this spot but knew I needed to move on.
Kneeling to fish the slow side of the pool.
I switched back to the Blowtorch and started working the secondary pockets on my way upstream. I caught fish in about every 3rd pocket, but they continued being short. I brought back two fish that I knew would be close. They were both a couple of millimeters short of the scorable 20 cm length. I switched back to a worm pattern to see if I could get a reaction from larger fish. Eventually I picked up another scorable fish, along with several more shorts, and had my third fish on the board.
I continued following the basic plan I had set out before the session. I fished quickly through secondary pockets. I only slowed down to probe pockets that were under trees or had an undercut along the back or sides of boulders. In the slower pockets I would drift the dry and nymph rig and then follow up with the single nymph rig and feed my fly under the rocks.
I had a few fish take the dry fly. In one pocket well under some trees, a brown trout took my dry in a toilet bowl like flush as soon as it landed on the water. I landed it quickly and put my 4th fish on the board.
Eventually I reached the second flatter portion of my beat. I slowed down and drilled into this area a little more thoroughly. I didn’t catch anything but smaller fish in the pockets near the center of the river.
As I was nearing the top of this area, I noticed two large boulders on the river left side. The current was stacking up a mat of foam against some sticks pinned along the upstream side of the boulders. I made a couple of casts in the area working progressively closer since I knew there was a risk of snagging my fly. Eventually I cast into the foam and started jigging my fly back out of it. I had a hard take and set the hook into a larger brown trout than what I had been catching. I carefully fought it as it tried to dart under boulders. When it slid into the net, I could see that it was an old dark fish that had been living under cover for a while.
Look carefully on the left side of the photo. You'll see the foam mat pushed up against the boulders downstream of the tree branches. This was where I caught my largest fish of the session.
I continued working my way to the top of the beat. I kept catching small fish, landed one more scorable fish, and I missed a couple of quick takes under boulders that may have been from scorable sized fish. I reached the last flatter area near the top of my beat with about 50 minutes left in the session. I slowed down again. After all the fishless and small fish pockets I had just come through, I was surprised when I landed two measurable fish on back to back casts.
Bringing a fish to my controller Jan.
I spent another 15 minutes working the area with various drifts, flies, and both rigs. Only a couple more small fish took my flies. There was now ~20 minutes left in the session, and I ran back downstream to the first location where I had caught fish.
I started with the dry and nymph rig again but focused on bouncing the dry to imitate an egg laying caddis. A few casts in I hooked a trout on the nymph that was bouncing under the water. I landed the fish and tweaked my back when I slipped while hopping over a rock to bring it back to the controller.
I had 9 fish on the board at this point and 10 minutes left in the session. I crossed back to where I had been when I caught the previous fish. I tried the dry and nymph rig again and then the single nymph rig with the worm. I then clipped off the dry fly and swapped to two nymphs with a Blowtorch on the point and a Falangista perdigon on the dropper. Eventually I had one more take on the Blowtorch after I had inverted the drift and the flies were just about to swing up and out.
I worked the pool for a couple more minutes to no avail. I rapid fire fished a couple more pockets in the last few minutes and landed one more fish that was too small to measure. I had been keeping a rough count, and I landed 22 fish, give or take a couple, that were too small to count.
Overall, I think I fished this session pretty well. I missed a few fish that might have measured but I didn’t lose any that I had on the line. I also stuck to my pacing plan and covered as many of the potential fish holding pockets as I felt I could within the three-hour session. The 10 fish I had scored resulted in a 13th place in the session. Obviously, I would much prefer to be getting top 5 placings every session, but I had scored above what this beat had been producing previously and had minimized my mistakes. I had the disappointment of an average score, but it was tempered by the expectation that it could have been much worse.
Thankfully the team had a better 4th session as well. Jack Arnot finished 13th in the boat on Lipno II, Michael Bradley won his session on the flooded Otava River, Mike Komara finished 7th on the Rozmberk section of the Vltava, and Cody Burgdorff finished 15th on the Vyssi Brod section of the Vltava. After session 4 we climbed back up to the bronze medal position. France and Poland had built a solid lead, but the home team of the Czech Republic was hot on our heels in 4th place. We would need an excellent last session to stay in the medal positions.
