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Held on Oct 26, 2014 at Rose River Farm in Syria, Va, on the Rose River in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley area. PPTU is a sponsor of the event and sent this year as Team PPTU Lou Reichel and Bob O'Donnell, winners of PPTU One Fly Contest for 2013 and 2014.
Sunday was a beautiful day, the Fall morning was slightly chilly and the afternoon was warm and sunny between 60-65 F. The fall foliage was at full color. The river was just stocked the day before. Also at the event from PPTU were seen Jack and Sylvia Benoit, Mike and Judy Abramowitz, Jim Greene, Carl Smolka, and Pati Nicholson. Pati was also working for the CFR event. There were 11 Teams in the contest.
Of the 4-flies, Bob used a peach/yellow/pinkish sucker spawn, and a Brahma bugger with pink head. Lou used a Frenchie with sparkle hot pink collar and pink San Juan worm. Both used 4 wt, 9 ft rods and 7-10 ft leader with 5x tippet.
The morning session, Team PPTU fished Beat 3. A very nice stretch of river with pools, riffles, a long stretch of deep water following an underwater ridge. The water was clear and could see many good size rainbow trout. Also Bob fought with the team in Beat #2 over who own the upper pool. Team PPTU won the pool. Bob used his Sucker Spawn and Lou used mainly the Frenchie. Both using tight line fishing. Lou found that most trout were mid current and used small, light split shot. A total of 19 trout were bought to net and counted. Probably about 10-12 were lost. Of a total of 3 measured trout for the contest, two were official measured at 15 inches. All caught by Bob. A 16 inch trout was caught by Bob but decided to wait until the afternoon fishing hoping to get a larger size trout.
Bob lost his second fly, Brahma bugger, which fell off his fly patch!! Oh No!! Minus a few points! Lou wisely kept his two flies safe in an official PPTU fly box in his fly vest zipper pocket.
Results of morning score, PPTU had 68 points, in 5th place, and the top team had 110! What more can we do?
Afternoon session, Team PPTU fished Beat 9. It turned out that Jack Benoit fished Beat 9 in the morning and moved to our earlier Beat 3 in afternoon. We found out that Jack in Beat 9 earlier caught around 16 trout but measured a large 18 inch trout. We thought for sure Team PPTU would do great in this new Beat. In Beat 9 the stretch of river was shorter with lower water. Many large trout could be seen. The upper section was low but flowing and the lower end had a slow deepish pool. After many LDR of large size trout, Lou's inability to bring the fish to net looked like a horse reaching for a carrot tied in front of its nose. Bob's only sucker spawn was unraveling, coming apart looking like wet strings of yarn on a hook. Lou did go to 4x tippet but still lost his Frenchie, broken off by a hard fighting trout. Lou's remaining second fly, San Juan worm, bit in half, only staying together with one thread. Lou (he says) caught the wining size trout between 20-24 inches but lost it, while Bob was yelling to Lou that he would net it. Needing a third trout to measure, Bob caught one in the last remaining minutes that only measured 14 inches. About 10 seconds later Bob caught a 16 incher but it did not count as a measured trout. Seconds later the horn sounded and it was over. Finishing the afternoon session with total of 5-7 trout to net, but lost 25-30. Our Stream Judge, in shock, sympathy, but laughing, could not believe what he just witnessed from Team PPTU this afternoon. In the afternoon session, Team PPTU came in 11th. : (
Team PPTU ended with 24-27 trout, 2 trout at 15 inches and 1 trout at 14 inches and total of 102 points, overall in 5th place. Jack Benoit got the largest trout, sharing with another Team, at 18 inches. Last year winners came in 3rd. The winning Team had total 163 points. Was unable to find out what flies were used by the winning Team.
Next year using steelhead rod with 3x tippet.
Beautiful day, good fishing, much fun for a good cause, Casting for Recovery and Breast Cancer Awareness.
Lou Reichel
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