During May some of casters of Jihlava Casting team were only talking about they want to already have 16th of June when carnivorous fish are allowed to fish in Czechia. Probably Zuzana was talking about it the most, she were buying a lot of material like special knives or sandpaper or another sandpaper of various kinds of sandpaper and special hand machine for ochroma wood processing. Of course she bought a lot of special colors, a compressor for color spraying etc. Wood given by her father. Her room looked like a little chemical laboratory that time. Luckily the room could be ventilated so no hallucinations during her work... Sometimes we saw a dragon flying through our kitchen, but otherwise nothing special...
Even Vojta tried similar experiments like Zuzana but he used tilia tree wood. Harder for processing, better for withstanding impacts. It was interesting hearing discussions between Vojta and Zuzana and sharing their experience with making own wobblers.
Other guys bought everything necessary in fishing shops. The only one not buying anything was Karel. He was making his fly-like flies for fly fishing. He is not interested in carnivorous fishing so much like others.
Only Vojta really started the season on 16th June. Caught a chub. Two days later he caught two pikes. And with it he started the competition.
Trainer Karel announced a challenge "Jihlava's Carnivorous Fish Catching". Challenge started on 20th June and was valid till end of August 2022. Category were two - amount of fish and biggest fish. Only fish with photo was valid for proving that the fish was really catched. Or confirmation of second person that the fish was catched. Biggest fish had to be on picture with measurement.
At the beginning competition was stuck, only Vojta was fishing, catching a chub that day of start. Amount of fish was growing during July.
Petr and Vojta went fishing together. At one moment Petr caught Vojta but control commission decided Vojta has not enough fins and so he could not be counted. And so Petr had to fishing in water. And there Petr caught two chub and was leading the ranking.
On Monday Karel went to Herbertov with Zuzana but he did not expect the dam would need to produce electricity as much as possible so constant water flow would be about 22 - 23 cubic meters. Anyway Karel was able to catch one rainbow trout with his dry fly. A moment later Zuzana caught a chub.
Next day Petr found one beautiful place on Jihlava 13 and caught there 4 more chub. So Petr did lead the ranking. In 27th week of year ranking was following:
- Petr 6 points
- Zuzka 1 point
- Vojta 1 point
- Karel 1 point
On Monday of next week Honza caught a Perch. The same day he got also two chub. Some casters could not compete as there were in places they could not fish (like Karel in Budapest) and so Honza used the advantage and added two river trout and six perch. During that fight we damaged his famous wobbler "Kamil" and to se had to look up for another similar kind of wobler.
During the same week Zuzka and Petr went visit Petr's popular place and Zuzka caught another 6 chub and 1 Petr. Petr was finally not counted (to low amount of fins).
Next week the competition had to be frozen, there was and youth training camp in Štoky and all four boys participated. No time for fishing. 29th week ended with leading of Honza.
A will of winning took Zuzana back to water next Monday and she got a nice chub of 35 centimeters long.
On Tuesday Zuzana went with Vojta and Peter to Plovárna. Karel caught that moment and went to close stream for fly fishing. Not too much water so no reason for nymphing, although we caught one small common rudd. Then Karel used dry flies and he caught small chub. Small fish around 10-15 centimeters were hard to handle with fishing rod #3 but anyway Karel got 4 chub. Unfortunately he had only 3 photos of them so only 3 counted.
Vojta caught 2 chub and then he used a wobbler of Zuzana hand-made laboratory, given for his 100 points from spinning skish. And he was able to catch a perch with it.
End of the day was finished by Zuzana, catching a pike of 60 centimeters. That motivated Karel to created additional bonus table. For a pike 60+ Zuzana got additional 5 points.
After Tuesday fishing the ranking was:
- Zuzka 14 points
- Honza 11 points
- Petr 7 points
- Vojta 4 points
- Karel 4 points
Table of biggest fish was lead by Zuzana with pike of 60 centimeters and then Karel with rainbow trout of 39 centimeters.
Honza had a disadvantage as he was going to fish alone but that does not mean he would catch nothing. In river of district Jihlava 13 he caught a pike of 32 centimeters. Zuzka went with Petr and Vojta. She gained 8 chub and 1 perch.
Vojta added another 8 chub and complained that Karel did not accept common roach as carnivorous fish caught on sirupcik jig while fishing on fly with spinning rod.
Petr caught nothing.
Next day Honza visited Jihlava 14 district and got 2 perch.
Karel took Zuzana to Luka nad Jihlavou town and under branch he caught chub of 28 centimeters. That was all. Zuzana got noting.
After Thursday Zuzana was still leading by 9 points above Honza.
For a weekend Honza came to Šumava Mountains and tried to fish on Otava river. And yes, he caught 2 rainbow trout and also brook trout. Two trout were 40 centimeters long. Then he caught one river trout. After moving to different water he got 1 perch too. Thanks to the 2 trout 40+ Honza got additional points.
Zuzka tried to fight when visiting Brtnice 1A district. Got 1 thin pike, 1 thinner zander and then 1 zander around 45 centimeters. No additional points.
After Saturday ranking was very unsure. Because Karel did not want to update fishing table.
And on Sunday Adam and his Father joined the competition. The went to Svratka river. And Adam fought hard. Well, he lost a lot of fish as he had rod #4 and he could not feel them good. Fortunately we switch the rod with father and got rod #3. Much better fishing. One river trout, second trout, third trout. Well - as his father said - he was fishing since morning and left river when he lost a fly.
But it was really good fly. With it, Adam caught 12 river trout and one amazing grayling 35+. Karel saw the picture of the fly and as the best fly tier of Jihlava casting team he described the fly perfectly - "something furry with gold head"...
Results till 30th week had to be updated. Chub could be caught more frequently than pike or zander. Something like grayling or brook trout. So those fish were granted with more points.
After July Zuzka was on 1st place. One point below her was Honza. Then Adam. He was begging his father to visit Svratka river again... probably he will like fly fishing. And we are helping him... although none of us understands how it should look like.
Fight for winning will be interesting.