HOOKING A MEDAL
A Pittsburgh area youth excels at the world fly fishing tournament.
The fourth- ranked youth fly angler in the world is hanging up his waders after nearly setting the hook on a bronze medal at the Cortland World Youth Fly Fishing Championship, held this month in the Czech Republic.
Mike Komara, captain of the U. S. Youth Fly Fishing Team, returned to Allison Park this week after weeks of studying an Alpen stream on the Czech- Austria border and competing with some of the best young fly anglers in the world. Mr. Komara’s fourth- place finish helped the U. S. team bring home a silver medal.
In five years of competitive fly fishing, starting at age 14, Mr. Komara made it to three world championships. Now 19 and eligible for adultlevel competition, he’s retiring, he said, to study full time at Penn State.
“It was hard enough with me being in my first year of college,” he said. “If you can’t give 100%, there’s no reason to do it.”
The Czech tournament was held on a stream with some features that were completely foreign to him.
“Part of the creek was pretty narrow and it was easy to tell where the fish would be. Other sections, like the top part they call Devil’s Stone, were like nothing in [ Pennsylvania],” said Mr. Komara. “There’s no real creek bottom, just minibus- size boulders, and in some places the stream disappears entirely underground.”
Competitive fly fishing dates to the Cold War. when Western fly- fishing supplies were difficult to get behind the Iron Curtain. Most recreational fishing was banned, but fly- fishing competitions were permitted.
Innovative anglers developed “short lining” techniques using little or no heavy fly line. No additional weight could be added; lead had to be built into the flies. Now, floating strike indicators are banned and anglers use long monofilament leaders with colored material tied in to make the line more visible.
When Americans brought their graceful classic casting to European fly competitions, they were trounced. The U. S. teams soon learned to short- line.
The goal of competitive fly fishing is to catch as many fish totaling as many millimeters as possible on predetermined beats of water within a given period of time.
The Czech stream held wild brown trout, grayling and stocked trout. From the first day, Mr. Komara and Szymon Konieczny of Poland, last year’s winner, were fishing neck and neck.
“In the first session, there were three beats that we all wanted and I got one of them,” Mr. Komara said. “I did pretty well — 22 fish in that first beat and 10 fish in the second. He caught 36 fish.”
Later in the day on a familiar beat, Mr. Komara fished in the biggest pool, landing 18 fish. Mr. Konieczny and another angler tied at 19 fish.
In subsequent sessions, Mr. Komara advanced to third place, then fell back on stocked waters. With just one fish and 30 minutes to go, he attacked the stream and pulled out six more fish, placing fifth for the day.
On his final beat, Mr. Komara took the advice of traveling squad coach Josh Miller of Ross, who had watched other anglers hooking up using orange streamers.
“Cast, swing and twitch — that’s all I did the entire time,” said Mr. Komara. “I caught 21 fish and took [ first place] on that section.”
The friendly U. S.- Polish rivalry ended with Mr. Konieczny winning the gold.
“In the end, had I caught three more fish — or two big ones — I would have a bronze medal,” said Mr. Komara.
Ranked fourth in the world at the end of a fiveyear competitive fishing career, he said it’s time to focus on “college and other stuff in life.” He’s majoring in materials science and engineering, but noted with a laugh that State College is surrounded by some of the world’s best trout waters.