wdnews@bepp.co.uk
One of the world's most prestigious angling events, the Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships, is to be staged in the West next year.
Fishermen from across the globe will be heading for Devon and Somerset for the start of the week-long event on June 2. Up to 20 teams will be taking part, fishing a number of river and lake venues, expected to include the Dart and several reservoirs on Dartmoor and Exmoor.
The river fishing will be on beats belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall, who are donating the fishing to competitors free of charge.
The event – which this year was held in Tasmania – is expected to be a significant earner for the West tourist trade. The host hotel will be the Passage House at Kingsteignton, Devon, but other businesses across the region are expected to benefit too.
Adam Fox-Edwards owner of the Arundell Arms at Lifton, which is on the edge of Dartmoor and is a recent holder of the UK fishing hotel of the year title, said bringing the event to the West Country was a significant coup for the region.
"It's a ringing endorsement for the great fishing we've got in the West Country and it will be good to welcome new visitors," he said.
He added that the event's organisers had the whole of the Commonwealth to chose from when selecting a region and it was heartening they had settled on the West Country, where fly fishing for wild brown trout, salmon and sea trout is some of the world's best.
A spokeswoman for the Westcountry Rivers Trust, the organisation responsible for promoting the region's waterways for the benefit of wildlife and fishing, said: "Our rivers and reservoirs provide a huge variety of top-class angling opportunities, set in a stunning natural landscape.
"A lot of hard work goes in to improving the ecological health and angling potential of these rivers and streams, by us and the many organisations we work alongside, so we're delighted that the county's been chosen to host the 2014 Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships. It'll be great to see the professionals take on the challenge of fishing these wild moorland rivers and showcase all that we've got to offer to our Commonwealth friends."
The public can test one of the competition rivers using tokens from Westcountry Rivers Trust's Angling Passport scheme, at www.westcountryangling. com/index.php?area=dartbeatlist.
Commonwealth Fly Fishing England, which will host the event and enter a team, paid tribute to the quality of the fishing that visiting anglers will encounter and the nature of the fish that can be caught.
"The river sections have never seen a stocked brown trout," a spokesman said. "These fish are of the same gene that were left when the ice retreated many thousands of years ago. They are not huge fish but there are plenty of them. As well as trout you may encounter Atlantic salmon and sea trout."
He said it was not yet certain whether salmon and sea trout would be included in the species to be fished as part of the competition. The contest will take place over two and a half days, using four lakes and one river, between June 2 and June 9 next year.
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