During our  club meeting  held this past weekend we decided to change a few things regarding the way the SOTTO Championship will run this year. The discussions focused  around  key issues  such as liability, cost and revenue among others.

The newly approved  changes in the SOTTO Championship Rules are:

• In order to participate in any tournament from this Championship you have to be a member of the SOTTO Club
• Occasionally, we will  allow invited guests to  compete  pending upon the President’s approval and the Council’s recommendation.
• The  Sotto Spring Cup (Lyndon) Competition will be a team only event.
• The Thames River and Saugeen River events might be two days events, depending on the weather conditions. 

Ladies and gents,

We still have some snow on the ground but not for long. Just one more week until the last FT meeting when also we will decide how the 2018 Championship will unfold.

As you know, every year we bring something new to the Championship. This season we will have ONLINE real-time tournaments. Fish will be submitted and verified in real-time. You will also be able to see all the pictures that your adversaries submitted. Easy and smooth access from your smart phone.

Let us know what you think about that, use the comments box bellow or top right menu contact us.

Team SFFC

Here are the results from the first tournament of the

2018 SOTTO CHAMPIONSHIP

Congratulations to the winners! …and to all the participants!

We wish you a Happy New Year! And all the best for the year to come!

After a great 2017 we are looking forward to another busy 2018 season, with a different view and new challenges.

Although here in Ontario Canada we have -20C temperatures and no fly fishing whatsoever, eight of our Club members are having a great fishing tournament in Florida, USA

Great job guys!

Snook in the surf

Ladyfish

…more snookPeacock bass

more peacock bass

…and more peacock bass

unknown gold fish-tell me a wish 🙂 LOL

And even the mighty Hammerhead-shark

Awesome! At the end of the day it’s all about spending time on the water with like-minded people.

These are the events scheduled for 2018. More details will follow soon. Anyone interested can contact us here or on our Facebook page.

All these schedules are subject to change due to bad weather conditions, high water levels, or other natural disasters.

• Florida Challenge – Dec 25th 2017 – Jan 7th 2018
• Fly tying/Championship discussions – Jan 27th
• Fly tying/Championship discussions – Feb 24th
• Fly tying/Championship discussions – March 24th
• Sotto Spring Cup (lake) – April 7th
• Grand River Upper – May 26th
• Island Lake (location might change) – June 16th
• Grand River Lower – July 14th
• Thames River – August 18th
• Saugeen River Challenge – September 15th
• Sotto Fall Cup (lake) – October 13th
• Steelhead – Cup -November 10th

Individual standings 2017 Sotto Fly Fishing Championship

Team standings 2017 Sotto Fly Fishing Championship

The next two competitions we had were for Teams only. A team in SFFC is made up of two competitors. These team only events were from the boat on the lake & river.

Island lake was the venue used for the second year now in the lake boat comp. Target fish here was Northern pike.

The lake is mainly shallow with an average depth of 4-5 ft and has many pikes like this. So it is lot of fun to fish on the fly for them.

A delicious plate at the end of the event is always welcome 🙂

The Grand River Lower was the second team only event for 2017 but the first of it’s kind. Fishing from the boats on a 10 km river stretch from Paris, Ontario to Brantford.

 This event was a ton of fun and lots of fish were caught.

We should add that in order to be able to organize this event on this river stretch that has special fishing regulations in place, we worked together with County of Brant’s Facilities and Parks Operations Department. Great people there and really thoughtful about the natural resources of the river. 

Kayaks, canoes, pontoons and inflatable drift boats were used in this event. The small mouth bass are really strong on this river, fighting them on a fly rod is amazing.

The “Green Team” know what recycling means 😀 The Nu-Canoe was the most used watercraft…and for a good reason, they are really good.

The event was a blast and we will definitely continue more tournaments like this next year.

In fact everyone was so excited about this kind of fishing tournament that we opened the opportunity in the next event on Thames River. But about that and the Charity we developed there we will talk in the next article.

Stay tuned!

The second competition was the Grand River Comp on the upper section for brown trout. This section is very well known for the beautiful scenery and clear fast flowing waters.

Despite all these attributes,  this river has a major deficiency… all the brown trout are stocked. Almost nothing survives from one year to another so  all the fish you can catch  were freshly stocked that season. Nothing wrong with that when fishing for fun, but when a competition has to be organized on this river you face a big problem…these fish are not evenly spread on the river as the naturalized ones. They are used to hanging together and they don’t move from the spot they are put in. In the end you’ll have almost no fish on a 2-3km section,  then a pool with 200 browns in it followed by another 2-3km of almost no fish section and another 200 browns pool and so on.

With these conditions in mind , organizing a classic-type  competition by international rules with Sectors and Beats is out of the question. SOTTO FF Club tried over the years many approaches and different competition systems but none of them managed to provide us with results that accurately reflect the competitors’ actual fishing skills.  Unfortunately,  as things stand now,  it all comes down to who gets to the honey hole first and then follows an episode of Alaska’s grizzly bears waiting for the salmon (to jump)at the falls.

Nonetheless the event is still lots of fun, the scenery amazing and the river is mighty. We will not give up on it but continue to improve the system and try new approaches for the seasons to come.

It is great to fish and compete with friends.Lots of work to fish in the rapids.

Always fun to fish a #18 micro-nymph in such fast and deep water.

Fish on…

Jordan came up with a new computer program to calculate the results. Great job Jordan!

All the competitors are friends at the end, drinking beer and eating together.

Fun fact : at this competition the guys from Sotto Club managed to win 4 medals  😉

Congrats guys! Great job!

Also a special thanks to Dave Culver who took a swing at managing this event.

Hi guys,

After a brief break we are coming back with more highlights from the Ontario Fly Fishing Championship.

First we would like to give a shout out to all the participants in the Sotto FF Championship this year, we hope they enjoyed the events and had a good time.   Also a big “thank you” to all SFFC members that helped organize the 2017 events.

Before we finalize the results for this year we would like to go over a few new things that Sotto Fly Fishing Club included in this year’s Championship.

First comp for 2017 was at a new venue, never used in the Championship before, a totally amazing fishery…Franklin Club.

The size of this venue and fish density allowed us to accommodate 24 participants in a 3 sessions rotation system. 1 session fishing from the boat and 2 from the bank using two bodies of water.

24 competitors caught in that day over 700 fish…enough said.

All these elements together produced a good competition with a true leaderboard and Champion.

Next event is the Grand River, another beautiful venue for fly fishing.

to be continued…

This event will be the first of its kind in this fly fishing League: fishing from drifting boats on a 10km section of Grand River.

Since we planned this event we had some discussions with local authorities and fishermen and came up with a few rules modifications:

• Trout species will not be eligible for points
• Electric motors are allowed
• Single man crews/boat are allowed

Here is the list of registered competitors at this time:

• Dave Culver
• Gedas C.
• Linas S.
• Julio Rodriguez
• Robert Bauer
• Tyler Andrews
• Danny Milla
• Cosmin M.
• Hari Klein
• Alicia Raytrowsky
• T.J. Raytrowsky
• Jordan McIntyre

Hey guys! Just a few more days until another fun competitive event. Island Lake! This time we will chase pike only… unfortunately we are still a few weeks before the bass opener.

Please see more details about prizes, rules, registration HERE

With just a few weeks left before the Grand River Upper Competition we would like to remind you that the registration for this event will be closed in the week previous to the comp date.

Please make sure you register HERE

If you register and can’t find your name on the list that means the registration procedure was not finished. To finish the registration procedure please make sure you send the comp fee with an e-transfer to the specified email address.

COMPETITORS LIST

1. Dean Petrovic
2. Christopher Krysciak
3. Dave Culver
4. Rubin S.
5. Mark P.
6. Blair Wilson
7. Julio Rodriguez
8. Ryan Armstrong
9. Lucian Holdevici
10. Alicia Raytrowsky
11. TJ Raytrowsky
12. Jarrett Green
13. Douglas Robertson
14. Ellis Martin
15. Joe Moreira
16. Hari Klein
17. Cosmin M.
18. Gedas Cepinskas

All these schedules are subject to change due to bad weather conditions, high water levels, or other natural disasters. 

• Ontario Spring Open – April 8th 2017

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  Grand River – upper May 27th 2017

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  Esox Classic – June 17th 2017

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• Grand River – lower July 15th 2017 

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•  Thames River – August 19th 2017

• ---

  Sotto Cup – The Fall Challenge October 7th 2017

  ---

The first 2017 official meeting of the Sotto League members will happen in February 11th. The location is in Waterloo, Ontario. Address: Royal Canadian Legion 316 Marsland Dr, Waterloo, ON N2J 3Z1

Starting at 11 am the meeting will have fly tying sessions, discussions about the 2017 season, and more.

The meeting is open for everyone who is interested in fly fishing and/or competitive fishing. Please let us know if you want to join us in order to give you more details and make arrangements on the site. You can contact us here on the website, on Facebook or speak directly with Dave Culver or Cosmin M.

Looking forward to seeing you there

Team SFFC

Congrats to all the participants in the OPFFC 2016!
I think everyone is a winner just by making the effort to prepare and making it to the events. I hope your time spent on the water with us was rewarded not only by having a good time but by taking with you a good chunk of fly fishing experience, learning new techniques and tips that will help you catch more in the next seasons.

I’ve had the pleasure to witness this year how some of the guys evolved from fly fishing enthusiasts to very skilled competitors in Ontario FF Championship. A very good example in this direction is David Culver. First time participant in OPFFC 2015 with a great background in steelheadding, he worked hard investing his time and energy in preparing for his second season as a fly fishing competitor and now he is a Bronze Medalist of 2016 OPFFC individual and teams! Congratulations Dave for your well deserved placing!

Also I’ve seen Alicia and TJ making a very nice and smooth transition from the conventional bass competitions towards the fly fishing competition scene. In the same category fall Gedas Cepinskas and Linas Slyka who showed us how it’s done on Nipissing Lake winning the “Spin vs Fly” Tournament as a spinning team ending up the season by participating in the last Lyndon Bank Competition as a fly fishing team. And the examples can continue with Rubin Sautzer, Bing Gan, Lucio, Pat Moreira, Larry Culver and so on, all very passionate fly fishermen who joined the Championship this last year.

So kudos to you all! Because of your passion and efforts the Ontario Fly Fishing Championship will continue to exist and here at Sotto Club we will try to make it fun and interesting so we can all enjoy it together.

Cosmin M.
OPFFC Tournament Director

Happy New Year everyone!
Team SFFC wishes you all the best for 2017!
We hope you had a good season in 2016 and that you’ll have an even better one in 2017 🙂
Until the official final results are posted we would like to congratulate everyone who participated in the 2016 Ontario Fly Fishing Championship. It was a great season, we had a ton of bank competitions and also some new and cool comp models. We had a new approach to other Leagues in the Province of Ontario and we will continue to do so in 2017.
In 2016 we organized competitions on new venues like Island Lake and Nipissing Lake. We are planning to continue this in 2017 and tackle new venues in Quebec and Ontario. Also new for the Ontario Championship will be the loch style comps that we have never had here for the simple reason of not finding the right venues.
We are also putting together some teams to participate in US competitions and European ones.
The increase in the variety of fly fishing competitions did not however translate into an increasing number of competitors. If in 2015 the Championship welcomed 60 competitors, in 2016 we had just 29. What is more, registration decreased dramatically for some events compared to previous years, and this is why one of the best river competitions, l Grand River 2016, had to be cancelled. We just hope that this will change in the new 2017 season to come.
As always, we are looking forward to hearing your feedback and comments on this matter so we can explain, discuss and improve things in order to find the best approach for this beautiful sport here in Ontario, Canada.

Thank you,
Team SFFC

Due to unforeseen circumstances the LAKE FALL SPECIAL Competition date has been rescheduled from October 15th to Saturday October 22nd.
For those who already send the fee online please confirm by email if you are still coming and want the transaction to go trough.

For those who wants to register now please click here:

LAKE FALL SPECIAL
We appreciate your support and understanding.

COMPETITORS LIST

1. Alicia Moir Raytrowsky
2. T.J. Raytrowsky
3. David Forgeron
4. Ian Troup
5. Alexander James
6. Lucian Holdevici
7. Mike Thompson
8. Ghedas C.
9. Linas
10. Cosmin M.
11. Hari K.
12. Dave Culver
13. Larry C.
14. Ionut Cotinghi
15. Ciprian Rafan
16. Joe Moreira