Yesterday morning, the 16 finalists competed in the flyfishing event at Dogwood Canyon. Each guy got his own beat on the stream (which was assigned based on his score in a casting accuracy competition the night before), and fished it for 90 minutes. So for three hours, I got watch competitor after competitor catch big honking trout after big honking trout. Which, don't get me wrong was a lot of fun, but the trout junkie in me was absolutely jonesing for a fly rod. I'm telling you, these trout were big and the fishing was hot!
How hot? Consider this: Yesterday was the first time ever at the TOC where every competitor caught and scored his limit of three fish. In most cases, the guys caught a lot more than three fish and had to release smaller fish unscored, hoping that they'd catch one last big 'bow before their time expired. That's what Matt "the Vermonster" Stadina did, and the gamble really paid off.
With two 20-inch trout already scored, Matt caught a 19-plus-incher but decided not to score it because he wanted to catch another 20-incher. That would put his total score over 60 inches, which was the score everyone thought would be enough to win. Sure enough Matt eventually caught his third 20-inch trout, and finished first with 62 inches.
Peter "the Principal" Mosby finished second in flyfishing with 60.75 inches--a score that was good enough to push him ahead of Scot Marcin as the leader of the overall standings.
A few of the competitors had their trouble with the fly rod, but they all still managed to get that last fish at the zero hour. 
I'll leave you with some photos from the event for now, but you'll be hearing back from me later today. --Colin Kearns
I was a competitor at this years 2008 TOC ... just got home last night. It was a great event and Colin's description of the Trout fishing is as close as you can get with words on paper (or blog in this case). You would have to have been there or been able to fish there to fully understand the atmosphere at Dogwood Canyon. The trout fishing was "Crazy" good. For a non-fly fisherman from Texas to catch 3 trout that average over 19" is one GREAT day of fishing.
Thanks to Field and Stream, Blue 3 and all the sponsors for making the last 4 days a memorable experience. To all the competitors it was great to see everyone again and it was realy great to meet some new faces and I hope to make it back to see you again next year.
Brian Cramer
Posted by: CBC | September 15, 2008 at 11:09 AM