“I finished third in the entire league last year, and I finished second in the river championship in 2016, but I managed to take team gold and individual gold this year,” said George.

“It was a pretty big deal for me because there were a lot of good competitors there. My partner, John Nishi—he’s been on Team Canada for 10 years now, and he’s actually won Canadian Nationals and almost won a medal in the world championships. I managed to beat him by about seven fish this year, so it was pretty cool. He took home silver. She was fun.”

“Not much went through my head, I just thought it was pretty cool.”

George reeled in about 31 fish at the competition to earn himself the individual gold medal, with the most impressive fish that he caught being a 19-inch brown trout.

“It was actually pretty slow this year actually. We had a competition there last year , and I caught 37 (fish),” he said.

He said it was concentration and his self-reliance with tying flies that helped him earn the big win. “It all came down to just focusing, and tying my own patterns and my own flies that I learned how to tie at the Cochrane Fly Tying Club, and just fishing with different people.”

George said he entered the competitive fly fishing scene to improve at the sport and builder stronger relationships with his fellow fishermen.

“I just wanted to hone in my skills, and I got a bit of a competitive side to me too. There’s camaraderie too between all the competitors. We all know each other and we learn a lot off each other.”