We are sitting in the car, perched by the side of Little Pine Lagoon while the wind blows an 83 km/h gale around us. I'm interviewing her in a vehicle because the noise from the wind is too powerful outside for my recorder to be of any use - it just picks up unpleasant kkkkhhhhh sounds instead of voices - and also, I'm a little afraid I might blow over if I stand in the elements for too long.

The water on the lake is brown and choppy. The wind is whisking it into a frenzy, and added to that difficulty, it is about five degrees and intermittently raining. There are patches of snow on the ground, adding to the decidedly wintry feel at the lagoon despite the date: December 4. Nevertheless, a series of men wrapped in waterproof jackets - their faces only visible in little circles underneath their sunglasses, caps, beanies, and shiny rain hoods - are climbing into dinghies.

On the first day of the competition a couple of these men nearly succumbed to hypothermia, Ms Youd says. But they are still diligently sitting in the boats, shivering - and away they go.

The dinghies zoom off and disperse across the lake, fishing rods are produced, and the fourth day of the World Fly Fishing Championships is under way.

Neither Ms Youd or I are fishers, and I have to say, I don't fully understand the impulse to travel halfway across the world, head out in the freezing cold on a lake, and remain stationary for hours in the pursuit of an elusive trout. But I can't help but admire the determination of the competitors, persevering in this weather.

Ms Youd is a volunteer from the Miena Community Centre.

The centre is catering the Central Highlands sections of the World Fly Fishing Championships, and she said they have been preparing for 12 months.

"We've been thinking about it all the time, trying to get everything we might need ... it's like okay, how are we going to do this, what will they require?" she said. "This bit is the easy bit."

The volunteers at the Miena Community Centre have been getting up at 6am every morning and preparing lunches and snacks for the three sites in the Central Highlands: Little Pine Lagoon, Penstock Lagoon, and Woods Lake.

The other two sites are river venues, spots along the Meander and the Mersey. Fishers at those sites are being fed by a team of volunteers from the Deloraine Pony Club, Deloraine Junior Basketball, the Meander Hall committee and the Meander Shop.

The championship works like this: each of the 23 countries competing has a team of at least five, with the team members rotating through the five venues over the course of the competition.

For the duration of the competition, the Miena Community Centre has been supplying dozens of people at each site with different kinds of hot soup, biscuits, sandwiches, tea and coffee. Those staying at Miena, as well as the volunteers travelling to the lakes to man the cozy, temporary kitchens and staging areas, have returned each day to curried scallops and other steaming hot meals.

The community centre volunteers had to become catering experts fast this year for a grim reason: the January fires in the Central Highlands, which threatened the town of Miena and burned for much of the summer.

Ms Youd said she still isn't over the terrifying experience of living in a town besieged by fire. But one unexpected consequence was that now the residents of Miena are old hands at catering for a sudden influx of people.

So when the World Fly Fishing Championships came to town, they kicked into gear.

"That was 55 days we had [over a hundred emergency services workers] there," Ms Youd said.

"The hall has expanded now, we've got so much stuff - because we had to have it. Like, we had one kettle, and now we've got six. Because we couldn't operate with all these extra things. We needed a coffee urn; extra buckets and tubs for dishes, all that type of stuff.

"Cripps Bakery and Beta Milk are both sponsoring [the fly fishing] - they became contacts during the fires. And they've been great."

Australia was in the lead for both the team and individual sections of the World Fly Fishing Championships mid-way through, but lost out on both counts when the competition closed.

In the individual competition, England's Howard Croston won first place with 32,980 points, 41 fish, and a longest fish of 502.

The team competition went to France, with 109,420 points and 144 fish.

But we still have cause to be proud.

Stephen Varga, from Malta, said the Tasmanian hosting had been the finest of the 10 World Fly Fishing Championships he had attended.

"It's just been so well-organised, and the Central Highlands community has been looking after us so well," he said.

"Everyone's been saying it's been great."

The feeling was mutual.

"I've loved this, I've loved watching this, and listening to the chit-chat from all the different countries," Ms Youd said.

"I can't hook a worm, but what exposure. They're going to take all sort of memories home from this, and we're going to be remembered in places like Christmas Island and Mongolia."

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