Tracy&James | Thursday, 10 August 2017
Qualification for the UK team for the world fly casting championships in 2018 is now officially underway. Tracy and I attended the first qualification event in Cumbria this weekend along with fellow BFCC members Matt and Steve. A number of other casters had also made the trip to the North West, along with some of the judges plus an inspection team from Norway representing the ICSF.
The qualification format is straight forward; Lee has arranged 20 plus dates where casters can turn up, practice and then, when they’re ready, be measured under world championship conditions (including tackle scrutineering). After all the events have been completed (around March next year) the people with the top 8 casts in each discipline will be offered a place in the UK team.
My first attempts were a bit of a mixed bag, I was reasonably happy with my Salmon overhead, not so happy with my ST27 and a bit disappointed with my #5 trout distance. Funnily enough I’d consider the Salmon overhead my weakest event, I don’t do any fishing at all with a double handed rod, so I only ever gained experience in casting them at shows until this year when the BFCC added it to its list of disciplines. Perhaps a little psychology comes into effect also – I’m not expecting to do particularly well so I’m more relaxed about my casting, and we all know a relaxed cast goes further. As it stands I’m in second position (after Lee) with 60m, time will tell whether this distance is sufficient to hold on to a top 8 slot (I suspect my other two distances will be easily beaten).
Unfortunately Tracy wore herself out casting the 55g event to the point where her right arm felt dead. As such she didn’t set numbers for all the events she wanted to, so we’ll definitely be going back so she can have a go when she’s fitter. Coming off the back of hitting over 45m at the Game Fair I think she could go quite well in this discipline – especially if she decides to use her left arm at some point 
.
This is the first weekend for a month that we will have at home, some domestic jobs need doing however I’m sure we’ll be fitting some fishing in – I don’t know where at the moment though. I do know that we’ve booked for a month in the Bahamas early next year, so we’re both looking forward to that.
Have a great weekend, James
