Tracy&James | Wednesday, 17 September 2025
James and I are just back from a lovely weekend casting and socialising in Jersey. We held a BFCC Casting day with the Jersey fly anglers on the Saturday. James and I had intended to have a casting session with some of the Jersey casters before the event, however our flight was delayed and sadly we missed it. We had three BFCC casting instructors joining us for the day however one of them nearly didn't make the weekend when he went to the airport and realised he didn't have ID as he was about to board the plane. Somehow he was able to blag his way on to a later flight the same day.
They say things happen in threes – the third incident happened when James and I flew back to the UK. We stood waiting at the baggage carousel for the large rod tube that contains the T120, T38 and T27 rods but it never arrived. We tried to find someone to help and after 20 minutes managed to find an airline rep, however he blatantly lied to our faces about firstly saying he was there when the baggage arrived (which he was not) and then that our luggage never left Jersey. We found out much later that it in fact had arrived in Liverpool airport with us. Our friends in Jersey went to the airport there and this is how we found out. After many calls that were unanswered to the airline, the airport and anywhere we could think of, we eventually spoke to a person who informed us that the rod tube had been found and would be couriered to us – we are still awaiting its arrival.
The casting day however went very well – we had a good attendance for instruction and for the competition events. The weather forecast wasn't as bad on the day and, other than a couple of heavy showers, we cast in mostly dry but windy conditions. It was lovely to see anglers who had attended previous BFCC events and also meet a few new fishers. The feedback from attendees was positive and everyone found it fun and learnt a lot.
The competition started as usual with accuracy, with a gusty wind to make things very difficult. The Jersey casters seemed to cope better with the conditions and topped the session. We had some problems when casting the heavy gear as the wind changed direction shortly after commencing, as such competitors ended up casting with winds perpendicular to the tapes making it nearly impossible to cast safely – so we moved the tapes and restarted. As we worked through the comp events, more people joined us and James gave lots of coaching on the various tackle we provide. At the end it was clear who was the overall winner for the day, as James won all the distance events. He also took the ST27 overall record from John Reynolds (who had held this for ten years) with a cast of 181ft 9 inches. Unfortunately he was only a mere 6 inches off taking the overall #5 record with a 139ft cast using the new Celestial line, however this does extend the S50 record that he holds.
Although I came third in the overall, personally I was a disappointed with my accuracy score, however I was very happy with my #7 distance as I finally broke my record taking it to over 131ft. I was also close to a couple of my other records and to casting over 120ft with the #5 though sadly I didn't manage to cast as well as I have in practice. Hopefully I can do this at the next event in Essex on the first Saturday of October. It should be a good comp as we have two members of the Jersey casting team attending as well as possibly some top casters from Spain. This final event of the year is again going to be a shoot-out for the trophy, hopefully that will add some spice to the competition.
Big thanks to the Jersey anglers for organising the day and the socialising around it, including the trout fishing trip on the Sunday morningfor James and the casting session on the Sunday where they had an opportunity to try out the Celestial fly line on different rods.
Whatever you are doing this week, enjoy and tight lines.
Cheers
Tracy