Tracy&James | Thursday, 17 May 2018
The Sportfish show last weekend was a lot of fun, Tracy and I caught up with a number of our fishy friends. The BFCC instructors were busy pretty much all weekend with a mix of absolute beginners and improvers, as always the feedback was universally positive from those who had just finished a lesson. Unfortunately the rain that was forecast for late Saturday evening came in early and essentially called an premature ‘end of play’ to outside activities – although some of the demonstrators felt obliged to stick to their allotted timeslot even though there were only one or two people willing to stand and get soaked in order to watch them.
With no sign of the rain abating I decided I could make use of the empty casting area for a bit of distance practice. I was joined by Zhongxiang and Andrew Toft, both of whom will be competing at this August’s world championships in Cumbria. Although the weather wasn’t conducive to huge distances it was great to cast with these two and get their feedback on my loops. Tracy decided to wait till the Sunday to practice casting in lovely sunny conditions where she was able to cast with other females like Gilly and her friends.
The next BFCC competition day is in a couple of weeks’ time and I hope to make some improvements to my casting before then. I usually come back from a saltwater holiday with my haul in pretty good shape from dealing with the wind, however I also tend to be casting much more on the side when compared to my optimum distance cast. This will be my main focus for the coming week along with maximising my carry and perfecting my tracking. I’ll also be doing quite a bit of accuracy practice as I’d like to try and replicate my training scores in a competition at some point – perhaps getting Tracy to ‘sledge’ me would better represent a BFCC event.
We’ve got a busy summer lined up already with various BFCC Meetings (including one to Jersey), the Game Fair, the World Championships, various fly fishing shows etc. along with a potential house purchase. We just need to remember to plan some fishing in. Hopefully this summer will be better than last year’s sodden affair and we’ll make the most of the carp lake that is close to where we live (perhaps for the last time given the move). We didn’t fish this at all last year and the break has made me keen to re-visit for some epic battles, plus Tracy and I are the only ones who fly fish there so hopefully the carp will have forgotten and be more than willing to slurp down our deer hair offerings.
Have a great weekend, James.
