Tracy&James | Thursday, 17 January 2019
Tracy and the committee of the BFCC are starting to put the calendar together for this year’s casting and competition days. The current plan is to have 7 full events plus a presence at a few shows e.g. the Game Fair. As normal we hope to be able to offer top class instruction as well as an enjoyable set of competition events. The rules for these remain unchanged from last year; perhaps with the exception that the ‘fly’ used for the accuracy event now must be an un-weighted piece of fluff. At the last event of 2018, a number of competitors used flies that were to the world championship specification, i.e. brightly coloured palmered flies with the hook bend cut off. These are great over water, producing a pattern of concentric ring waves where they touch down allowing for easy marking, however over grass they were a nightmare, bouncing significantly on contact with the ground and generally being hard to spot.
If you plan to attend more than one event you should consider entering the BFCC championship. Here the best two results that an individual records in each of the seven events cast (#5, #7, ST27, T38, S55g and T120 distance plus accuracy) are summed to give a total, and the lowest total for the year wins (the minimum achievable obviously being 14 points – first place in all seven events, twice over. This has never been done!). The more events someone enters the better the chance of lowering their score. The first time the championship was run to this format it went down to the last event of the last meeting to settle things (in Matt Tonkin’s favour), however last year I managed to win before the calendar was completed. Hopefully 2019 will see a return to the former level of competitiveness. It would be great to have a third name on the winner’s list in three years.
Whilst Tracy is busy with BFCC stuff, I’m going to make a start on my annual glut of saltwater fly tying. I’ve finally managed to acquire some hooks which I will be converting into a various mish-mash of Gotchas, Charlies, shrimps and Clousers. I don’t really follow exact patterns, I prefer to just tie up stuff that I think is ‘fishy’ – I believe bonefish aren’t particularly fussy so I generally look to have a selection that matches the various bottom colours we’ll be fishing over – sand, rock, mud, turtle grass, etc. I’ll tie plain and embellished (rubber legs etc.) flies depending on how I’m feeling at the time. I’ll also be tying half of the flies (the same mix of patterns) with weed guards, you don’t tend to see many commercially offered flies tied as such, but for our fishing they are vital – perhaps because we tend to seek out some ‘rougher’ locations as they often hold less pressurised fish than the perfect, but well fished, sand flat spots.
Have a great weekend,
James.
