Tracy&James | Thursday, 26 December 2019
So Christmas is over for the year, I hope you had a great time whether you were celebrating or not. I’ve eaten too much and drunk too much on occasion, so I feel I need to have a healthy few days. So between now and the New Year Tracy and I plan to go on some long walks, eat lightly and drink moderately.
The river has been high now for a couple of weeks, however it’s starting to come down to a fishable level, so hopefully we may get a grayling session in soon. Tracy got a wading stick for a belated birthday present so that’s going to keep her upright in the more difficult sections of the Dee.
I’ve been whiling the time away practising #5 distance with a soft rod. This has reminded me of when I first got involved in competition distance and the excitement I felt in beating my personal best, which happened quite often during the ‘learning’ stage. Hitting 120 again with this outfit felt like an achievement, especially as going back to a noodle highlighted some errors that are masked with a stiffer rod. I’ve also hit the odd 130 when the wind has been suitable – I’m still lacking the consistency for these to be making a regular appearance in my BFCC scores though.
I also had a very interesting session with the ST27 where I threw 3 very different lines – different lengths, tapers and weights. The results were remarkably consistent though, with the best with each line within one and a half feet of each other.
I’ve also been putting some time into my accuracy – I’m really hoping to see my scores improve next year. My training suggests that this will definitely be the case, however I’ve only been practising with the inner ring as a target – I think putting the two outer rings in place forms some sort of weird vortex that sucks the fly outwards away from the bulls-eye. In seriousness though I suspect there’s a sensible explanation for my lack of precision when the target is bigger.
Hopefully next week I’ll have a fishing trip to report on.
Enjoy the rest of the holiday, if you’re holidaying.
James.