Tracy&James | Sunday, 8 January 2023
Happy New Year, and what a year 2023 is going to be for fly casting! I normally start reviewing the calendar for the BFCC during January and look at other casting events to deconflict. I’ve already identified several activities, the first of the year being an event run by our friends at the Fly Casting Lab Facebook page in late March which is closely followed by Lee’s UK Championships in Cumbria. Anyone who is keen to compete for the UK in the World Fly Casting Championship in Sweden in 2024 should come along and try out for one of the qualifying places as well as competing for the 6 individual world championship event titles and the overall trophy.
There are also three Game Fairs this year that the BFCC hope to be involved in: Scottish in early July, Ragley in late July and the Welsh one in September. We would aim to run the same casting competition activities at all three fairs, with the winners from the first two being invited to the latter one where the overall winner will be selected. All GFs are in stunning locations with the potential for fishing in the area so it would be worth coming along to compete and arranging fishing too.
We’ve also been invited, with Steve, to do a talk in July to a north-west fishing club and asked to arrange a BFCC activity on the World Fishing day on the 25th June to coincide with the other events being held in Italy and USA. Hopefully this will be at one of our usual venues, though I need to wait to confirm this once these venues have set their sporting fixtures so that they can provide available dates for us to select from. There’ll be at least six BFCC meetings to arrange across the country – in Cheshire, Kent, Derbyshire, Jersey and Essex, with hopefully one in the south-west somewhere too. Others may be arranged dependent on availability of those involved and interest from casters. Obviously along with the Tuition activities, the BFCC casting championship will be up for grabs. The standard of this competition continues to improve and we’re hoping for a close run affair this time. Anyone who attends at least two events will have their scores entered and I promise I will have a real trophy at the end (retrospectively engraved for the previous winners).
At some point during 2023, James and I hope to arrange a saltwater fishing holiday in the Caribbean again, though this is already proving a little difficult for Spring, so we may choose to go away in the Autumn/Winter again as we did last year. I’m also looking forward to our first trip to the river, though I need to improve my nymphing skills; last year I predominately dry fly fished as my confidence with nymphs is low.
Whatever you are doing this month, tight-lines,
Cheers
Tracy