Tracy&James | Sunday, 13 February 2022
At the end of the BFCC competition casting year, I view the championship scorecard as a report on how well I’ve cast over the course of the season. The overall scoring is a relatively simple affair, you score the points equivalent to the position you finished in the individual casting disciplines, and your best two results are subsequently counted upon completion of all the events for that year. Thus, if you win every discipline at least twice you’ll achieve the lowest score possible (and you’ll obviously win – although no one has done this yet). As there are seven individual disciplines (#5, #7, ST27, S55, T38, T120 and accuracy) cast at every event, this lowest score is 14. The disciplines where I haven’t scored a ‘double 1’ are the ones I know are needing the most attention in terms of practice ahead of the next season. This winter I’ve been working on my shooting head casting. To be honest, this was the same as after the last full season (before casting was interrupted by the pandemic), so perhaps targeted practice doesn’t work for me – but I’ll continue with it regardless.
It’s been unusually windy here in North Wales for a few weeks now, certainly at the times when I’m getting out for a ‘proper’ casting session. (I often cast on the patch of grass immediately in front of my house, but I don’t really have room for full-out distance there, so just tend to concentrate on the more ‘delicate’ stuff). I’m not masochistic enough to cast a #5 outfit in such high wind conditions, so I’ve been concentrating on the T38, S55 and ST27 events. Actually, that’s a bit of a lie as I did have a go with the #5 last weekend – it was an absolute disaster and I managed to convince myself that the wind was blowing vertically downward from the clouds to my casting field – in my mind there was no other reason for my carry to be collapsing so readily.
In the wind I’ve been making steady progress with the T38 and I’m also seeing the benefit of this improvement in the ST27. For both I’ve changed my trajectory and I’m seeing some big, albeit wind assisted casts (I’ve hit my arbor knot a couple of times with my ST27 so need to add some more backing). What I’m also concentrating on are the similarities between the different BFCC disciplines, for example you perhaps wouldn’t think that the T38 would have read-across to the #5, or the ST27 to the double handed S55 but I believe there is, especially on the delivery stroke. Obviously there are also differences, for example the #5 and #7 trout distance outfits are the domain of the ‘170’ cast (bouncing bomb, stopless, or whatever you want to call it), whilst for all the other events I’m either using a hard stop or a pull-back stop on the backcast. But by practising the heavy outfits in the big winds I’m hoping that some of my improvements will stick for when it calms and the #5 can come out again.
Incidentally there is currently a thread discussing the ‘stopless’ cast on the board at the moment. From my perspective I never want to see the cast ‘bouncing’ on the delivery forward cast. I’ve found that dragging the belly of the line downwards in the hope it will morph upwards is not the most efficient method to achieve distance for me. I’d rather start the loop high and try and get the rod’s counterflexmostly in the direction of the cast, rather than following through – although I’m sure the latter can work well in the right hands.
Casting in the wind also gives me the opportunity to improve on my PBs. I know some think that this is pretty meaningless i.e. it’s more a measure of how good the casting conditions were rather than the casting itself, however I personally find it’s a motivating factor in getting me out practising. I also take great pleasure in watching a well formed loop travelling out to seemingly ridiculous distances – certainly distances that are well beyond my capabilities on a normal BFCC casting day. What’s really quite pleasing is that 6 of my PBs have come since I turned 50, suggesting I’m still getting better. In fact the only PB of mine that’s older is my T120 one – and that’s because I don’t practice it! My feeling is that the S55 is similar enough that I don’t need to – that said I’ve started casting the S55 further than the T120 in competition at times, so perhaps I’m wrong about that also. Actually, I find casting the S55 more aesthetically pleasing than the T120 – you can really get some sublime pointy-shaped loops with the floating line outfit, whereas the T120 feels a bit more ‘agricultural’, but then that might be because I’m doing it wrong.
Anyway, I hope you use whatever motivation is required to get out practicing. Whatever your level I’m sure you’ll see improvements if you give it time. Sure there will be up days when you see your loops sailing out on a helpful wind, as well as down days when your backcast collapses on the grass beside you. But overall the trajectory will be upwards. I hope to hit the ground running at the first BFCC competition of the year and hopefully I’ll be competing against some of you along the way.
Have a great week, James.