Tracy&James | Sunday, 21 July 2024
The Scottish game fair left me a physical wreck upon it's completion. It was busy with casters as predicted in my FP a few weeks back – particularly on the Sunday when I don't think I sat down once after the first competitor arrived, with it being a constant stream of entrants for the daily and championship events thereafter. After three days camping, in very cold overnight conditions, plus being on my feet pretty much all day, every day, my back decided to resign from duties sometime on Sunday afternoon. This was coupled with an unfortunate incident with a donut which somehow caused a massive blood blister to form in my mouth, when popped this resulted in me spitting out blood for well over an hour, in fact I was still tasting it on the very long drive home (which was also agony given the state of my back). Once home, the pain from my back coupled with an intense 'faceache' from the raw blister site, meant I was doubling up on pain killers. So much so that once I started trying to reduce the dosage I suffered from headaches due to the withdrawal. Whilst I was sat in a codeine induced haze I didn't feel like going fishing or even doing any casting practice.
As well as predicting a good turn out for the casting competitions in Scotland, I also predicted that the percentage scoring system, as used to determine the championship winners, could throw up some interesting results if there were very different abilities in the three disciplines (trout distance, accuracy and salmon overhead distance) that made up the overall competition. This was demonstrated perfectly in the junior championship where Beck Lyon (remember that name for the future) absolutely dominated the two distance events, in fact he cast the second longest S55 distance of anyone for the whole weekend. However, this great performance couldn't make up the near 43% deficit he had to Jack, the eventual winner, in the all important accuracy event. As it was, the overall totals constituted the tightest finishing results I've seen to a multi-discipline casting event, with a winning margin of just 0.012%! Just one extra point on the accuracy or half a metre (the minimum resolution over water) on either of the distance events would have been enough to reverse the top two.
The senior championship was won by Robert Reid, a previous winner from a couple of years back. He won the S55 and accuracy events and recorded a 97% effort in the trout distance, thus giving him a very impressive 297% winning figure, with Kirk (Beck's father) in second place on 254%. Robert will be taking up his place in the Game Fair grand final which will be held at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire next weekend.
I shall be competing myself at Blenheim, along with a number of great casters, hoping to qualify for the final and defend my championship. That said, my back still hasn't fully recovered and the final will be on the Sunday after another 3 nights of camping (and drinking). So I'll just have to see if I hold up, however I do have a ready made excuse if I cast poorly.
At this point, I should offer a huge thank-you to the volunteers who helped at the event in Scotland, and endured the same conditions and workload as me. Some of these will also be helping out next weekend at Blenheim. Hopefully we'll have a good time regardless.
Tracy and I will be travelling to the Game Fair on Thursday in order to get set-up before it opens on the Friday. I'm going to make sure I programme the sat-nav of our car – not because we need directions but because the way it pronounces 'Oxford' is hilarious, that's sure to cheer us up in the last half hour of the drive.
If you attending the game fair please consider coming and having a cast in the competitions. We're considering offering a free beer with every entry as an incentive. If we do, it's undoubtably going to be the cheapest beer on site – so a win-win for everyone.
Have a great week, James.