Tracy&James | Thursday, 2 August 2018
Unfortunately the Game Fair casting competitions last weekend were severely affected by the weather, which was incredibly unlucky given the several weeks’ worth of glorious summer prior to the event (and the return to fine conditions after it). The Thursday afternoon set-up was actually in beautiful sunshine, perhaps a little on the warm side for some of the manual labour tasks that needed doing, but no one was complaining. However, once a bit of casting practice got underway in the evening it was obvious that the wind direction was going to become an issue with it blowing into the right-side of the casters arm and, ominously, with a forecast for it to get much stronger.
On Friday morning, with the competitions due to start, we made the decision to combine the two casting platforms we were allocated into a single longer one. We could then set the measuring rope in towards the bank thus giving the casters a chance at missing themselves (we couldn’t really expect entries into the daily competitions to cast off-the-shoulder or back-cast). This worked to some extent although there didn’t seem to be much enthusiasm amongst the public for having a go (greatly exacerbated by the very limited passing footfall for the area where the casting was located).
Things got worse on the Saturday as the wind speed got up to the point where the advertising boards (saying what competitions were being held) starting falling down and the frames of the supplied marques started to bend. At this time it was deemed that the (now lengthened) platform was too unstable to cast from, with the carpet at the end flapping uncontrollably and waves splashing over the top. As such, a casting lane was marked out on the grass, up a significant slope, and this was used for the remainder of the weekend.
There was never more than a trickle of entries into the daily competitions (at previous Game Fairs we’ve been run ragged trying to keep up with demand) and the championships were a non-starter with only a few BFCC members setting qualifying distances (no finals were held). The one competition that was keenly contested was the accuracy, however the huge cross wind made this almost impossible at times, on a number of occasions I watched as someone was aiming at least 10ft to the right of the target’s outer edge only to miss on the left by some margin.
With all that said, Tracy and I (and hopefully the other volunteers) had a great weekend. We caught some nice carp from the lake (attracted by the night time flood lights) on deer hair flies. TC somehow managed to push a backcast into the wind with a trout distance outfit and recorded his first ever competition #5 weight cast over 120 feet (37 metres). We ate well courtesy of JT’s excellent barbeque and we drank until we could no longer stand up (well some of us did!).
Hopefully next time the weather will be kinder though.
Have a great weekend,
James.
