Tracy&James | Sunday, 23 July 2023
I'm writing this as we are traveling back from a very wet BFCC meeting. The turnout wasn't great, but a hard core BFCC members turned up and although most of us got drenched, we had a pretty good day. The venue was easy to find and was very close to the river Avon. We started with the distance casting events with the aim to get through before the heavy rain started, but sadly it started much earlier than expected and didn't stop. There were only a few of us who entered the comps and we decided to not bother setting up or running the accuracy event.
Howard has clearly been practising and won the S55g event, messing up James' potential clean sweep of wins. The conditions were variable with head winds and side winds during each persons comp sessions and I also almost beat James the S55g event. I had several problems either releasing the backing lines or feeding line out during my comp sessions due to the line and my hands being so wet. I think the thing I'm going to take from today is to go and practice in inclement weather, not just when the going is good.
Mark, Mike and Vince were able to provide 1-2-1 tuition all day due to the low turnout which meant not only did those for instruction get lots of fantastic advice, a few were able to try for distance badges. Though as it was poor conditions, only one succeeded in achieving a 35yd badge. Mark and Vince finished the day with a group session and the new members were seen to be casting amazingly well in just one day's event. Several of the attendees will be joining James and myself at next weekend's Ragley Game Fair, so we had lots to discuss and plan about the competition events we will be running, plus the social interactions and casting activities after each day finishes.
At the GF, we will be running the second leg of the Overall Championship where people have to cast trout accuracy, trout distance and salmon overhead distance to compete to win a trophy and some amazing prizes offered by Garry Evans. The junior entrants have the opportunity to win the best prize - a Vision rod, reel and line outfit, so anyone under the age of 18 should come along and compete as it's a fantastic prize on offer. The junior runners up and male and female winners and their runners up also win fishing tackle prizes such as reels and lines. All winners and the first runners up also will be offered the opportunity to go to the Grand Final of the Overall Championship at the Welsh GF on September 10th. They will compete against the Scottish and Welsh GF winners and runners up; so as James and I won the Scottish GF, we are already going to that GF...
Once we arrive home, besides preparing for the GF, we'll be drying out all our waterproofs, though James' waterproofs weren't very 'waterproof'! All the rods will need to come out of the tubes and bags as otherwise the cork handles may go mouldy. There'll be a lot of items needing to be dried out. Though I'm looking forward to a large glass of wine as I was mostly driving this weekend. Tomorrow is expected to be very wet at home so we might spend a much needed day relaxing and staying in the dry...
Whatever you are doing this weekend, enjoy,