Tracy&James | Thursday, 21 September 2017
Whilst you’re reading this, Tracy and I should be on our way to Jersey for a few days of coastal saltwater fishing and the first international (well sort of) BFCC casting competition. Being as we need to take our fishing gear (waders etc.), our casting outfits and the club equipment we’ve decided to load the car and take the ferry across, but neither of us is particularly looking forward to this part of the journey.
I think one of the reasons we both prefer wading the flats on a DiY basis is that we’re both not the greatest on boats. For me,this aversion started in my early teens when I used to go out deep sea fishing from North Wales with a friend who’s granddad ran a charter boat (we had to make tea and bacon butties in exchange for the trip). My friend’s granddad was a sort of wrinkly, old sea-dog character that you only see around harbours, tanned and weather beaten from spending every day he could out at sea. If you booked a charter with him you were pretty much guaranteed to be going out, regardless of the weather. Unfortunately, after having several pleasant trips previously, my friend and I got a proper rough one – I vividly remember throwing-up after about an hour (still heading out at this point) and being told there was another 9 hours of the trip remaining!
Tracy is no better either, twice she’s had to be off-loaded from flats boats. The first time was when we were fishing in the UAE for dorado, this was on a blistering hot day but with a rolling swell made worse by the wash from tugboats that were moving oil tankers around (the dorado were using these massive ships for cover). We both managed to catch doradoon the fly before Tracy requested to be taken to the sanctuary of a hotel bar to ‘stabilise’. The second time was in Mexico fishing a 4-5ft deep flat for permit. Here we were seeing a number of schools of permit coming past the boat and I managed to get two before lunchtime, however the chop on the water and a fruity breakfast meat that Tracy couldn’t face it any longer and we had to move to calmer water. (I suspect the fact that I’d caught a couple of permit already made this decision easier).
So before we step on the ferry we’ll be taking some travel sickness pills and hoping for the best, I’ll also be having something sweet and soft for breakfast – just in case J
We were invited to Jersey by Ross, who we first met at the world fly casting championship in Estonia (he was with some other guy, both representing the Island). We then met up again in Wales where he’d brought a group over to fish the river Dee and to attend the BFCC day in Oswestry. It was there that the possibility of a casting day in Jersey was first floated and now it’s happening. The other members of the Jersey fly fishing club are keen to have a go at competition fly casting, and there seems to be a special interest in the accuracy event. I’ve seen pictures of the venue that Ross and the others have lined up and it looks great – we’ll be casting accuracy over water as per the WC rules.
Ross has also promised some bass fishing, last weekend he won the annual Jersey bass fly fishing event hence he’s a champion at it, so who better to act as a guide?! So all-in-all it promises to be a great weekend (apart from the ferry crossing).
The results and pics from the casting and fishing will be posted on Facebook in due course.
All the best, James.