Paul Arden | Monday, 20 August 2018
Another world championships in flycasting has just finished. This one was held in tropical Cumbria in North England. It was windy, in fact at times it was very windy indeed! Surprisingly perhaps not all the distances were as huge as one might expect in such conditions, possibly because many of the casts were made from an earthen spit and the wind curved up from below the caster, not allowing lower back cast trajectories. A great meet, awesome to meet so many truly great friends again (come to the jungle between now and next time!) and another World Championships under our belts.
Results can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/UKFlyCastingSport/
Personally I found myself slightly off pace. I haven’t had a competition since the last World Championships, two years ago and that’s mostly because I’ve been living in the jungle, but also because there is no competition scene in Malaysia.
I threw 41.5m in the 5WT but was disqualified because my leader was a couple of inches too long! I had actually borrowed one of Lasse’s lines and leader (I don’t currently own a MED) and he measured the leader to be slightly under the max length permitted. When I checked it the night before I found the same thing. I shortened it some more when I put some bigger wool on and so was amazed when Magnus told me it was over length and consequently disqualified me! These things shouldn’t happen of course but something always seems to go wrong for me in this event. At least this particular failure won’t happen again.
Anyway I would still have missed the finals and was unhappy with my performance. Some work to do before the next one in Sweden in two years time - that is for sure. Maybe I should switch to Spey!
So... calling Malaysians! I know that many of you are excellent casters who love fly casting, fishing (and teaching). The way to become the best flycaster that you can ever be, is to compete. You become more accurate, longer, smoother and you will catch many more fish as a result - especially Snakehead! It’s also a great deal of fun and you get to meet some very serious fly fishermen as well - who all become friends.
November 1st we have a fly fishing meeting in KL. Let’s talk about arranging a few of us to meet, train and compete on a regular basis with a view to travelling to Sweden in two years time and putting on a good showing. I need regular training if I’m going to compete successfully at this level and it would be great to see you guys included. Have a think about it, drop me a line and let’s discuss things in KL in a couple of months time.
I have a couple of presentations to give at the KL fly fishing show. One will be on Snakehead and Gourami fishing and the other will be on competition casting techniques.
And now to the fun part. Who won the mini-competition between Lasse and I? Well since it was Lasse’s leader I don’t think I can be disqualified in trout distance against him! So that’s one for me. Sea trout distance I legitimately beat him on the third longest cast. Salmon Distance - he won that - it’s a stupid event anyway. In Hurricane Accuracy, Lasse legitimately beat me by three seconds with the same score, however I know that I hit a 5 which was called a 3 so that one is up for debate!
Next weekend Sexyloops/ Hot Torpedo meet in Essex. Hope to see you there.
Cheers, Paul
PS A big congratulations to everyone involved in Millom! Lots of amazing casting performances and well won medals!