Tracy&James | Sunday, 7 May 2023
This is going to be a short FP as I’m knackered – today I spent 7hrs on a casting field with Tracy, Callum and WP from the board. We were casting various outfits in preparation for the next BFCC day towards the end of the month – Tracy will be promoting this event, in Kent, sometime soon.
Callum is a junior who attended his first BFCC competition in March this year. I first met him last year when his regular casting instructor approached Tracy and myself saying that they had someone who was keen on distance and willing to put the required practice in. The 7hr session today probably indicates how keen he is to improve – and those improvements are coming fast.
At the first BFCC competition of the year, in Dodleston, Cheshire, Callum performed really well and managed to break the junior (under 18) ST27 record, he was also really close to the T38 record. Unfortunately the next BFCC meeting is likely to be the last one before Callum turns 18 so the pressure is on to see if he can grab any more junior records. Certainly in practice he is now routinely beating the S55 record and today he pushed his personal best trout distance #5 and #7 casts beyond the current records. He is also reluctantly practicing accuracy – but I think this needs as much practice as all the others combined in order to become proficient.
Callum was particularly pleased with his progress with the #7 today. Previously he had hit only 1 cast over 130ft whereas today he had maybe 4 or 5 with a best of 134ft. Actually I had to knock this PB down to 133ft as just afterwards I realised that I’d made the leader too long. I had to replace the entire thing because it had become so messed up and I quickly blood-knotted three sections of nylon together to form a taper without measuring it against the tape – it turned out that it was 10 inches or so over length. I don’t think this is the first instance of a distance caster being caught with an ‘illegal’ leader though.
I should also mention WP who, I think, cast the S55 for the first time today. Within a few minutes he managed to ping a cast out to 160ft – confirmed to be the longest fly cast he’d ever made. He then went back to practicing with a silk line on a 2wt Winston rod. I should also mention that try as I might I couldn’t get this stream outfit to cast to the backing – I was always one loop of line short, it was a 30yd line though.
I suspect I won’t be casting for a while after today – I need to give my elbow a rest. Have a great week whatever you decide to do.
James.