Tracy&James | Sunday, 10 December 2023
It's the time of year that we start planning for the casting and fishing trips for the next year. We already have several dates for casting competitions during the summer. Firstly the three Game Fairs; the Welsh GF in June (at a new venue in south Wales), the Scottish GF in early July and the English one, this time at Blenheim near Oxfordshire during the last weekend in July. Since the Welsh GF has been rescheduled for earlier in the year, the final of the triple (#5 distance, salmon overhead distance and trout accuracy) GF Championship will be at Blenheim – this should be a much better attended spectacle. We might need to do a recce to Blenheim in the New Year to check on the set-up at this new venue, though I will start promoting this very soon as there is a fantastic trophy to win from James who is the current holder after winning the final earlier this year.
Then there's the World Fly Casting Championships in Sweden in August. James and I are already looking at travel arrangements for this event and are considering driving via Denmark just to make sure we arrive with all our gear. Last time some of our fellow competitors weren't so lucky and had bags lost during their journeys (mostly those who went through Copenhagen airport), which is so unfair when they had practised so much to be ready for the competition after a 4-year hiatus. I would love to say that we have started practising already but as the weather in the UK has been so wet and cold, we haven't had much opportunity to get out onto our usual casting field. Or maybe I got so used to fishing in the warm conditions of the Caribbean that perhaps I need to toughen up and just get out there and cast in lots of thermal layers.
James did brave the weather in order to enter the virtual casting competition organised by Chris Baty in Australia. He managed a mid 120 foot cast with the #5 weight line but reported that he was distinctly 'rusty' – he thought the wind was probably good enough to post a 130ft plus cast if he was casting better (it was the rain that persuaded me not to give it a go though).
In the New Year, I will start planning the BFCC meetings and hopefully we'll organise one in Jersey after missing it from last year's calendar. There will also be the usual events in Chester, Kent, Derbyshire and Essex, but also we may try the Bath venue again and perhaps one in Scotland. It's looking like there will be a casting championship in Spain (dates yet to be set) and we have already told Jose that we'll be coming.
We have also been discussing fishing trips and I have been reviewing flights and accommodation in different Caribbean locations, such as Andros, Cuba and Mexico. We also fancy trying the Maldives. I think we'll also be looking at going back to spring for our saltwater fishing as we felt the flats hadn't cooled down sufficiently after the baking hot summer, unfortunately this is the new normal. We haven't managed to go fishing on the local Welsh rivers since getting back from the Bahamas partly due to the weather, but also as some of the beats were closed as the Hanak grayling competition was held last weekend. Hopefully we'll get to fish sometime before Christmas.
In the meantime, we are working through our photos and videos from the holiday that we didn't post and the reminiscing is lovely; regardless of some of the bad weather we experienced, we still had many memorable catches. For me, catching a bonefish on my birthday was glorious, especially as I really didn't think it would happen due to the crap weather we were having on the day. Watching James hook triggers was also so memorable, mainly because no matter how many takes I had, I completely failed to catch one. Wherever we go next, if there are triggerfish, then I am going to catch one. I've also asked James to tie some more garfish flies as they are so fun to catch especially when they jump. Now we both failed to catch a big shark and cuda, so they are both target species for the next saltwater trip.
Whatever you are doing this weekend, enjoy
Cheers, Tracy x
