Tracy&James | Wednesday, 8 July 2026
Tracy and I are both recovering from a very busy weekend at the Scottish Game Fair. Tracy chose to recover by going back to work in Scotland, whereas I managed to cadge a lift back to Wales from Chris so we could go fishing on the Elwy and the Dee. Before I start rambling I should begin with a huge 'thank you' to the team that helped us with the competitions at the weekend; Chris, Stewart and Jill gave up their weekend to work as volunteers. A new group were organising the fishing area this year and there were some 'hand over' issues between the old team and the new, this meant that the call for additional volunteers to help with the fly casting comps was overlooked, hence the BFCC crew had to work all three days without a break. It was tough!
When Tracy and I set up the marker ropes on the Thursday I was anticipating that the weekend would see some very big casts. I had a quick practice with the S55 Salmon outfit and was sending loops down towards the end of the ropes with the strong following wind. This wind was forecast to remain all weekend, hence my optimism. However when we got up on Friday, the first day the fair was open, the wind direction had shifted round so it was blowing into the rod side of a right hander. I did my best to re-orientate the ropes but there was only so far I could move them because of the bank (of the River Tay, where the casting comps were). As such, I knew the distance events were going to be tough unless the caster was a lefty. Actually I came away thinking that I'm going to train with the S55 outfit left handed – I already practice Spey casting on this side so I imagine going overhead won't be too difficult. I'm going to give myself a target of hitting 200ft left handed this year.
Visitors to the Scottish Game Fair seem very willing to give things a go, so we had an entry into the daily competitions that ranged from complete beginners to experienced casters – all looking to win one of the great prizes donated by sponsors. We could still do with some more females who are willing to give it a go though as some of the prizes went unclaimed. Because of the lack of female competitors, Tracy decided that for the championship event she would compete with the men (as she does at BFCC events), thus making it an 'open'.
In the 'open' championship everyone used exactly the same gear supplied by the BFCC for the accuracy, trout distance and S55 disciplines. The accuracy was very hard as the wind was blowing across the court and the river bank, trees and game fair marquees combined to make sure it was also prone to random swirls. An additional difficulty was added by the long grass, making the targets difficult to see, in fact some competitors walked out to the furthest target to prove to themselves it was actually there. As such, scoring was difficult but it was Tracy who recorded the highest result for the weekend, despite having a terrible round mid way through. Tracy's result was 15% more than the next highest score, an advantage that would be critical to the overall championship.
Peter from the Fish-Patagonia stall was loving the championship format and came back for multiple entries to see if he could improve his scores. He was second place to Tracy in the accuracy but won the #5 weight trout distance event. Due to how busy we were, Tracy only got one chance and her 3 minutes with the trout distance rod had an on-the-shoulder wind. She wasn't particularly happy with her result, losing out by 12.5%. As such, a big chunk of the lead she had from the accuracy event was gone with just the S55 salmon distance to go.
The S55 was won by Stewart, the UK senior champion. I'm not sure whether he cast this off the left side or not – he's equally good with both. Unfortunately Stewart's Achilles heel is the accuracy event, so although his combined S55 and trout distance results had him in the mix, his accuracy result saw him fall in the rankings. As such, the championship was between Tracy and Peter, and Tracy produced the second longest S55 cast of the competition, pipping Peter by 3%. When the three results were combined Tracy was on 279.7% and Peter was runner-up on 275.0%. So Tracy won the Scottish Game Fair Championship and will have her name engraved on the trophy (a few lines down from mine). I should mention that Chris put in a solid performance with all three outfits to take a well deserved third place, beating Robert (a two time previous winner) into 4thposition. Well done to all who competed, Tracy will be back next year to try and defend her title.
Hope you're having a great week,
James