Tracy&James | Sunday, 24 January 2021
Lockdown continues here in Wales so I’ve no fishing to report. I have been avidly watching the gauges on my local rivers though and this week has been pretty exceptional in terms of the rainfall. The Welsh Dee hit a new record height of nearly 2.5m, massively high considering I normally only consider fishing when the first digits read 0.7m (if it’s higher I fear getting swept away – I’ve had a couple of close calls even when the river was at 0.7 something). The videos posted from the area showed severe flooding to the point that main roads were underwater.
The rivers Elwy and Clwyd were also well over their banks with many local homeowners getting worried about the prospect of being flooded again. The Clwyd was particularly raging with it demolishing a road bridge in a village not far from my home town. Tracy and I took the opportunity to walk down to the Clwyd in the week, it had already dropped away from its peak by a metre or so, but as you’ll see in the photos it was still way over its banks – normally where the pictures are taken the river is no more than 60ft wide.
With the persistent, heavy rain my usual casting practice fields are water logged so I’ve taken to practicing on the beach. I’ve finally managed to improve on my #5 PULD distance although not so much that I’ve moved up the leader board. I’ve been working on ‘stepping’ being as so many of the casters ahead of me are using this style. I’ve made some progress, even since I improved my PULD score, but there’s still a long way to go before I’m capable of going over 40m. The latest positions are as follows:
Bernt Johansson 147ft 11in
Mike Duzynski 143ft 8in
Zhongxiang Zhu (TC) 139ft 3in
Fredrik Waldenstein 135ft 5in
Bart De Zwaan 134ft 5in
Stefano de Martini 133ft 6in
Jose Nieto 133ft 2in
James Evans (me) 129ft 5in
Lasse Karlsson/Leif Christensen 125ft 7in
Graeme Hird 120ft 0in
Nick Moore 113ft 8in
Tracy Thomas 107ft 0in
Richard Zijdeman 105ft 11in
For those fancying a go at this competition there’s still time (cough - Paul) although be warned, it’s seriously tough. Second prize is a day’s fishing with Bernt in Sweden (I think Bernt probably has the first prize stitched up). All you need to enter is a MED #5 line and a 9ft rod (max length) of your choice – simply cast as far as you can with one backcast only, obviously capturing your cast on video. Good luck.
All the best, James.
