The exam

I needed to get to Bellingham, still not 100% sure whether I was expected at 8am and try not to be disrespectfully late.  As I briefly hit the main road and passed around Penrith it was still way too early for John Norris tackle shop. So no line slick. I’d have to hope the line cleaning last night would be fine, and more worrying, possibly no practice session ahead. This is not what I had carefully planned as my leisurely stress free journey to the exam. I now knew I was going to be late and was clueless as to what I faced.

Weeks back I had been told my exam was in the afternoon and planned the Lake District trip knowing it put me within a leisurely drive to the venue rather than a 5 hour schlep up a relentless rush hour and the mindless boredom of the motorways from home. A week ago I was told I was at 2pm, so I aimed to be packed and ready at 9am, to start the journey. Get a few breaks on the way, take some pictures, grab a coffee, breathe easy, to be as calm as possible when I drove into the venue with time to practice.

Even yesterday struggling on the field in Grasmere I was at least, still secure knowing that I could iron out the glitches in the morning and be ready for 2pm. Then last night I had the message that I was now expected there for an 8am start. From controlling the situation and having a buffer of spare time if I needed it, I was now chasing my tail with a rising panic.

Getting closer to Bellingham I got stuck in some traffic on a country road… a few dozen head of cattle, slightly panicked and protective of their little calves, had broken out of a field and had filled the road. People in the cars ahead were worryingly starting to open doors. A casting instructor exam now seemed pretty inconsequential and futile thanks again, to mothers and their little sprogs. These cattle were belted Galloway, they have a reputation for panicking and trampling people.  I got the motorists to stay in the cars, and just drive through the beasts very slowly.. “Trust me, just be steady and they will move to the sides… Just don’t bib your freak-in horns or turn your windscreen wipers on!

Satisfied when I had the cattle grouped, pressed into a gate entrance and mostly off the road. I set off to find the farmer. When I finally found him, there were two other concerned motorists too. My job over, I now set off to do some fly casting in a field in front of strangers, it no longer seemed that much of a deal. No calves had been injured, no mums panicked, no public trampled or cars damaged, just a grumpy git of a farmer was missing his well-earned breakfast as his half eaten eggs congealed and his bacon went cold. Poor bugger!

About 200 yards from my destination my sat nav sent me off in the opposite direction to the village of Bellingham, another20 minutes of country lanes to another hotel with a similar name, I panicked at last and pulled over to re-enter the postcode.

During the training up you are told how on one hand they are really strict on standards and wont let anything go, and on the other hand the examiners want you to pass, they are not there to try and fail people. 11am, I trundle into the hotel car parknot sure If I’m three hours late, and whether I am still taking the exam. And it dawned on me. If I don’t take it, then I can’t fail It. Big whoppee!

There was no actual hint of me being late, the welcome was warm and relaxed, “Make yourself at home … grab a coffee, do you want to get something to eat, make yourself a sandwich.” It felt like you had joined a group having a play day adventure or bonding exercise together, not examiners and nervous students. All concerns and stress instantly dropped away.

The written exam was really a bunch of multiple choice questions based on the FFI study guide. Mostly stuff that is so daft that you would need to have a desire to fail, or be in such a panic you were struggling to read clearly.

This sort of thing;-

Question 13; Is the FFI study Guide, the 5 essentials, and the 6 stage path, a brilliant way of training beginners and intermediates?

A; Always

B: in some circumstances

C: Never

That to me is more like conditioning and brainwashing than testing your knowledge.

There was a few questions that in the wording made you wonder if they were trying to trip you up and being devious and required some thought, I know others taking it felt the same way, and I wonder if it was the same few questions.

The multiple choice was done at a table just round the corner from a gaggle of chattering casting examiners, which was a little distracting, but was to encourage the relaxed lack of formality about the process. One was talking about football and Everton being the best club to watch in the UK. That morning I’d thrown on a clean Tshirt without thinking, it had a huge Liver bird on the front with a little red and white Liverpool scarf around its neck.  For those who don’t know, the rivalry between Everton and Liverpool is fierce, divides families and isolates work mates, it’s like Bolsheviks V Mensheviks but without the Ice picks, and my examiner it turned out, might be a blue nose! Great start Chris!

I asked if I could practice.. “Yeah take your time there’s no rush!” So laid back!.

I’d always pictured this would be from half an hour to a few hours, just to run through and get that feel of the first pick up and work through any flaws and stumbles I’d recently discovered. I wandered off with my box of clean, stretched,dressed line, and found an area near the hotel out of view of potential examiners and picked up 40 feet and cast a series of false casts with tight parallel loops looking identical on the back and front. I let out around 60’ and picked up into some double hauled false casting… again tight and consistent. I had no worries everything working fine. No point in me doing anymore and potentially groove in a mistake, blow my confidence, or bugger that line up. Time to get it over with.

So within 5 mins of asking to practice I was back saying I’m ready. My examiners stood up; Paul, I had known from weeks ago would be one of them, I’d thought Brian would be the other. But the Everton fan, Chris, stood up.

His first words to me where immediately out side the door.. Looking down at my T’shirt with some disdain.

“Well you’ve fucking failed then!!”  

It was a brilliant way of breaking the ice and getting the tension out of the air. Thank gawd I wore that T shirt after all. 

Finally after months of wondering about this moment and trying to envisage it. I find I am stood there with 40’ of line stretched out and I just have to lift it up near perfectly and put it up in a fairly narrow loop with a straight fly leg. I had done it now hundreds and possibly thousands of times over the past few months. One smooth sequence. I had a my little prompts conversation in my head “Make sure you watch the whole back cast unfurl, cast like butter you twat”.

And finally up it went, slightly out wide of my shoulder, off track and not stacking up, but the fly leg looked straight and it was tight. The first forward loop came through wide and slightly open and dipping.. “Bugger, didn’t wait long enough on the pause.” Back cast back in shape and tracking back in line. Then I hit the groove and things went parallel.

“Thank god. But have I salvaged it?”. 

I had no idea how many I had false cast, completely lost count, I just kept casting until I heard a voice say “Ok, alright, … you can put it down now.”

Clueless as to how many I had done. Ten? Twenty? Not a great start. My heart was pounding and I could hear itthumping in my head. I wasn’t asked to do it again so I presumed I got away with the terrible tracking on the first back cast and that open loop. Two faults already in an exam that allows you only two faults.

I called out “just straightening the line”.  And picked up the line a cast if forward to the marker, It was no nearer or straighter, but it cast out the rising tension from that cock up. After each task I did that to shake out the tension.

Everything now had to be perfect or this was a very long journey for a very short exam.

Next task; “Cast two tight loops and then call “open loops” and put two wide loops through. When you’re ready”. Said the examiner.

“cast like butter, Numb-nuts” said the voice in my head….this cast was so easy to do.

 On the pickup I got a tug off the grass and back went an open loop. I rectified it and got back on track, sent through the two wide loops, and then, surplus to requirements, went back to narrow loops to show I had the control and dropped the delivery next to the 40’ marker.

Again I seemed to have got away with it, but now I had the additional grass problem in my head.

Twice more during the exam I got tugs that to me felt like crushing disasters. At one stage I knew of 4 fails I had done in a task. And fluffed the questions. But they were still letting me cast, I was sure they would have finished me by now, and I should be trudging back dejected.

I think the true reflection is, and I believe; that in daily training, these periods of intense focused practice and study ,don’t just improve your technique tremendously. But creates a magnifying lens that awfulizes everything that isn’t pitch perfect and the best version of you. In truth I was probably at about 75 % of my ability or skill level on the day, but had got so tuned up and aware, that it all looked very disappointingand mediocre. I could only see faults, nothing I did was as good as my best.

There were a few notable real screw ups; During the accuracy going for the second target while slipping the line, I comically lost the fly line completely out of my hand, leaving an extra 30’ of  loose coils wanting to join what had become the wafting party. I could have dropped and started again, but Instead I wafted away like a windscreen wiper in a monsoon, while manically trying to catch that line back , hoping I wouldn’t have to catch it with my teeth, and get it trapped in. Somehow I managed and thank goodness the delivery, landed it next to the target.

At the furthest target, the 45’, I looked down and saw the amount of slack still available was just brushing the floor, so I knew I had the length that was just past the target. And then on delivery the fly landed short. That never happened in practice  I went storming up to it to check how bad it was and called to the examiner Paul

“How far out is it?”

“About 18 inches” saying it like it was ok.

“Oh Shit!” I said out too loud and looked embarrassingly really annoyed. My calculations were out.. How? What’s changed? How do I adjust for this?

On ‘Some’ particular task; I can’t remember which, I was asked to do that ‘Something’ again. That ‘Something’ I had thought I’d actually done well first time, so this request kind of crushed me. Chris must have seen the disappointment and added.

“No, there was nothing wrong. I just really liked the way you did that and wanted to see you do it again!” A confidence boost from the Everton fan!

During the double hauled distance I saw my first loop go through rounded with a dangled end. The second went through the same. Mortified I dropped the line to the floor and turned to the examiner.

“So Sorry! That’s a complete pile of shit. I cant see the back cast fully with the rim of this hat, Do you mind if I take my hat off. “

I tossed the hat to the side and muttered “Slow, like butter, Sway, Watch That Back Cast Unfurl..  TWAT!” and the loops this time then went through tighter with straight fly legs.

“Wow you cast much better without a hat on.. that was two different casts!” more encouraging words from the Everton fan.

For the final cast I had no idea anymore of the routine to follow. What I had practiced in Oundle, with two false casts with the slip on the second and then a clean hit, had gone horribly wrong with sticky line in Grasmere. So I just exaggerated the arcs for the examiners as I added more lengthand eased the line out.

The shoot at the end of the delivery cast, flew out and hit a wall of dead air from a tree ahead, started to crumple and veered off to the right sucking the momentum out of the cast, luckily it had also hit the reel, pinged a little. This turned it over more or less straight but off track, by some freak. “Thank Gawd it didn’t land in a heap”.

They went off the examiners, for what seemed like a long consultation. If I was to fail at this stage I’d now be really pissed off. I wouldn’t have minded if I had done my best and just not made the standard that’s fine. but I felt was casting way below my best, making silly mistakes, and could see flaws in everything. I’d have failed me at task 2.

After a long consultation I was asked to get on with teaching.. so I must have passed the casting bit! How the hell had I done that?I thought as a performance, I was truly mediocre. 

Hope you’re all having a great week.

Chris Avery