Tracy&James | Wednesday, 28 August 2024
This week we have been busy with family and friends but have managed to get some time to go casting. We had hoped to go fishing but the strong gusty winds put us off from going to the river. Hopefully we'll get time to go fishing tomorrow evening on our way home from a work trip, the waders and our gear are currently packed in the hire car ready. The casting sessions have been going well for us as we both had pbs with the ST27 outfit on consecutive days, with mine getting very close to 50m and James getting close to 60m. We are both trying to improve our delivery casts by focusing on straight tracking and launching up and it does seem to be working. As it has been very windy lately we have been practising with the ST27, T38 and S55g outfits. There's not much point practising technique with a #5 when the wind is constantly changing direction whilst you cast, causing shearing of the line on long carries, resulting in a poor shoot and layout.
I'm hoping for some calmer conditions to practice accuracy as at the last BFCC although most of my targets were hit with precision, I consistently missed the furthest one as I seemed to curve the fly outside of the target with the leader inside the rings. I could do with correcting this unnecessary curve cast and focusing on tracking straight. I was only 2 points away from winning the accuracy event so I need to practice so that I can hopefully win the next one – this will be in Jersey in a week or so. We've started organising that event by working out what we will bring with us and what the Jersey group can provide. It can be very windy at this venue so the distance events could result in some good casts, though I'm hoping that maybe it'll be calmer in the morning so that I can start extending my ladies accuracy record to match the scores I can do in practice.
Following Jersey we have an event planned in Essex in October which will currently be the last meeting this year, unless I organise the postponed Cheshire one. We normally announce the British Champion at this Essex event, though this year it's not really had many competitors, maybe due to the lower number of events than usual. As such, we are thinking of using the last meeting to hold a 'shoot-out' for the Trophy. That way anyone attending has a chance to win the BFCC championship – they just need to score well in the seven disciplines that make up a BFCC competition day. Hopefully this will add some competitive excitement to the last event, with everyone starting from the same position with regards to the scoring.
Whatever you are doing this week, enjoy and tight-lines
Cheers
Tracy