Tracy&James | Wednesday, 22 July 2026
The BFCC casting day at Ashford-in-the-Water in Derbyshire was very well attended and the team were kept very busy either instructing and/or coaching on the competition outfits. The weather was lovely, though the wind was swirly making it challenging for the competition distances and several people, including myself, had moments when the fly leg whipped the back of our legs. Thankfully I'd remembered to wear trousers and a hoody so other than a slight reduction in the line speed, I didn't get 'marked' though I'm sure a few of the others in shorts and t-shirts ended up with a mark or two. Over the years I have seen some amazing 'welts' on the back of casters legs and some on the back of their necks – painful! Regardless we had a great day and had lots of new recruits. We go back to the same area in October for a joint event with GAIA so hopefully lots of these fishers will come along.
This weekend we go to the Ragley Game Fair to run the Fly Casting competitions. Distance events involve trout distance and salmon overhead distance from a pontoon over water – we are a little concerned that due to the incredibly hot weather we have been experiencing that the lake in Ragley could be very weeded. So we are preparing to go early to the venue to sort it out if we can – this is the side of the competition that the public don't see – BFCC volunteers pulling out weed for hours on end. Casting on weed could be difficult and will 'coat' the fly lines – resulting in lots of cleaning of the lines during the day and perhaps some difficulty in peeling the lines off the water. Thankfully we run the accuracy event on the grass so we only have to consider the visibility – in Scone the grass was too long and the targets somewhat difficult for the entrants to see where to cast.
Most of the BFCC team, including James and myself, will be camping by the lake, so there will be evenings drinking and casting various outfits and will most certainly involve lumi-lines. Plus there will be carp fishing – James' speciality is catching fish on other people's outfits when they have given up or been distracted with food.
The days will involve running Daily casting events for the public with prizes sponsored by the Ragley fishing stalls. The top casters in the BFCC team are banned from entering the Daily events, so the prizes will be decided amongst those willing to enter on the day. We are always after more entries from juniors and women. Also we run three days of a Championship where casters can enter all three disciplines, trout distance, accuracy and S55, as many times as they want in order to improve their best scores. Ultimately the champion will be determined by the usual percentage system across all three, James will be hoping to defend his title but he faces stiff opposition.
We are also introducing an invitational casting session each day at 3:30 with some of the top casters competing against each other. We are hoping this will provide a great show for the public with some amazing casters such as Lasse Karlsson, Steve Parkes, and Nick Moore. James and I will also compete and we are hoping that a few of the other top casters coming to the Game Fair will join us too.
After this event, James and I are looking forward to a rest and hopefully some river fishing, though unless we get some rain, we may have to resort to fishing lakes and reservoirs instead. Or maybe the estuaries for sea-trout and bass – we are planning another trip to Scotland in August and we stay by a sea loch.
Whatever you are doing this weekend, enjoy.
Cheers
Tracy