Tracy&James | Sunday, 10 July 2022
Italy was a great weekend; the SIM Fly Festival is run by a sociable club who love all things fishing. We watched some great fly tyers and artists at work, some amazing rod builders and spent ages observing the Italian fly casters practicing their techniques on the beautiful river Sangro. Castel Di Sangro is a fantastic town with gorgeous architecture and lots and lots of steps. In the blazing heatwave, the route between our hotel and the event was often exhausting, but always took us past the river over bridges where we would spend ages observing the large trout sip down dries or pick up nymphs from the fast moving water. Thankfully someone kindly borrowed James a fishing outfit and on the Sunday, he caught a couple of stunning rainbow trout to the applause of the locals basking in the sun. Before this, we had spent all day Saturday and Sunday morning casting different single and double handed outfits for the festival attendees, some of whom came and had a go. The welcome of the people at this event couldn’t be faulted; they arranged some scrumptious meals where we were able to try Italian cuisine. We particularly enjoyed the desserts, gelato and the wine.
After the fun of that weekend, we have been busy focusing on organising the next few BFCC events and practicing hard in preparation for the Worlds. Today our casting session was again hot, but thankfully not quite like Italy and we both displayed some decent casting and I beat my PB with the MED line a number of times, even though I felt I wasn’t really casting at my best. This was due to spending the last couple of days gardening, digging out some large unwanted bushes, hedge trimming, etc. It always strains my back and so interferes with my technique as bending my back is key to my distance casting, so I try not do anything like this prior to competitions.
In a couple of weeks, James and I will be at the Game Fair in Ragley, Warwickshire, where we will run several casting competitions. Then a couple weeks after that will be the Worlds in Norway. I’m really looking forward to this as I’ve never been to Oslo so have arranged to stay a few more days after the competition to sight-see. Following this, James and I, with Mark S, will travel to Jersey to run a BFCC meeting and hopefully, weather permitting, do a little bit of saltwater fly fishing. Any practice will be welcome in preparation for our next Bahamas trip as we haven’t been for a few years, I’m still concerned that it will take me longer than previous trips to remember to strip-strike and not ‘trout-strike’ for bonefish! Before this trip however we will run the regular BFCC Meeting in Essex, where it should be a great competition based on the number of Brits and Internationals that have said they are going.
As always we’re busy and will continue to be for the next few months. Aiming to get some river fishing in too, around working and casting practice, maybe try some of the local lakes and reservoirs in North Wales too.
Whatever you are doing this weekend, enjoy
Cheers, Tracy
