Northants report

The competition entry was also high particularly for the trout events. We left the accuracy targets out all day so lots of people had practice goes, with a few then entering the competition. It was fantastic that many of the people who came for instruction were also interested in the competition events. James provided advice on how to cast the T120, T38, S55 and ST27, which led to several having a go and casting some amazing distances with outfits they had never used before. We  managed to accommodate those instructors who also wanted to compete around their tuition sessions. Plus Nick kindly provided a session on the 170-style cast for the numerous attendees who were intrigued to learn the technique.

Personally I found the event great fun and it was really nice to have a good number of other females attending. We had a previous BFCC champion also attend who we haven't seen for a few years. He lived locally and came with his daughter who is now all grown up – so it was lovely to see them both.

My competition entries were a bit up-and-down as the ganglion on my hand was being a pain, so all the single-handed events were difficult and I didn't complete all my sessions. Fortunately I managed a reasonable result in the accuracy and did pretty well in the double-handed events. I came second in the S55g and beat James – which is very unusual. However we did have swirling light winds so there were several casters who were 'whipped' during their sessions, including James, that made it tricky to get a good distance. The only lefty had major casting issues, so we arranged to move the tapes for his last two events – at one point before this he had resorted to back-casting to try to get a good distance. The wind situation is often a problem at our events, though we coped as we always do. Regardless the venue was ideal for instruction and competition so hopefully this will become a regular location for us.

As I spent a lot of time chatting to everyone, it was probably my fault that the competition events over-ran, as I didn't do the usual chivvying them along. It was possibly one of the longest days we've had as we only managed to finish about 6pm. So we left working out the winners of each event and the overall winner to the next day. James and I had a 3-hour trip back home after this, so we were pretty exhausted.

The next BFCC activity is the Scottish Game Fair in Scone Palace, Perth, from July 3rd to 5th. This year there has been a change to the organisation of the fishing activities, so the BFCC have taken on more of the running of the competition events than in previous years. I'm content with this, however for some reason we also seem to not have the usual numbers of people supporting, so the four of us that are going may be very, very busy. Hopefully we'll have enough spare time to get some fishing done in the evenings on the Tay whilst sipping a few drinks. We'll be camping on site, so at least there'll be no need to worry about driving anywhere.

The comp is the usual approach – three events for the Scottish Championship involving accuracy, trout distance and salmon overhead. The Daily comps will be the first two events but we are thinking of changing from overhead to a jump-roll - as in previous years most people either did this, or Spey cast, rather than cast overhead. The water where we compete is fairly shallow so there are opportunities to Spey cast if you have waders – James has been out practising Spey casting with Steve P today at Bala. He decided to wet wade today as it was significantly cooler than wearing his rubber waders in this extreme heat. I doubt this will be the case in Scone.

Whatever you are doing this week, enjoy

Cheers

Tracy

 [The photo is of the BFCC instructor team and others recovering after the day and watching the comp events]