Tracy&James | Sunday, 7 August 2022
Last weekend was a busy time for us running casting competitions at the Ragley Game Fair, plus lots of drinking and socialising. I’m sure the rest of the Game Fair was good too, though James and I didn’t really get the chance to have a look around it. We concentrated on our little spot next to the lake where we had pontoons to cast off and a grassy area to run an accuracy competition.
We camped right next to this area, which was perfect as we could cast all day and secure all the gear easily each night. We had all the typical British weather, glorious blazing hot sunshine with little breeze, to strong winds in to our right shoulders (making casting difficult), to heavy downpours.
The camp site also gave us the opportunity to fish for the carp in the lake, although they were a bit scarcer than in previous years. One evening Nick and James went hunting the margins, Nick with rod in hand and James in charge of baiting with bread. Only a couple of fish were spotted and these stayed deep ignoring the free offerings. Nick eventually decided that it was time to feed himself and put the rod down for a few minutes. He had only taken his first bite of a pastie when we heard a call from James and the wonderful sound of the drag on Nick’s Hardy reel to signify that he had hooked one – typical of James.
Until the Sunday, I was starting to think as soon as I went to cast the tail wind dropped and I had typical BFCC weather – light, swirly winds with dense air! Thankfully on the Sunday morning before we ran the distance casting finals, I managed to cast in good conditions. It took me most of the weekend to get used to casting off a moving pontoon, as I normally cast either on grass or in the water, so have a steady base. Casting on something moving, made worse if one of the guys was on the pontoon with me, made it difficult to perform as I normally do with a back curve to gain the arc needed for distance casting.
That said, the others were casting brilliantly. Over the weekend, the lead on the 5# trout distance changed regularly between James, Nick and Steve – with only half a metre in it going into the finals. (Half a metre is the limit of our measurement on water with the rope set up we had.) In the final, again we had some difficult weather conditions, with a mixture of flat calms, head winds and occasionally wind in the right direction. Steve performed perfectly, possibly helped by still being drunk from the night before, and surpassed his qualification result to win the final.
It was also good to note how many people entered the ST27g and S55g distance competitions however in the qualifications, no-one could come close to James who set stunning distances of 50.5m and 53m respectively. James also set a fantastic score in the Accuracy too, though Nick was close on his heels. In the finals, Steve again cast well and won both distance events. We didn’t hold an Accuracy final, so James won that event.
Funnily enough I set my best distances of the weekend after the finals, probably as by that time I was relieved to have got through the weekend and could then relax! Although by then, my focus was on the Worlds where at least I just get to cast and have no involvement in running anything.
I’ve included the results below for those who missed them on our Facebook pages. We were also running daily competitions and had some great distances by those competitors (these will be posted on our FB page). Plus we were supporting an idea by the Game Fair organisers to try to bring the three GFs together by having winners from the Scottish and Ragley GFs going to the ‘grand final’ to be held at the Welsh GF in September. For this, only the accuracy, trout distance and salmon overhead distances achieved over the weekend counted. James worked out a scoring system that equally weighted the results from the three disciplines (see below) and he won the overall (it wasn’t a fix, honest!), with Nick second and Steve third. As the only female, I won that category (it’s a shame we didn’t have other female competitors). Hence James and I were invited to the Welsh GF. Sadly, even though this GF is the closest geographically to us (being held in Bangor, North Wales), we can’t go as we’re running casting comps in Jersey that weekend. So we were able to arrange for Nick and Steve to go in our place – hopefully one of them will win the ‘Grand Final’.
Well done to everyone who competed and good luck to Nick and Steve in Bangor. We’re off to fish the river now and on Wednesday, we’re off to Norway for the World Fly Casting Championships. Looking forward to catching up with friends we having seen for 4 years,
Cheers, Tracy
PS – thanks to Chris Avery for most of the photos, much appreciated
Placings from the BFCC Ragley Hall Casting Competitions(Individual Events)
Overall Placings from the BFCC Ragley Hall Casting Competitions
The overall Game Fair winner was determined by combining the accuracy, trout distance and salmon overhead distance achieved over the weekend. The scores/distances in each of the three events were then calculated as a percentage of the winning figure – this ensures that each of the events was equally weighted when it came to the total.
