Tracy&James | Sunday, 28 January 2024
After two successive named storms, Isha and Jocelyn, swept through the UK just days apart, the local rivers here have been blown out for the week. In fact I've just checked whilst I'm writing this and I'd still consider the Dee to be at an un-fishable level, although perhaps some who are braver than me might have been out. As such, again I've got no recent fishing to talk about. Next week isn't looking good for Tracy and myself either as we have a work trip that's going to take most of our time.
I have managed to do some casting practice though. I intend coming out of the blocks fast at the BFCC this year in an attempt to wrestle back the championship trophy from Bart. I've been very disciplined with my training so far this year – I haven't actually performed a single 'normal' distance cast yet. Instead I've been making off-the-ground back casts followed by off-the-ground forward casts. Actually, I haven't even strung a full rod up for myself as yet – simply using the bottom two sections in order to reduce the leverage.
When I mentioned this on social media there were a couple of comments about such a practice being tough on the elbow being as I'm now casting with essentially a stiff lever. However, this is not really the case – the two sections I'm using would still be there if I had the full rod assembled. So the feeling is very much lighter by removing the tip sections.
Over the years I've been pretty terrible at locking-in changes to my distance cast – somehow always managing to fall back to my default style. This time I'm determined to make a measurable change (hopefully of the positive metres type), particularly to my forward cast. I'm using quite a bit of video review and I'm determined not to move on to the next stage of practice until I see exactly the type of movement I'm after. Then, and only then, I might think about adding the third section to the rod. Obviously once I've got up to the full rod I'll think about joining the back-cast and forward-cast up. I'm hoping this will be completed before the first competition of the year, however if you see me standing at the oche with three quarters of a Sage TCX and the line laid on the ground behind me, then you'll know that progress hasn't been as swift as I'd liked.
One advantage to what I'm doing is that the usual dog walkers comments of 'have you caught anything yet' have completely stopped. I suspect they're giving me a wide berth as they instinctively know that someone waving half a rod about is dangerously nuts.
I hope you have a great week,
James.