Tracy&James | Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Last weekend's BFCC meeting went probably as well as I could have hoped for given my current predicament. I managed to enter all six of the distance disciplines and only ducked out of the accuracy event. Actually, just before packing away, I had a go casting at the targets – right handed but with just the tips of my fingers on the rod handle. This did induce some pain, however it may be possible for me to enter this one at the next BFCC meeting, so maybe I'll be back to entering all seven competitions hopefully (but still casting the #5, #7, ST27 and T38 left handed).
What has become very apparent to me is how much I used to rely on my little finger to rotate the rod during a distance cast. Now that may seem odd to people learning to cast far, who maybe would think that a more powerful muscle or joint would be used to drive the delivery cast, but allowing the handle to lift from the palm and then closing the gap late in the forward stroke is how a lot of people do it. Unfortunately my little finger and the one next to it are locked almost straight right now and when I summon them to rotate the rod there is just nothing happening. I then completely lose control of the cast, especially with the carry needed for a distance cast.
Unfortunately I currently lack the control with my left hand to drive the rotation in the same way as I used to. My grip is very much a white-knuckle affair and it doesn't matter how many times I tell myself to totally relax my hand, it's not happening right now. As such, I still feel that I'm very much at the absolute beginner stage as far as left handed casting goes, despite my PB's with the #5 and #7 events both being in excess of 100 feet.
At the competition the #5 and the #7 trout distance events were a little bit of a disappointment for me. I had hope to build on the distances I'd posted at the previous event, and my practice implied that I was on target to do so, however I failed to improve in either. On the day it really felt that I had little or no control of the loop shape on the forward cast once the carry got much beyond the line that I'd picked up. This is going to be my main focus for the next couple of weeks, along with trying to tame my wild tracking.
I did have some 'successes' on the day – I managed to win the T120 and S55 double handed disciplines. As mentioned last week, missing the input from my top hand in these events isn't a distance killer – I can still pull with my bottom hand. I was also relatively pleased with my T38 in that I did actually beat Tracy (and thus won the bet we had). That said, Tracy messed up with this outfit, firstly by doing her best cast in the warm-up (which would have beaten me) and then forgetting some key aspects of her technique when the actual timer was running. I will enjoy my curry that I won as a result.
Tracy did get her own back in the ST27, winning this by a considerable margin over all the men present. Sometimes when we practice together she can produce a cast that is beyond what I can achieve, even when I was casting at my best. This is more like to happen in low wind conditions when her super-smooth, pointy loops seem to float out to a distance way beyond anything I can muster. At the weekend she beat the nearest competitor (Mike H) by over 15ft and set a new BFCC women's record whilst she was at it. I was relatively pleased with my 130ft (40m) effort, being as at the first meeting of the year, just two weeks earlier, I could barely aerialise the head. I think I can build from there. Tracy also won the accuracy.
What was really good to see was a member come through from attending for tuition and win a distance event. Marcus has been attending BFCC days for some time and has improved rapidly. He was finally persuaded to enter the comps and he won the #7 trout distance with a cast of well over 120ft. I think this has spurred him on to practice some more, so hopefully we'll be seeing his name on the top of the results sheet again soon. Marcus also has some problems with his hands and has had rods made up with the fattest grips I've ever seen on a fly rod. He's been kind enough to lend me one of them, so maybe if I get some movement back I will be able to get my right hand around it – here's hoping.
The next BFCC event is in less than two weeks away. I will have to temper my practice somewhat as I was in a great deal of pain in the evening after the recent one. As such I'll target the areas I mentioned above, but in short spells – not my usual two hour sessions. Hopefully I can lock in some improvement and perhaps challenge Tracy with the ST27 next.
Hope you're having a great week,
James.