Tracy&James | Sunday, 15 October 2023
A couple of weeks ago saw the conclusion of the BFCC casting season in Brentwood, Essex. This is usually one of the best attended events in terms of the competition and those wanting tuition, however, although the competition was probably the best of the year, the instructors had a very quiet day. It's been a slightly strange year for the BFCC as a whole, some events have seen people attend for tuition and not competition and others, like this last one, have seen the reverse. I'm not sure if something is going wrong with the 'marketing' (not that we do anything beyond the usual social media platforms) or whether people are not willing to travel to events due to tightening of the purse strings? Maybe other factors are at play, the Brentwood day coincided with the last day of the Ryder cup in golf, now I don't know if there's much crossover between golf (or watching it) and fly fishing so maybe I'm clutching at straws here. What I do know is that a BFCC day offers unbelievable value for money where you can pretty much have as much instruction as you want from some of the best fly casting tutors in the country.
As far as the casting competition side of things (and please note; there's a distinct 50:50 mix of tuition and competition at the BFCC, so don't think it's all about slinging lines extraordinary distances – if you want to learn a delicate 25ft reach mend etc. then the BFCC is for you), the overall 2023 championship was won by Bart de Zwaan. Although I won the Brentwood event I just couldn't close the gap that Bart had going into the competition, I really needed to win the accuracy event, that was cast first, but this is my Achilles heel and I had to settle for a lower placing. As such, although over the course of the seven disciplines I did gain a couple of points back, it wasn't enough to stop Bart from being the 4th different winner of the trophy – the trophy that is no longer just a virtual one, it's now very real and made of wood and metal. Hopefully next year I will get off to a better start and give Bart a tougher run for his money over the course of the year. On a final note, one of the best ways to improve your distance casting is to hang out with those who can distance cast – they're all willing to help someone who is wanting to improve.
As I write this I'm sat watching the sunrise in the Bahamas. Tracy and I had a perfect journey out which went almost perfectly to plan. This plan went along the lines of – early island-hop flight, grab cases and load up the hire car (which was waiting for us at the airport), drive to the store and stock up on supplies, unload at the villa and whilst Tracy is putting away the supplies I'd dig out the tackle for an afternoon's bonefishing on our most productive flat from last year. I'd pre-prepared our bum-bags with everything we needed for a day on the flats, and the reels were ready to go with leaders and tippets already attached. So everything was perfect and we were out fishing just after 12, unfortunately the fish had other ideas and after two hours of wading we hadn't spotted a single bonefish between us. This was on a flat that held hundreds of bonefish at the same time last year, but I guess that's one of the intriguing aspects of saltwater fishing – nothing stays constant for long.
Our second day of fishing, yesterday, was more productive. I caught a bonefish with my very first cast of the trip (I obviously didn't make a single cast the previous day) and thus I won the prize of a curry to be bought by Tracy. Soon after, Tracy also opened her account and actually ended the day with 5 fish to my 3, including what she said was a very big fish, but unfortunately I wasn't close to take a photo.
Today we're planning a slightly more relaxed day as we both felt a bit exhausted and de-hydrated yesterday. The temperature was 30 deg C with a very high humidity and I don't think I've sweated quite so much for a long time. I also ran out of water not long after Tracy and I had headed off in different directions and perhaps my idea of wading/walking up to a spot at least a mile further up the flat than we'd currently waded wasn't the best decision, although I did get my best bonefish of the day up there. Our 'more relaxed' day will involve kayaking over to a nearby cay mind you, but we'll be carrying plenty of water with us this time.
Have a great week, James.