Reflecting on my casting year

The BFCC championship started in Cheshire in March, then Kent in May, Cheshire again in June (to coincide with World Fishing Day), then Somerset in July, Derbyshire in August and finally Essex in October. I found at the earlier meetings that I cast reasonably well in the morning with the 'heavy gear' and extended some of my records. However in the afternoon when we cast the trout outfits, I often did not cast my best. I did wonder whether this was due to having insufficient stamina to continue competing throughout a day, particularly when I was doing much of the organising for the event. I found that I wasn't really getting much time to practice during the day and by the afternoon perhaps my focus diminished. Hence at the last event, I really tried to focus more on doing some practice during the break sessions and it did seem to help with my afternoon distances. Next year I will try to do this more during the BFCC events, though first I need to start organising some dates.

During the summer, we ran casting competitions at three Game Fairs, the first in Scotland in June and then one in England in July, with the last in Wales in September. At the first two Fairs, I managed the accuracy events whilst James focused on the distance ones. I found that I often had to demonstrate to competitors on what the rules were and this really helped me to hone my skills. I also spent more time fishing the local rivers over the warmer months and I reckon this helped too. So by the time we had the Derbyshire BFCC Meeting, my targeting was pretty good and I won the event. Then in September at the Welsh GF I had some excellent accuracy scores and this was a significant factor in me beating all the other male entrants to win the Welsh GF Open Championship. The GF championship involved combining the results from three events, one accuracy and two distance, hence to beat several good male casters to win was a great achievement for me. I then came third in the GF Overall Open final, where the top casters from each of the three Fairs compete against each other. I was surprised when I realised I was third considering the calibre of male casters and pleased to be the only female in the final.

We ended up running an Open competition at the Welsh GF due to having no other female entrants. At the two previous Fairs there was only one other female competing with me and neither could make the Final. We did have females, both juniors and seniors, competing in the 'daily' casting events at these Fairs, but it was rare to find anyone who was comfortable to cast all three events. Often they were competent with single handed outfits but not double or vice versa. For next year's GF comps, we need to work out how to encourage more female casters to compete in the Overall competition.

These wins have given me confidence for next year's casting competitions and I aim to work on not just my technique, but also my focus. During the recent Bahamas holiday, on days where the fishing was 'slow' (sadly there were quite a few of those days) I starting working on my technique, focusing on different aspects by watching either my hand positions, or the rod tip, or the line shape. I'm not sure I actually change my perspective normally when I am casting; obviously when I am fishing my focus is on the target fish species. I also need to work on my flexibility as the older I get, the more twinges I seem to have in my joints. So 2024 will also be a time to increase my yoga activity.

We did manage to do some casting practice this week, however it was extremely windy and gusty, so going through my trout distance technique was difficult. I ended up just playing with the ST27 and was quite pleased with some of the distances. I hadn't cast the outfit since the last BFCC meeting on the 1^st October just before our holiday. Though it was pretty clear to my aching joints later that day that a gap of over two months is not conducive to casting well and I do think I was quite rusty. Hopefully we'll get some better weather during the next week to some some trout distance technique.

Whatever you are planning, have a wonderful Christmas time,

Cheers,

Tracy