The Spring Show

I am still in recovery mode from last weekend, two days of casting and instructing is a lot more tiring than I realised. The BFCC had their opening competition of the year on Saturday morning, unfortunately we didn’t have enough room to cast the T38 or T120 but the five and seven weight events produced some really good casts concidering it is so early in the year and not many of us are casting fit. The weather was quite kind to us although the wind was a bit stronger than we might have liked, but that’s competition casting, we just have to make the best of the day.

 Hardy have just launched their replacement for the Angel TE, the Angel 2TE. I have been waiting to get my hands on one for a couple of years and they were kind (and confident) enough to allow us to cast it in the five weight comp. During practice Jonathan Tomlinson used it to throw a truly massive cast of over 137′ which would have smashed the current record, unfortunately he couldn’t repeat it in the comp, he only managed 127′ something !

 I also had anopportunity to cast the new Sage TCX. I don’t think it is the out and out distance stick that some TCR’s were but none the less it’s a very sweet casting rod  and casts beautiful loops a long way with complete control.

 I was also introduced to the ‘Cast Rite’, a novel practice rod, it doesn’t have any line. It works by making a clicking noise so that you can hear when you have made the stops properly. I now have one and I intend trying it out with beginners, my hope is that it will shortcut the time it sometimes takes to stop them using their wrist too much. I hope it proves a success because Peter Vincent, the inventor, has spent the last five or six years of his own time and money developing it.

 As usual I get to meet some old friends and make some new ones. One of the old ones, AAPGIA instructor Jim Fearne gave me a masterclass in instructing with a couple of techniques that came in very handy during the BFCC instruction sessions.

 One of the new ones is BFCC member Roger Miles, he was part of the full time team so we spent quite a bit of time together, apart from making us laugh he worked tirelessly at the business of creating public interest, I bet there are several people who wouldn’t have come to us if Roger hadn’t been around to gently give them a good humoured shove.

 I had two events that made my weekend, the first was getting someone to double haul beautifully in about five minutes and the other was getting someone who had been flyfishing for years to relax his casting to a point where he actually felt the rod load and unload for the first time ever. The look on his face was one of amazement and pleasure. Great stuff.