Shenfield Report 2015
Posted by mikeh On October 17th, 2015
The Shenfield event marked the last BFCC casting competition of the year and was the venue for the AGM. At the meeting there were a number of changes to the club agreed, one of which was that the authorship of these reports would be rotated – so here goes for my first one!
The day started with a masterclass on T38 casting given by John Reynolds, supplemented by advice from Mike Heritage. John went on to win the T38 event in tough conditions to underline his ‘master’ status.
The attendees requiring tuition then split into groups led by Mark Surtees, Sekhar Bahadur, Mike Marshall and Trevor Hayman ably assisted by Keith Jones. Many thanks to all for your efforts on the day and for supporting the BFCC throughout the year (along with our other instructors) – there’s a lot of people who are casting better, and hopefully enjoying their fly-fishing more, as a result of your instruction.
The competition events were hard fought and of a high standard, demonstrated by no fewer than seven casters in the #7 exceeding 40 yards! One of those going over the 40 yard mark was Meinrad Rohrs, a visiting CI from Germany – great to meet you. Competition highlights included Kei Okamoto taking his first ever event win with the T120 outfit (the first time he had cast it!). Kei also went on to win the #5 event, really well done. John added wins in the #7 and accuracy events to his T38 first, and would have won the overall event if it wasn’t for his #5 result. As it was James Evans won the overall title through consistency, with John second and Steve Parkes in third.
Mick Copeman took his last B110 win with some great casting in the full line events, including extending his V70 record in the #5 (he also extended his record in the ST27). Mick has now become the first member to start in the B100 class and be promoted through to the open category, showing what can be achieved with regular instruction and practice. Well done Mick – I’m sure you’ll be slaying the bonefish in a few weeks time. Dan Shillabeer also deserves a mention for his continued progress, the 40 yard mark is getting ever closer.
It was also great to see some juniors entering the competition, with Nicholas Surtees and Hannah Okamoto taking part. Hannah was awarded the B100 medal to go along with her gymnastics trophies, hopefully it will be the first of many. This is probably a good place to note that the committee agreed to make junior membership of the BFCC absolutely free, so hopefully we’ll see more juniors in the future.
Many thanks to Steve Roach and his team at Shenfield Cricket Club for supplying a continuous supply of drinks and sandwiches during the day and for hosting the meeting.
A number of changes to the club were agreed which will be communicated in due course, so please keep an eye on our Facebook page and here for details.
So that’s it for the 2015 competitions. The BFCC will, however, have a presence at the iFish show on the 22nd November in Ardingly so if you’re planning on attending please pop by and say hello. Here’s to 2016…
Tracy