What a relief to be casting again. How fantastic is to spend two days doing something you have only been dreaming about for the last four or five months. What a joy it is to work with some truly outstanding guys for two whole days. As you may gather Newark 2010 was another resounding success for the BFCC.

 We are limited to casting in two directions. The direction was ok for right handers but, especially on Saturday, it was a bit of a pain for left handers. Luckily there is plenty of room to cast outside our designated competition area so tuition for left handers wasn’t a problem. Lefty’s casting for their distance badges may have struggled a bit though, sorry about that.

 Nasty cold and biting east wind most of the day on Saturday so the casting comp was virtually across the wind. Although not conducive to huge casts some of the distances were still pretty impressive. Well done Tomo who won both the five and seven events ( said through gritted teeth because I was second in both events!).

 Roger and Dr Vernon Wood provided a steady stream of people to instruct interspersed with the occasional cup of coffee (thank you Roger) to make sure none of the instructors actually suffered acute hypothermia and frost bite.

 This year we had more instructors on the field and it gave us the chance to have the odd break, which was very welcome.

 Now for the difficult bit. All the instructors did a fantastic job but most of us have done this sort of thing for a while now, so we know what to expect. Mark Surtees is a new member and came along for the first time. Mark would be the first to admit he is not a distance freak like most of the rest of us, however he proved to be an outstanding instructor, especially with beginners and improvers. He certainly dug me out of more than one hole. I’m the first to admit I struggle with absolute beginners but he had them casting a nice loop in the allotted time.

 John Reynolds got off his sick bed to be with us and Alex Titov was in shorts and tee shirt because he said it was so warm after Siberia (not really, he was shivering like the rest of us).

 Tomo helped out between other commitments and Mike Marshall only taught pretty women, how much he paid Roger to arrange this I have no idea.

Very well done to all those who achieved their distance badges and a special mention to Chris Walker who tried to wear me out. I expect you to be near the 35yrd mark next year Chris, you don’t want Bigfoot or Richard to beat you.

 Casting again, wonderful

 Mike H

The year started a bit traumatically with the loss of the old web site and ended spendidly with the creation of a new web site and a buoyant membership.

 The first part of 2009 was taken up with having to re constitute the club because of insurance and banking issues. This may sound easy enough but it proved quite a headache for Mike Marshall who had to grapple with all sorts of unforseen problems, so hats off to Mike, without all his tireless efforts we wouldn’t be where we are, or even here at all.

 We also had to re write all the rules, create a health and safety assesment, design the new web site, and, at the same time, prepare for our first public event ( I say ‘we’  but once again Mike was the driving force).

 Our first event of the year was The Spring  Fly Show at Newark. Because it was our first public event we did not know how it was going to turn out. We needn’t have worried. The event organisers did us proud, not only providing us with a nice area in the main hall but they also provided us (unexpectedly) with a very nice marquee right next to the casting area. We had our club competition on Saturday morning and then several of us spent the rest of the day and the whole of Sunday giving casting lessons. Very satisfying but totally knackering. It was the first time that I, and I suspect most of the others, except Mike, had done such concentrated instructing.

 Apart from that Newark was also a financial success and virtually paid for all the clubs expenses, including the web site creation, for the year. It was also exciting to see the level of interest in distance casting  that was generated.

 We have been invited back for 2010 so see you there.

 The all new singing and dancing web site was finally up and running in April and received universal acclaim, well, we liked it anyway, and so, apparently, do you. We have had over 15500 hits to date and on one day we had a staggering 499 hits. Amazing!

 We next held a normal club event at our usual venue, Huntingdon Race course, the first event I have missed for years so I have to rely on Mike’s assessment which was:

  ”Sunday was an almost perfect day – for holiday makers, but not for casting! We experienced almost continuous sunshine, it was humid in the morning and less so later-on, but the worst part was an occasional puff of breeze from the north east or east, followed by completely ‘dead air’. The net result was that it was almost impossible to turn the line and leader over. Tough is hardly an adequate description and distances suffered, however, those present all seemed to enjoy their day.”

 Next came, thanks to an invitation from Jonathan Tomlinson,  another public day at Sportfish near Reading. This turned into another hugely successful day which you can read about in my account at the time in the new ‘News and Articles’ section.

 The final event was our annual Brentwood meeting. This is the venue where records often get smashed and competition is often at it’s fiercest (but still friendly) because Paul Arden is in town and he sometimes brings some international long hitters with him. If you want to see flycasting at it’s best then put this event in your diary. The 2009 event also saw some time specifically put aside for distance instruction and quite a few turned up to take advantage and some of them were brave enough to have a go competitively with some surprising results.

 This has been a fantastic year for the BFCC. After a traumatic start we have emerged stronger and healthier than we have ever been. Membership is on the up and the future for the club looks  brighter than I have ever known it.

 There are a few names that deserve mention for the work they have done over the last year;

 John Reynolds, Roger Miles, Alex Titov, Jonathan Tomlinson, Terry Jenner and last, but not least, the tireless Mike Marshall. No doubt I have missed a name or two but thank you all for making this the best year yet for the BFCC.

 Mike Heritage

 A question that pops up from time to time – and it’s an interesting one – is what has competition distance casting done for my flyfishing? My immediate answer is speed. It’s the difference between trying to deliver a shuttle cock and delivering a missile. There is no feeling on Earth like walking a river armed with a rocket-launching cast. And I truly mean that.

Sure you’ve still got to stalk, wear camo, read water, tie flies, figure it all out, fall in now and again – just like you always did, but now you never need worry about the cast, and often it’s all over before you’re even aware it’s happening; no thinking, no hesitating, just an immediate delivery. That feeling is amazing.

It’s not why I fish; I fish to sequence. Catch one fish, duplicate the method and catch them all. A friend of mine gave a demo recently where he said he fished to relax, and that he needed to save his energy when casting, because it could be a long day ahead – or something like that. OK, that’s fine, but for me I fish for thrills and spills, I don’t care how fast or slowly you cast, the 20 or 30 Km of boulder-hopping and heavy river crossing is going to sap your energy far more than any amount of casting ever can!

So while speed is the main thing, it gives other benefits as well. I suppose the most obvious is that distance casting makes you think about every single component of your Stroke. You can’t throw a long way using poor technique – it doesn’t matter how strong you are! Technique first, applied strength later. Good technique for distance means that your basic cast must be effective – a drill I’ve been using the past few years for tuning distance (don’t tell Mike) is accuracy.

Casting into a head wind is rarely a problem – apart from in New Zealand; just throw the line at a hundred and fifty miles per hour! No need for a tight loop, contrary to popular opinion, just throw as fast and as straight as you can. And as for distance, if you can cast through the 120s with trout tackle, then you can take a realistic shot at 100 feet without serious complications.

So that’s certainly one side of things, which you probably figured out anyway. But the other side of things is that it’s given me a great number of friends that I would probably never have met.

If you’re in the UK, here’s a link to my friends at the British Fly Casting Club.

Cheers,

The casting may not have been the furthest but apart from that we had another hugely successful day at Brentwood to finish our season off. It’s a shame there wasn’t a slightly more consistent breeze, it veered 180 degrees at times, but who am I to complain, it was always on my back when I cast.

 We had a draw for our casting slots and it worked very well, the luck of the draw meant that a couple of members who used alcohol to calm the nerves the night before had a little time to reflect that perhaps it wasn’t the best plan they had ever had. I stuck to Coke and, as you see, it paid off handsomely.

 Another innovation was the introduction of members coming along specifically for instruction. Most, if not all, made significant progress through the day and many qualified for one of the distance badges. The only downside of this was that poor Mike Marshall spent all day instructing, but judging by the comments I overheard it was well appreciated. He even took the time to sort out some specific casting problems caused by a hand injury that has been plaguing one of our new members for ages.

 We have a new lady member who could soon find herself in our record books. Tracy Thomas cast beautiful loops with a very simple and effective technique to qualify for her 30yrd badge, and our youngest member, Nicholas Surtees, is well on the way with a stonking 42’+. Not bad for seven years old is it?

 I will add some new photos to the Gallery when I get them, thanks to Terry Jenner. It all depends on the Post Office though.

 So, that’s it for this year, and what a year it has been. We are in a very healthy position, we have a lot of new members and there a buzz I haven’t seen since I joined. Plans are already underway for next year.

 One of us will do a review of the BFCC year later but in the meanwhile if you feel you have something to contribute by way of an article or want to make any comment then please do.

 Oh, one last thing. I have heard nothing but praise for the new web site so a big thank you to Mike Marshall who was inspirational in getting it off the ground.

 See you all next year.

 Mike Heritage

This is just a reminder that the final meeting of the year is coming up soon.

 Brentwood is traditionally out busiest meeting of the year, but not this year. Newark and Reading were both huge successes for the club and we were all extremely busy competing and instructing so just competing will make a nice change.

 For those of you that have been playing around with the idea of coming along to a BFCC event then this is the one for you. Most BFCC members will be there so it is your chance to see some fantastic distance casting, pick some brains and get a bit of one to one tuition, if you feel the need. You can also cast many of the rods that are either the clubs or the ones some of us bring along to cast with, just put them back where you found them is all we ask. If you bring something exotic along please be prepared to lose it for an hour or two while some of us thrash the life out of it!

 I think I am right in saying that club records have been broken at the last two Brentwood meetings so this might just be your chance to see one of the longest casts the world has ever seen. I know at least a couple of members are capable of doing it, if the conditions are favorable.

 See you there

 Mike Heritage

Well, that went very well didn’t it. Nice day, nice people.

I don’t know about you but I was a bit apprehensive. I knew Jonathan Tomlinson from Sportfish was doing his bit and we (the BFCC) were trying to do our bit but you never know how it is going to turn out until the day do you? Actually, from my point of view, I didn’t really have a clue how it was going on the day because I seemed to be busy from the moment I arrived. Now, either Roger has got it in for me and sent all the students to me or we were all extremely busy, I’m pretty sure it was the latter because whenever I glanced around I saw all the other instructing members were fully occupied as well.

 I really don’t want to single anyone out, we all did our bit, but, Roger the Dodger does deserve some recognition for all the work he does in getting the punters to have a go. I suspect a lot of people turned up with the intention of just having a look to see what the BFCC is all about. Perhaps they were a bit reticent about casting in public. That just doesn’t wash with Roger, if you are there you are there to be persuaded to part with your fiver and get out there and have a go. Judging by the constant stream of students not many escaped his persuasive charm.

 Now, the beauty of this new website is that you, the viewing public, can leave a comment, and, provided you are not trying to sell Viagra, I will approve them and they will be published. We welcome comments. We need to get some feedback so that we can improve, or take into consideration any concerns you may have.

 While I am here I will tell you I have been given the dubious honour of looking after the Galleries. As you will probably notice I am not doing a particularly good job of it at the moment but I am working on it. If you have taken some photo’s at our events then I would be pleased to have them, either email them to me at heritageathome@btinternet.com  or pop them on a disc and sent them to me at 24 Albemarle Rd, Willesborough, Ashford, Kent TN240HL.

 I have also asked members to write the occassional article for us, you know who you are! Get writing. 

 I look forward to seeing you all at Brentwood in October,

 Mike Heritage

Let’s deal with the Who first.

 We are just ordinary guy’s like you, except we have a passion for fly casting.

 What we are about is promoting  fly casting via friendly meetings. I don’t know about you, but from personal experience I know how difficult it is to keep yourself motivated to practice fly casting on your own. You do need to cast with others now and then, it gives you a benchmark and something to aim at.

 The Why is easy. You have some of the best casting brains in the country at your disposal, not mine obviously, for free. Well, for an annual (and very reasonable) subscription anyway. Several members are casting instructors and between us we have a lot of years (mainly Mike Marshalls) of casting behind us. Any one of us will find some time during the day to give you a little one to one and try and improve your fly casting.

 The BFCC run a distance badge scheme starting at 25yds, this is quite a good way to motivate you to add to your collection. We ran it recently at the Spring Show at Newark and it proved very popular, so much so we had to re stock our badges.

 Now, some of us are more competitive than others and for those of you who really feel the need for speed the BFCC can be a stepping stone to the higher echelons of competitive fly casting. We are affiliated to the UKSF and through them to the ACA who hold various competitions, including the world championships. Several of the UKSF guys are Internationals, they even boast the odd world champion and world record holder. They are always on the look out for new blood.

 I discovered the BFCC and then wasted a complete year by being too timid to join, I was slightly intimidated by going to cast with people from the British Fly Casting Club, I mean, they all had to be casting Gods, didn’t they? Well, it turned out they were just ordinary guys (and the occasional gal) who just happened to have a passion for fly casting.

 We are the friendly home of fly casting, or the home of friendly fly casting, either way, we are friendly, come and have a cast.

 Mike Heritage