THE
REEL THING August
2002
Sheila
and I got back near midnight last night after participating in the North
American Championships all last week in Chicago. In
temperatures fluctuating around a hundred degrees Fahrenheit we managed to
collect a fist-full of medals and plaques in the Senior Men's division: the
gold medal in the Single-Hand Distance Fly Casting with a cast of
178 feet (my best in fifteen years) to go with three silvers - 1/4 Ounce
Spinning Distance, 259', Two-Hand 5/8th Ounce Distance, 354' and Two-Hand
Salmon Fly Distance, 202'.
A bronze was the best I could produce in Single-Hand 5/8th Ounce Distance,
362'. Two fourth place plaques rounded out the hardware courtesy of
Anglers Fly Distance and Trout Fly Accuracy.
My scores in the three Distance Fly disciplines (total footage - 514') were
good enough to win the All-Round
Senior Distance Flies Championship
over second place winner, Zack Willson, Columbus, Ohio. Zack’s total was 494'.
Although experiencing considerable difficulty in the excessive heat, Sheila
did manage a tie for eighth place in the ladies 5/8th ounce accuracy plugs
against some of the best casters in Canada and the U.S.
The tournament had over sixty competitors from a dozen casting associations
and clubs including, of course, ours. As usual, world champion, Steve
Rajeff, was the overall all-round champion. Another highlight for us was going
head to head against one of the best tournament casters in the world, Ulf
Janson, who flew in from Stockholm, Sweden, for the competition with his wife,
Lise-Lotte and their two children. All four participated as special
guests of the American Casting Association and the Chicago club who hosted the
week-long tournament.
Ulf is the president of the world governing body of casting, the International
Casting Federation. Although I was lucky enough to best this superb caster in the
distance games, I remained well behind him in most of the accuracy
disciplines.
The 2003 Championships will be held in San Francisco and with a number of
fine casters rapidly improving their skills and results on the targets
and distance field, we hope that there will be even more representation from
our club and Scarborough in the annual competition next year in the
Golden State.
Only a few more nights of casting left at the pond, then we will have a short
hiatus until we move indoors to the gym at the Robert Service Sr. School again
for the fall and winter season. We will be there every second Thursday evening from six to
8:30. The schedule for the fly
tying and rod building sessions has yet to be finalised, but it will be on
Tuesdays once again and we’ll let you know shortly what date we will begin.
It would be a great help if everyone planning on participating in the
shop program would let me know as soon as possible.
We have a limited stock of bamboo and it will have to be on a
first-come, first-served basis. Hopefully
we will have Leon back in his previous role as the feather-meister to take
charge of the fly tying sessions.
Not
a great deal to report on the fishing front at the moment, except a nice tip
from Rick Matusiak that one could get into some healthy Chinook action with
fresh silvers making exploratory runs prior to their actual spawning rituals
in the Beaver River at Thornbury. He
suggests giving it a go after the next good rainstorm.
Rick, Paul Kennedy, Jay Hackney and I will be journeying to the
Broadback River in Northern Quebec in three weeks to try and track down a
world record Brook Trout. Rick
actually was able to film several of these huge beauties with his underwater
camera when we were there last year and we believe that one of these just
might fit the bill.
It
was great to see a number of our club members getting together to test their
new skills on several of our favourite trout streams over the past month or
so, namely Pefferlaw Creek, Itsy Bitsy, Duffins and of course, the Ganny.
Our last trip to Haliburton a couple of weeks ago produced some
exciting moments for Ray Cockburn and me, with a lovely Rainbow boiling under
his lure right beside the boat and another almost emptying my reel in a
tremendous run in what seemed like the length of the lake.
Perhaps we should have a camping trip to Beanpole this fall instead of
our customary sojourn to the Saugeen River at Thanksgiving.
Please let me know your wishes on this one.
I
have the leader kits for those who ordered them and a selection of new casting
plugs in all sizes. I would
appreciate your picking these up along with whatever plugs you require at your
first opportunity.
If anybody would like to spend a couple hours checking out mushrooms in
our area, please call and we’ll organise a fungal foray.
They will be popping up all over the place in a couple of weeks, or so.
A
final comment: next year’s North American Casting Championships will be
hosted by the Golden Gate Casting Club in San Francisco, one of the oldest and
most revered clubs in the world and certainly one worth making an effort to
see if you have any idea at all of taking your casting expertise to the next
level. There are folks who travel from all over the world just to
see their historical club-house and gorgeous casting ponds.
If
you would like to plan your holidays accordingly, as usual, the tournament
will be on the first week of August. I
can state quite confidently that we have at least eight or ten casters in the
club who could easily place in the top ten in several of the disciplines and
possibly, even in the medals. Just
think for a moment, what other sport could you qualify so easily to achieve
that level in? Please
contact me for any further information if you are interested and we will
assist you in establishing a training schedule accordingly to help you achieve
your goal.
Cheers,
Gord
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