We’re a week late with the August Reel Thing, because Sheila, George Monroe and I just came back from Long Beach, California after competing in the North American Fly and Bait Casting Championships. I said we were competing, but actually it was George who was the most competitive. In only his second year of casting and second National, he managed a number of personal bests and won his first A.C.A. award for finishing in sixth place in the open men’s division of the two-hand spinning distance discipline, beating his coach (me) quite handily in the process.

          Sheila did not perform up to her normal standards, once again firing a cast at the wrong target in the plug accuracy. She was unfortunately unable to overcome the disappointment of the error, as she had been stroking her casts beautifully and was on the way to a possible winning score up to that point.  I carelessly left half my medicine at home when packing for the trip and paid the price with a number of physical problems, even though still collecting three medals in the distance games. Oh well, I’ll be eighty in a couple of years and maybe by then I’ll have learned to be more careful when packing for fishing and casting trips……then I’ll have another go at kicking George’s and some  of the other guy’s butts.

          Our club have submitted an official, but provisional bid to host the tournament next year. The main proviso will be the enthusiasm, or lack thereof, of the club members when they digest everything that I have to tell them about the responsibilities of our going through with the project. We pulled it off beautifully in 1995 and I believe we could do it again and probably even better.

          In Long Beach, with absolutely gorgeous weather conditions all week, quite a few outstanding results were achieved and many records set. I won’t begin to list them all here, leaving that for the A.C.A.’S Creel bulletin to describe, but must mention the phenomenal casting, once again of world champion, Steve Rajeff and All-everything senior champion, Zack Willson. It is worth the cost of participating in these events just to see these and a number of other great fly and bait casters perform.

          The last of the special Collector Editions of my new book, Memories of Magical Waters, is gone, but of course the regular editions can still be purchased in the book stores, or from me if you want to save the taxes. They sell for a couple of bucks less than the Collector Editions. I only have those that I put to one side for those folks that asked for them, but haven’t had the opportunity to pick them up as of yet.

          Not much to report fishing-wise (there’ll be plenty to tell you about when we return from Northern Quebec and the Broadback River in September) but Ray Cockburn snared a nice brown while fishing with Jurgen yesterday, before he drove to the airport to pick Sheila and me up. Haven’t heard how Patrick did out on the west coast, but Tas also made the hike to B.C. and he and his missus both caught enough salmon to keep them happy. Maybe we’ll get up to Haliburton for a day on Limit Lake in the next week or so before we head off into the wilds of Quebec. Anybody game for that one?

          We’ll be at the pond for two more Thursday evenings of practice casting, then the targets will be packed away until next May, giving way to our shop activities and indoor practices at the gym, beginning in September. We should be preparing the fall and winter schedule shortly. At this point, we would like to invite all casters from the other clubs in Toronto and vicinity to join us as guests on any of our Thursday evening sessions in our large double-gym. We’ll try to have the schedule ready for the next club bulletin…..which most of the other casters receive, along with our own club members.

          Rick Matusiak, probably the best fisherman in the club with record catches to his name, including browns over thirty pounds, ‘bows over twenty and Atlantic Salmon, also over twenty, all caught within a couple of hours of Toronto, has invited all the club members to join him and his wife, Rosemarie, for a swim and B.B.Q. get-together at his beautiful home on Sunday afternoon, August 20^th. Rick is going all out to make this a memorable day for us all and none of us should miss out on the chance to see his trophies as well as a nine pound brown he has raised, swimming in a tiny pond in his back yard, along with several tiger trout crosses. Seeing these fish is truly a remarkable experience.

          Lee Pantridge and Tas Candaras are working hard on their casting prowess in order to take advantage of the potential on our up-coming trip to the Broadback. As most of you already know, or have read in one of my books or another, there are world record brookies in the flow up there and this will be our 24^th trip to the wonderful river attempting to snare one of them.