Well, that was two days that went by just far too quickly
I have never entered a Spey casting competition before and having neither fished nor seriously practised prior to the event I confess I was a smidgen worried about making a complete and utter arse of myself.
The first day sort of revealed that it was really quite unlikely that I'd make the final 6 casters for the men’s final and I didn't fancy having a quick sex change in time to win the ladies, so Saturday was always going to be more a day for the 'craic' and to see the final. That said, in the difficult (bloody awful, actually) wind conditions of the morning I did beat 2 of the Norwegians and Andrew Toft with a truly mega cast of 32.5 metres....... yes folks, it was
that windy
Even worse the wind was pretty much in your face the whole time so if you got a cast off that might have gone 45+ metres seeing it getting blown back at you (like a bullet, didn't have chance to move, couldn’t protect myself, fly hit me straight between the eyes....) was demoralising for every caster.
Fortunately, for the finals, the wind abated and actually became slightly favourable as the afternoon wore on.
The ladies final was contested by just two entrants. Ally Bremner an accomplished caster and instructor from the borders and Donna O'Sullivan from near San Francisco. Donna is a hugely respected instructor and internationally known tournament caster, she is a member at the Golden Gate Casting Club in the 'States which hosts the prestigious Speyorama event. Although diminutive in stature Donna's casting is mighty! Ally was up against it and whilst they traded best distances across the three qualifying sessions it was ultimately Donna that prevailed in the final.
In the mens final there was Martin Kiely from Ireland, Lee Cummings from Cumbria, Jarle Strandberg from Norway, Andrew Toft from Scotland, Vidar Næss from Norway and also from Norway Geir Hansen who just happens to be the world record holder with the 15' rods in use for the competition. I should
maybe mention of the 6 casters in the men’s final that all 6 have been or are world record holders and international competition winners.... a prestigious group in anyone’s opinion.
The final was run in reverse order with Martin casting first then Lee, Jarle, Andrew, Vidar and finally Geir. All had occasionally testing conditions in their allotted 5 minutes and, probably, Lee more than any one of them. The distances were down on the Friday qualifying but ultimately Geir won with a cast of 52 metres. The other two Norwegians were tied on 46 metres and had to have a ‘cast off’ to sort out second and third places, Vidar won that battle with 47.5 metres.
After a quick series of photos and an initial prize giving everyone went to decompress (or just go fishing!) until the formal reception at the Inverness Council Town House in the evening with the Provost hosting. A speech and the formal handing over of the Quaich made for each of the winners of the casting competition were made by the great-grandson of Alexander Grant. In a nice touch all the casting competition entrants took away a fine bottle of malt whisky – I may have had a glass when I got home. The reception formally closed the inaugural Scottish Salmon Festival which, I have to say, appears to have been quite a success. I didn’t see all the stuff going on but took the time to meet and greet folk and friends who were either tying flies in the main marquee or manning stands from fisheries trusts and other organisations. I spent some time with the guys from Marine Harvest and we had some frank discussions about the damage to the ecology some fish farms have caused, the sea lice issue and other ‘stuff’. Of particular interest to me was the sea lice issue, work that I was involved in 28 years ago – the introduction of wrasse to fish farm cages to remove sea lice from salmon – appears to have taken a major step forward recently. I’ll watch with interest.
All in I think it was a cracking event, a few niggles here and there(certainly in terms of advertising, which was dire to be honest) but the work put in by the Inverness Angling Club was significant and they should be credited for doing a stand-out job. It’s plausible a Salmon Festival will be held again and I think there’s an enthusiasm amongst the club committee to see a number of casting competitions held again with an international trophy competition as the flagship event. We’ll see.
I met some great folk, made some new friends and generally had a blast!
Some pics to follow once they're sorted out.
H
