I have read the castingsport website and to be honest I was totally baffled by half of it. Perhaps Torsten and Jay could give us all a rundown on the various events and what is needed to compete in them?.
Mike I'll do the best I can to briefly describe the ICSF events. In the next threads I'll talk about the other organizations.
Castingsport, 9 events, 3 fly games and 6 plug games.
Event #1 - Fly accuracy (Skish Fly), there are 5 targets that are laid out at an angle away from the caster. You go through the course 4 times. Bsaically the first 2x you go in one target order w/ false casting, second 2 rounds are a different target order without false casting. The tackle requirements are minimal, pretty much whatever you have laying around will work. Pessimists say it isn't a good game because it isn't close enough to fishing. I think that's true but it is excellent for teaching line handling techniques.
Event #2 - Single hand fly distance, Reguires a heavy shooting head of 38g and a minimum length of 15m. Unfortunately because of the weight of the line you need a minimum of probably a 12wt rod to cast it. Specialty rods built for that purpose are usually prefered.
Event # 6 - Double Hand fly distance, Heavy shooting head also of 120g, with a max rod length of 17'. Specialty rods again are prefered,l 16' 12wt spey rod can handle it to a degree.
Event # 3- Arenberg, Any spinning rod and reel for a 7.5g plug, casts are made underhand, backhand, forehand, and overhead. Distances to the target are 10m-18m.
Event #4 - Spinning accuracy, same outfit as #3 but all overhead casts
Event #5 - 7.5g Spinning distance, 8'2" rod with .18mm line
Event #7- 18g double hand spinning distance, .25mm line
Event #8 - 18g Baitcasting accuracy, same course as #4
Event #9 - 18g double hand baitcasting distance ( my favorite event )
And thanks, I don't think the ICSF sounds my kind of thing, I'm not knocking it but it just isn't me. What does 'skish' mean?.
Now, what about the ACA? . I think we need a comp where any competant flycaster can come and enjoy testing his skills in events that are relevent to them.
Mike
it's casting Jim, but not as we know it, according to EFFA
Mike,
I think "skish" is an acronym for a non-English phrase, somebody told me once but I don't remember what it is was or which language. Here we use it to describe to the target layout or target casting order (3-1-4-2-5).
I understand it's not for everybody, there are a lot of things I don't like about it either and there are a lot of things about it that I have grown to like. Isn't that pretty much true with everything in life ?
I already compete against some of the best flycasters in the world, just not enough .
It's ten or more years since I did any surfcasting and I am too old to get into it competitively.
My personal choice is flycasting, thats what I want to be good at.
What happens in Europe?, are there regular comps?, are there national championships?. if not, why not? whats going on here.
Perhaps we could start a list of shows and events that have flycasting competitions.
I assume one of the reasons for adding this forum is to promote competition, fine, lets get promoting.
Jay, I have a dvd of the EWM and the World Championships that shows a full line distance event, was that 7 weight?. I made enquiries before the event and no one could tell me what weight the event was, only that we had to use a line supplied by the organisers.
Mike
it's casting Jim, but not as we know it, according to EFFA
I wasn't suggesting that you took up lead slinging - far too strenuous. I was referring tot he ICSF events, of which there seems to be a whole host of events in Europs almost on a fortnightly basis.
The Scandnavian countries also have the 'Guide-line Cup' not sure what is included there. http://www.castingforbundet.no/ my Norweigan isn't too hot.
The only UK thing is the BFCC and ths CLA events, again it comes down to organisation.
i would love to see some sort of flycasting event in the uk i am aiming to go to the ICSFnext year if i can get the funds together but some qualifiers and a final at a game fair or something would be good
Mike,
A list of comps is a good idea. They are all over the place these days but there is no one resource for information about them. The other thing is you sorta have to take what you can get. That's one reason why I like to be involved in so many different forms of casting so I can take advantage of tournaments when they come up rather than just wait for my favorite events.
That was supposed to be a 7wt at the EWM although I heard it weighed more like an 8.5wt, it felt pretty heavy to me. It wasn't a well designed distance line like an XXD. To me it was just plain work to get it out there. That event and the salmon fly distance were modeled after the guideline cup events as far as I know.
The lines were provided, I got mine like a week or two before the tournament which was kind of a screwed deal.
Thanks Jay,
I beleive purpose of new Casting sport Forum should be to inform us about ICSF rules and to introduce new discipline in ICSF events called 9' #5 distance with "normal " fly fishing tackle.
Then Olympics can be interesting.
Is there any chance for it?
The introduction of the EWM events last year was to bring back 'over water' events to try and increase the 'spectator' appeal - as it was held in Ireland, sometimes it was difficult to see the fly land or was it a large piece of Irish sunshine that gets you wet.
5# & 7# events are more a kin to fishing and itf you look at the ICSF being the Decathlon it would very similar to adding events like Rhythmic Gymnastics & Badminton' to the list.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the promotion of the sport, introducing the lighter lines and maybe selecting best 9 from 12 to determine the 'All around Winner'.
Curently there are only 3 events in the IWGA (International World Games Association) which is the feeder arena to the Olympics. http://www.worldgames-iwga.org/
Everything needs organisers and onb our island there just isn't enough of them. Many other countries have training camps and trainers, not here this maybe where it needs kicking up the rear end.
I can't imagine that the EWM games get ever international. AFAIK only a small fraction of the casting sport guys have paricipated and I don't see that the ICSF would include anything about that in the near future, this includes the #5/#7 games. I'm beginning to know how it works here and they're very conservative.
The promotion of the sport is really a problem - I'm wondering why they do not more advertising. I don't think that the line classes are a big problem - when the spectator is not really an insider I think it's far more impressive to see one launch a 200ft. cast than a 120ft. with #5 gear.
And for me is the T38 game at least as challenging as the #5 game - perhaps even more.
Yes, we have here a complex system of trainers / referees etc. But that's makes it not easy for an newby like me - I've to reach a "performance norm" of 440 points that they allow me to go to the german championships.
Bye..
Torsten
^^ Warning: The above text contains misspellings, grammatical errors and of course nonsense.
. I think we need a comp where any competant flycaster can come and enjoy testing his skills in events that are relevent to them.
this maybe where it needs kicking up the rear end.