THE second Jersey Dry Casting Open Tournament held at Grouville on Saturday and Sunday produced an overall win for the furthest distance cast for the UK’s Tony Jones with a massive 250.23m.

Second was Jersey’s Keith White with a distance of 243.12m and third was Mark Jakins, also from the UK, with a distance of 240.37m.

With a north to north-east wind to help them on Saturday, compared to a cross-course wind and rain on Sunday, the main prizes were won on the first day of competition when virtually every one of the competitors, including 11 from England, were casting distances in excess of 220m.

‘To give you an example of how far they were casting, Tom Ozanne, a competitor from Guernsey, scored a personal best of 224.9m on Saturday at his very first attempt, setting a new Guernsey record,’ said organiser and competitor White.

‘For some reason a north to north-east wind and low pressure helps competitors cast their lines that bit further, although Sunday’s weather was that much poorer.

‘In the heavy aggregate category (weights of 125, 150 and 175 gm), Tony Jones also came first while I finished second with Mark Jakins third.’ In the lightweight class (50gm, 75gm and 100gm) former UK champion Roger Mortimore was first followed by Mark Jakins while this time I was in third place.

‘Meanwhile, in the overall Surf Casting Federation Aggregate, Tony Jones was again first, ahead of me, followed by Roger Mortimore.

That was in the best four from six casts in the open field.’ In Saturday’s one-off 18gm plug casting competition, White won with a distance of 125.15m, as he finished ahead of John Hodgson (123.28m) and Dave Venables (113.28m) but all of the competitors spoke highly of the venue, and the distances they were achieving, not least because virtually all of them were achieving PBs or going very close to Island and British records.

‘What this has proved to the Jersey Casting Club is that we have competitors who are on a par with anyone else at national and world level,’ said White.

‘And the distances we are achieving are hard to imagine.

But, to give you an idea, imagine throwing a line from Hill Street, down Halkett Place and past the Library.

There have been some phenomenal distances cast.

What I’d like to see next is a Channel Islands team in the World championships and, maybe at some stage in the future, to bring the World championships to Jersey.’