2008 Fly Season

The BIG weekend of the year approaches. With over 50 of the worlds best fly tiers in attendance (their words) Held at the Trentham Gardens Exhibition centre from 9 yo 4 30 each day over the weekend of 1st/2nd november, BFFI is a great day or two out for anyone with the slightest intertest in fly fishing. The stands and stalls offer everything from top end holidays to cheap and cheerful odds and ends. The Lecture theaters are always full of interesting and informed people giving talks on fishing fly tying and new tackle. I am helping out on the "any Questions" Fly Tying row again this year and look forward to meeting someone who has actually read this blog!
IF you have any interest at all in fly tying come along. See you there
I will be posting photos and news from the show on my website
www.fishingclass.co.uk

Well another season draws to a close and with the falling leaves come the realisation that I'm not only another year older but also have failed to fulfill the majority of my plans for 2008. I apologise to anyone who thought this blog would be a regular and imformative piece, I'm afraid the realities of life have resulted in me ignoring it for long periods and forgetting to add detaiuls of my trips. I ended the competition season with 4 trips to bewl in a 4 week period, Starting with the Grand Max floating line and the first police match, both of which I hjave actually written about and ending up with a "Fishing for Fun" day out and the final police match. The FFF day was a disaster, Galeforce winds and bright sunny conditions made presentation a nightmare. I actually caught 2 fish one of which a 3 .14 grown on fish was probably the most perfect fish I have ever caught in terms of proportion, colouration and sheer animal beauty. My Boat partner managed one fish and from the additional 10 anglers only one more fish was taken. The following Wednesday saw us fishing the final police match. With the series all but decided I was fishing for pride and started out near the dam with a floating line, a white fritz lure on the point took three fish for me by lunch time. At lunch eveyone else was struggling although Mark had found some fish rising and the start of a sedge hatch. After lunch he quickly took advantage of these fish and caught three on dry sedges including a 4lb plus fish. I struggled all afternoon finally getting two more fish at 4 45pm on a cormorant. We decided to stay till 6pm as it was a lovely evening and of course, caught nothing at all in the final hour. Mark ended up with 4 fish and his big fish pushed him into first place by 2 ounces.
I still have a few weeks left at Flanchford and am looking forward to the fly fair over the first weekend of October. Once thats over its Grayling time and I hope to hit the Salisbury and District waters this winter. Lots of new stuff has been added to my web site and I now have several new items of tying material in stock.
Tight lines to all