road trip to the BFFI

ROAD TRIP

 The annual British fly fair came around again and I was honoured to be demonstrating pike fly tying for nick at the deercreek stand and not only myself this year the destroyer was going to be tying as well, along with the totally bezerk andy saunders (he of stunning trooty type things) along with Christopher rawle doing seatrout flies and of course dai on tiers row doing his thing it was certainly a good line up for deercreek .

Myself and the destroyer were travelling down early evening on the Friday night so we can pick up alan (the destroyers other fishing companion) and Scott Kane who was tying on tiers row sowing of his skills with Clyde style patterns (and bloody good at them he is as well and it helps with the petrol costs splitting it between 4 people so a 4 pm pick up was arranged for me then everyone else after that, there was time for a quick fish and chips from the destroyers local before we headed off for the rest of the crew.

My overnight case packed and ready , fly tying wise all I needed was my vice threads and that was about it everything else was provided now …………cheers nick

Now you may notice a gap here between leaving the destroyers house and arriving at the hotel at midnight well that’s because it was carnage and I couldn't possible repeat what was going on down the m6 ….

I also had a box of various gliss and glint plus pike flies for display, always nice for folks to see the product and what can be done with it and there was a lot of interest thanks if you were one of the many I spoke too

So here an I set up and ready to go , last year I was tying from pretty much as soon as the doors opened till they shut so I knew it would be a busy day although last year I had only done the Sunday and not the Saturday so was looking forward to doing the full weekend and this year the stand looked great with lots more room for people to browse than last year and also enough room for 3 tiers to go at it at the same time now that’s value for money .

Andy saunders doing his best serial killer look

 A bit of a slow start but people tend to wander through quite slowly

 

Our glorious leader, as we like to affectionately call him breaking into a smile just at the back of him was a chap who made fly rods with some pretty nifty handles, I forget his name though 

 Check all the lovely capes behind me , these belong to castle feathers and they have a stunning range of capes some rare and some not so rare they sell on ebay just under castlefeathers if you want to check em out and lots of lovely gliss and glint plus on the other side of me …….

The destroyer occupied my seat for a while I think he was pretending he was me if the truth be 

Dai jones on tiers row well he was until someone shouted beer 

Nice to meet Dominic garnett he of fly fishing for coarse fish book fame really nice chap and wish I had more time to pick his brains regarding roach fishing but I had tying to do and dominic had his own stall to get back to

Busyness on the stand and as myself andy and the destroyer had a break rich Johnson his son oliver along with chis rawle to over the tying duties , young oliver is one to watch for the future as he makes some pretty mean flies already watch this space 

The very talented my rawe with some sea trout flies fascinating watching him work and nice to meet him also check out his box of awesomeness 

(below) Chris and rich being very neat and tidy unlike the pigs breakfast mess that me rich and andy left seriously we have some serious tidiness issues 

There was also some great tiers on tiers row 

Including scott kane who managed to tie the worlds biggest dry fly made from stolen manhole covers.

So with that the bffi 2013 came to an end and we had a blast, if you haven’t been before you really should go. Its great looking and buying stuff on the net seeing and being able to touch product is fantastic and the atmosphere is great, people are really friendly I do have one gripe though

1^st – zero mobile phone signal in the venue this is a major drawback not only for stall holders who want to use credit card machines but also for folks that want to use there credit cards , the nearest

Cash machine is in the venue next door and I did here quite a few people complaining about that

And for the tiers from over the world it’s great to be able to keep in touch with family while you are

 There, hopefully this will be looked into; in this day and age there really should be no excuse for this and im sure it would boost the amount of people not only attending but of dealers attending.

 Of course before we I left I went back to my touring rock and roll days by making the shape of a body under the duvet from pillows when the cleaner come in to do the room there never quite sure what to do in case either somebody is still asleep or has been murdered, I know petty but sometimes it has to be done.

So we tanked up the m6 looking forward to our favorite burger break just before the border of Scotland where we tuck into a couple of double Angus steak with cheese and bacon burger , this Goliath burger is all that’s needed for the final leg of the trip and before long the air changed (cheers from the back of the car) you really can smell the difference as you cross into Scotland the air is defiantly sweeter smelling although that soon changed as the 4 burgers started to work the system of the great unwashed in the car but that’s another story

Wee davy (scott kane) fell asleep in the back of the car never really a good thing with us lot and if it wasn’t the fact he woke himself up with his own snoring he may have been missing an eyebrow

so with that I got home and cracked open a late night beer and realised that in the morning I would have to settle back into the family life school runs and stuff back the next day I was back at the vice roll on next year

tight lines see ya in a couple of weeks for something really cool

mcfluffchucker

(a cave in scotland)

*ive had t

 Edit quite a lot of the trip because quite frankly I cant publish the exploits of some of us (andy saunders) but im sure you’ll get the idea and after meeting Mr Saunders I shall now be taking counselling for a very long time