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
1st – 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.
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