Last weekend saw me at the British Fly Fair International at the Shropshire show ground and I wasn’t just looking. A few months ago I was invited to sit on tyers row and it gave me something to look forward to but I was a bit nervous to start. Very quickly I felt at ease and found that it was a lot of fun and soon got into the swing of this. I learnt a lot having never tied at one of these events before, first thing is that I need to improve my display, corks with flies stuck in are out and I need to find something else. Possibly a nice piece of tree branch that is polished. The flies I had on show were a had alot of interest, I may have to get more done to add variety as well as few more for sale. I also picked up a few ideas from others, the hi float fibre in particular got a lot of interest, including Marc Petitjean who showed me a neat little needle fly when he invited me over to his vice.
Being a new comer to the tyers row scene I was made to feel welcome, particularly by the guys in the hotel whom I met Friday night gathered around their vices in the bar. It wasn’t very hard to find other tyers staying in the same location.
I also picked up some hooks from the partridge stand to try (I was sat opposite and was very tempted), including some really big hooks for the stripers and long shank saltwater hooks to hopefully replace the mustard which lot seem to be a pain to get in this country. The opportunity to get a decent blue dun cape also presented itself and a variant at that. Jon Strand , a new Norwegian friend also showed me some rabbit feet that are product of food production which have a very similar make up to snow site rabbit, so I bought some.
I did get a chance to have a look around what the other tyers were up to. I noticed that there was a lot of different styles this year with hand held tying, huge pike flies, tiny little midges and a few realistics. A large tarantula caught my eye, something to aspire to. A couple of friends turned up and it was nice to them. Keith Passant was there with Casting for Recovery which I support and most get a few flies to.
After the show, while I was waiting for the bus back to the hotel to get the car I spoke to someone about the Irish fly show and he suggested that if I was interested to email him, done!
Will I be back? To right (and if they have me back).
Ashley
Shoestring flyfisher 