Isle of Lewis trip

After a 3 hour drive to Manchester an hour’s wait I started my trip to The Isle of Lewis. The first hurdle was to get through Flybee check in and to my astonishment they charged me £30 extra to get 2 rods into the hold- "sporting equipment " but after 2 short flights and a little bumpy landing I had arrived .

We started the first course at 5.30 in windy condition and just to make it more difficult it rained as well after 3 hours we went inside and did theory for an hour. The next day Ian and I spent the day fishing for salmon and I managed one tough day but there were a few fish about. Then in the evening it was the second course and we did it on the football pitch under floodlights a great evening even though it was raining.

Thursday Ian, Eric and I went fishing and boy what a day 7 salmon and a few lost we had to leave the river as I had to go and teach the last lesson and it was very hard leaving the river when it was full of fish, but we just about made it with 5min to spare.

I flew back on Friday and went straight to Harewood house for the Yorkshire Game Fair and it was a good weekend except when I opened my rod tube to do the first demo on Saturday only to find the Flybee had smashed my rod in transit, thankfully I had put a spare in the car.

Thank you to everybody who attended the courses and to everybody who and watched the demos at the show.

Since the last time I wrote I have done a fair few miles- first and the closest day was on Clywedog reservoir and we had a great day but it was very frustrating until we switched to dries and then it was easy. Best fly was a black shuttlecock on a size 12.
After that it was off to Higham Lake in Newcastle do do an open day so it was a 3am start and a long drive but the day was great dry with some strong wind!!. Not as many fish caught as last year but still a good day and a long drive home at night.
I then taught at Garnffrwd where the fishing was challenging but enjoyable and Geoff had a great day catching some beautiful browns my best fish was a brown around 3lb what a great looking fish.
I was then out on Rutland with Andy and what a tough day- very strong wind and the basin was out of bounds due to the big wave-the South arm looked more like the North Sea with white horses all the way up, so we spent most of the day fishing up the North Arm all the way down from the Transformer just doing shortish drifts keeping in the lee of the bank. There were some big fish hitting fry all the way down but it was the case of being in the right place at the right time. Luckily we did and caught some nice fish. Best flies were white minkies as well as a black blob on the top dropper. It was a good day in testing conditions.
The next day I went to see the start of the International match on Trawsfynydd and was going to be taking a few photo's but one of the boatmen did not turn up so I ended up boating for the day. It was a nice day with Spencer Williams ( Wales) and Nick Dunn (England) . It was a very close competition with Scotland and England catching 60 fish Wales 57 and Ireland caught 37 fish. Scotland came out on top only by 5oz.
After this it was off to the Midland Game Fair Tanya and myself spent over an hour putting the awning up as she is only 6 it was a tough job.
The next two days we had great demos and the PAA coaches were there teaching children how to catch fish and it was great to see the smiles on there faces when they did catch. Thank you to everybody who came and said hello and to everybody who supported the area.
Just been teaching this morning and had a few hours out in heavy rain oh the joys!!!! Now packing my stuff Flying off to the Isle of Lewis in the morning cant wait

Its been a few day's since my last post and it has been a hectik week or so. First Yas and I travelled to the Fenland Fair early hours of Sunday morning and had a great trip 4 hours from home to the show!!! Boy the rods were quiet. The show was spoiled a bit by showers on the Sunday one while we were doing a demo and guess who forgot his waterproofs!!!
The two day show was well attended even with the gale force winds over the two days- some gazebo's were blown away on Sunday and sleeping in a tent was an adventure even had to put the car as a wind break.
Then it was strait off to the Dee to guide Ren seen above with one of his grayling all caught on dries. Best fly was black F fly size 18.
I went from there strait to Rutland to practice for the Lexus final, two days of great fishing followed by a frustrating two days of competition. The first day I was out with John Emmerson and had a fantastic time up in Manton catching over 15 fish on a floating line and nymphs unfortunately half way through the next day it colored up and was no good for the comp. Day two Steve Peart and myself found a lot of fish in the dam as well as Old Hall flats.
So on comp day I went off to the dam and had a very frustrating day with fish after fish being lost only to end the day with 7 fish. Day two was much the same but not as many fish hooked and lost. Best method was intermediate or midge tip with a booby on the point with nymphs up the cast
The eventual winners were Tight lines with a great second day performance Second was Rio Masters and third were Nymphomaniacs that makes it two Welsh teams in the top three well done boys.