I cant believe its been nearly three weeks since I sat down and wrote a piece for here !!! How time flies when you are traveling around!!
Pictured left is the group from Johnson Mattey at Barnsfold lakes and what a day. On the top of the one lake it was beautiful with fish rising and easy to cast while down both banks and the second lake it was fishing but survival fishing. Harder to keep your balance than cast. A great day with everybody going home happy and having caught a few fish.
Then I had a great day on Stocks good fishing in the morning but boy was it cold with a capital C!!!!
Then I drove north to Scotland for a meeting and saw some fantastic venues for fishing and teaching- more to come on that( Watch this space). I then travelled to Finland for my first ever show over there with Eumer Tube flies and had a great few days even though most of the people did not understand what this excited Welshman was going on about at least they laughed in the right places. Had a few day guiding on Rutland as well and am glad to see that the brown algae has nearly gone, but why has May been such a bad month- high winds canceled matches and torrential rain not that we didn't need the last one. One great posotive from this month is that my You Tube views are going up and Aaron is working hard to get the next clips ready to put up. If you have anything you would like me to cover please post on the page http://www.youtube.com/user/HMFlyFishing
Tight Lines

Ospreys Fly fishing club sat with Davy Hodgson's parents, sister and brother in law before his memorial match on Rutland water last sunday.

A great day was had by all even though the fishing was very hard, and the day for me was not about catching fish as we were there to celebrate the memory of a true gent and great friend. I had a wonderful days fishing with Julie Emerson and she beat me 1-0 ah well who cares. Most anglers found the conditions hard with a few exceptions. The eventual winner was Ronnie Gent with a bag of 7 fish weighing 17lb2oz second was last years champion John Emerson with a bag of 8 fish weighing 16lb6oz. This was a great effort by John as he was caught short out on the water and had to rush in to the lodge to answer a call of nature ( Cant go into details far to messy ). He then went back out and bagged up well done mate. Third was Paul Shaw who is on a roll at the moment- last year he won the Brown bowl in the international then only a few days before this match he won the Bob Church Classic. Best fish also went to Ronnie Gent a beautiful rainbow weighing 4lb13oz. Top lady was Hillary Thomlinson.
The Ospreys would like to thank everybody who fished the competition as well as all the sponsors - Guide Fly fishing- Hardy Greys- Stocks - Anglian Water- Fulling Mill.
From me a thanks must go to Steve Smalley who does all the admin and takes the entries great job mate and to Stevy Peart great cooking on Saturday night mate- you have got yourself a job now Catering manager for the club.
The best moment of the whole weekend for me was watching Joyce ( Davy's Mum) presenting the trophy to Ronnie Gent- not many dry eye's around.

In this picture I was out filming for my new river DVD and you see Aaron (director) trying to walk on water and Alan ( camera man) trying to dig a hole in the river !!!!
We had a great days filming but the fish played hard to get, there were a few fish feeding in the glide but more in the really fast water which I fished with a Klinkhammer and caught some nice browns. We did wait on to see if there would be an evening rise but the wind got up and beat us!!!!!
We also spent a day on Llandegfedd filming some bank fishing and boy that was tough!!!!! Very bright and North east wind- not good for fishing but did manage to winkle out 3 rainbows and a nice perch. The best method was Di5 with cat booby. Both of the above DVD's will be out before Christmas.
I have also been fishing on Draycott which has reopened after a year of being closed and can say that it is back to its best. We spent a day just fishing and having fun- cant really say how many we caught but I do know that I landed over 10 double ups!!!! The best method was an intermediate line with a cormorant on the top dropper, red diawl, cruncher and a tequila booby on the point
Getting ready to go to Rutland this weekend to fish the Davy Hodgson memorial match, still can believe I will never fish with him again. He is sorely missed by the Ospreys and we will be raising a glass in his memory on Saturday night at Rutland so if you are around and knew Davy come and have a drink with us.