We had a great day at the British Fly Fair last Saturday which began when Dave Chilton and Eddie Bibby picked up me and Dave Colclough from my house. The Fly Fair is held at Trentham, which is only a mere 10 miles or so from my village in Stoke on Trent, so we there in about 15 minutes and viewing the great array of gear from rods and reels to books and fly tying materials, and enjoying the demos.
Many of the ‘flies’ had less chance of catching fish than the sole of my shoe, but that’s not the point in most cases, as the fly tyers were there to demonstrate their considerable skills, which they did in no uncertain fashion.
The best part for us was seeing Hywel Morgan casting a fly line and having a brief lesson from him. To see him cast was mesmerising as before Saturday I was sure that the USA’s Lefty Kreh was the best. Now I’m not so sure for Hywel made that fly line talk and did it with so little effort you wondered what the secret was. No secret of course, but just an exceptional natural ability, honed over the years to a near magical standard. So just who is Hywel Morgan? Hywel is the son of Welsh fishing guru Moc Morgan and perhaps unsurprisingly he was introduced to the pleasures of fishing at an exceptionally early age.
He first wet a line at just two and a half years of age and spent his early years fishing the Rivers Teifi and Ystwyth for wild brown trout and sea trout. Since then he has fished extensively throughout the UK, Europe, Australia and in the USA. Having grown up in his father’s shadow, Hywel decided to make a name for himself and started competing in casting competitions. He started at local country fairs, then progressed to the CLA Game Fair where for three successive years he won every event. As a result he was asked not to compete any more so that others could have a chance of winning… and all this before he was sixteen years old.
He then turned to the British Casting Association and started to compete at British, European and World casting championships. During this time he amassed the following titles: World Games Accuracy Casting Champion He has represented Wales on twelve occasions (and has been captain for his country three times). Six times were at home internationals, where he was Top Rod on three occasions. The other six were at World Championships, where he captained the Welsh team to a silver medal in Ireland in 1995 and was a member of the silver medal winning team at England 2000. For more information visit Hywel’s web site: www.hywelmorgan.co.uk Disappointing this year was that there were few stalls selling flies, although the fly tying demonstrations were brilliant and a joy to behold. The talks and slide shows drew big crowds too, especially the one that showed some mouth-watering fishing in Australia.
There were other crafts on display, one that caught my interest was Chris Ward who had turned rod whipping into an art form, being able to form shapes of birds and other symbols into his craft. Chris is a custom rod builder from Hampshire.
It was a good show all round, much better than previous years now that fly casting has been introduced, and with fly casters of Hywel Morgan’s standard being available to chat to for no extra charge it made a good day into an excellent one.
Make sure you get to it next year. It’s well worth the £ 7.50 entry fee. And on top of that you may just pick up a bargain as I did when I bought a recently published book on fly tying for £ 16.99 and was given 500 good quality hooks worth £ 15.00. Now that can’t be bad. |
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