It was with great excitement that The Welsh Hawks set off for the grand final of the Airflo Open championship at RUTLAND water. Now this event holds a certain amount of magic with plenty of history! It first began way back in the mid-80s, back then it was sponsored by Benson and Hedges but obviously with the ban on advertising quite a few other sponsors have come and gone over the years. It's now been taken on by Airflo who...
I've written many reports on how a team or very occasionally individually the build up goes for a competition, but on this occasion and particularly with such a high profile match as The Fly Shop Invitational event being held at Clywedog here is a small insight into how we approach organising such an event! As the fishery goes the dates are set a year in advance with invites going out in early February to relevant team captains. Once that's sorted myself...
Last spring, we the Fly Shop Welsh Hawks were 2nd at the Airflo Spring Invitational, a great result but we really wanted gold. We took that frustration out during the Autumn International match, picking up the trophy for the third time. However, we wanted our name on the Spring Trophy. As such, the team prepared and practiced hard for the May Airflo Spring Invitational held on Rutland Water from 6th to 8th May 2022. Practice really started a good month...
I have been waiting patiently for the weather to cool a little over here in England before targeting the reservoir Browns. Although it wasn’t a blisteringly hot August, it was still hot enough to make our big reservoirs a little tricky. When hunting big browns, you need the odds to be in your favour. Ideally, we need cool but also clear water. With the recent heat, Pitsford Reservoir had turned a little green with algae making targeting browns over the weed...
This morning I woke up and realised it wasn’t 5 am and Wullie & Scotty weren’t churning out flies at their vices. There was no laughing or practical jokes and Kevin’s coffee machine wasn’t churning out Latte’s. Our annual trip to Llyn Clywedog was well and truly over . We all arrived last Tuesday night, buzzing with excitement. All reports and info had been gathered and we couldn’t wait to hit the lake first thing Wednesday morning. The lake itself is...
Our annual trip across the pond to Wales could not come quick enough as many of our competitions had been cancelled or postponed. We were waiting in eager anticipation to get all the gear packed up and the road trip started! After the excellent fishing on Clywedog last year we were all excited to get back out on the water. When we reached our accommodation at Hafren Forest Bunkhouse we were greeted by Sarah and Darren who were excellent hosts for...
So the dust is starting to settle on another big final down on the big pond! After each match I fish on Rutland I appreciate the enormity of the place, traveling back to the dock at the end of day 2 you could see boats coming back from the top of the mighty south arm boats rounding the corner of the peninsula from the north arm and boats converging from the 2 corners of the dam. Our event started early Tuesday morning...
It is fair to say the team was just a little bit excited about the prospects of 3 days practice and 2 days competing at the Airflo Spring Invitational International Competition which was held at the mighty Rutland Water. The last time the Welsh Hawks competed as a Team on Rutland at was back in October 2019! The first day of practice was hard. It was 28 degrees and bright sun. We split the team into three areas; North Arm, Bowl...
As it has been a long winter with everything that has been going on it is always great to see the month of March and the beginning of the brown trout season for most of us. With more flies tied during these lockdown months than I could fish in a lifetime, the itch to get on the water needed to be scratched! Having reviewed the weather forecasts for the forthcoming days a trip to Lower Lough Erne was set. The weather was...
On March 12th I get a phone call: "Drakeford's lifted restrictions on local outdoor activities, Traws will be open next weekend!", it's my good mate Llion Jones; a new angler who I've been teaching to Fly Fish for little over a year and someone who has quickly exceeded my addiction to the craft! Llyn Trawsfynydd ('Traws' as many of us refer to it), is a 1,180 acre lake in Gwynedd, North Wales. Normally its banks would have welcomed trout and pike...
