Paul Arden | Monday, 13 April 2015
I'm just back from a weekend in Denmark at the Fly Festival, which was as always a superbly organised event, with approximately 2000 visitors over the weekend. And this year it was warmer than the previous event, where the outdoor casting pools had frozen! It was a great time and fun to meet up with many friends again and talk fishing. I hadn't seen Simon Gawesworth in ages so it was great to meet up again, as well as Chris Rownes, Lars and Bernd and many others. Lasse I saw briefly but I was involved in teaching TZ's girlfriend to cast and then he disappeared :)
Unfortunately I didn't get to fish this time - well it was probably just as well since my luggage was pretty heavy already, without neoprene waders! But I have of course fished Denmark in the past. The first trip was many years ago with the infamous Denmark or Bust trip, where we caught a total of four fish. And here is the photographic evidence Denmark or Bust PODs. The following trip we met Lasse too. Those were fun times!
Over the weekend I gave two demos, one was on Snakehead fishing and casting, a demo which obviously needs some more work! and today I gave my fishing/competition distance demo that I've been giving for the past few years.
The socialising was good too, with some medicinal drinking (no Gammel Dansk!), fishing and tackle discussions and... late night arm wrestling. I don't know who started the arm wrestling competition, but I did pretty well on the Friday, on the Saturday however "the Beast" had arrived with arms the size of tree trunks and so that was a complete waste of time. I think we needed Lee Cummings for any chance of winning that one!
All in all a fun weekend and I'm sure that Bernd will post some pictures on Wednesday. This week Peter, Sean and I head off to fish Rutland for a couple of days. Peter, Mark and I were fishing the Eden last weekend. We did catch fish in the end, but the fishing was slow, very little fly life and cold water. I think the water needs a few more weekes to warm up. I fished Bewl last Thursday with Sean and that was OK, four landed and three lost for a morning's buzzer fishing.
Have a fantastic day!
Cheers, Paul