The weather held out nicely for the AAPGAI spring gathering of instructors at Cockermouth on the river Derwent this weekend. It is always a great pleasure to meet up with members from all over the U.K, all very good friends and colleagues and exchange information, get involved with workshops and discuss the way forward for the coming year.
Meet and greet for the open day with Illtyd Griffiths the Chairman.
Jim Curry kicked the programme off to a start.
Explaining how to fish pools effectively with different techniques.
Trevor Hayman talking on ideas about easy but effective teaching methods.
Getting novices to move a fly line effectively, keeping it simple.
Sue McNiven delivering a demonstration, engaging the audience with the very effective Circle cast.
Brian Warrington on the important subject of mind-set while fishing, how it can affect the outcome of a day. They let Brian out for the day to do this, but he had to go back later when the van pulled up with the men in white coats came to collect him!
Fixing problems without frustration, very entertaining Brian, a good demonstration!
Illtyd Griffiths on the importance of stance, sweep and anchor placements that give big problems with Spey casts.
Followed by Glyn Freeman with the last demonstration of a quick summary about all things fly casting.
There were some successful candidates being assessed on the Friday that had worked very hard to achieve the necessary standard required. The assessments are pretty thorough, (they have to be), the syllabi content from health and safety, equipment, all the Spey and overhead casts and effective teaching methodology.
AAPGAI also have a fly dressing qualification that is becoming more popular, Paul Little did a long fly dressing interactive workshop in the fishing hut which was well attended, thank you Paul!
Congratulations to Tony Riley receiving his certificate on his successful completion of a three year assessor training programme. He is now a fully qualified AAPGAI assessor!
Keith Passant being awarded the Advanced Fly Dressing qualification by the Chairman at the Saturday night dinner in the Trout Hotel. Keith who is often involved with various charity work has worked very hard toward that end over the years and did a fantastic job!
A very happy Nick Hall accepting his Provisional salmon certificate.
Congratulations Paul Becher on the Advanced salmon qualification!
Leigh Fidell put the time and effort in over he winter period on hid trout qualification after being unsuccessful last year, he more than did the business and put in an outstanding and very convincing performance!
It was the same story for a very happy Neil Lobban who is doing great things with fly casting for everyone over in the north east on achieving his Advanced Salmon qualification, put the time and effort in and it will happen!
A very enjoyable and productive weekend for all, thank you Neil Barcock for the use of the river Derwent, a lovely venue.
Thank you to all the people that came to the open day, to all the hard working AAPGAI members involved for making it work so well and for it all to be so much fun and to the Trout Hotel who looked after us very well.
