Your Thirty Years of Memories
During our thirty years there have probably been many stories told & shared between club members. Do you have an interesting story to tell that you'd like to share? If so please send it to the Website Editor, contact details are on the "Committee & Contact Details" page, & we'll publish it here for everyone to enjoy
Simon Hilton, A Lifer ...
I am a lifer, a sentence that I would happily impose upon anyone who knows the trembling joy of threading a fly rod
I first fished Bewl in early September 1978, I was twelve years old & stood on the bank & cast my flies at what appeared to be a million trout. Alas, none of them were hungry, but undeterred, I returned a week later & caught my first Bewl trout, a 1lb brownie from "No Name Bank", on a black buzzer & later that evening hooked my first ever rainbow, in the wash of the ferry, on a Babydoll as it picked us up from the huge oak stump on Chingley Corner
What I remember from those early days were the absolutely enormous hatches of sedge, when the water would boil with trout & you would not know where to cast. A walk across the dam would mean a encounter with a black tower of a billion buzzers, those days were heaven sent
Looking through my fishing diaries the fish I managed to deceive were much smaller than I take today. However no one would leave at six in the evening as they do today. That is when the bank anglers would arrive & all the boats would have torches as everyone would sprint back to jetty a good hour & a half after the sun had set
Naive, fibre-glass, jersey-herd joy, with not a Booby in sight. As my late father used to say, & it still applies today,
"Why is watching your arm suddenly come up, before your brain realises you have hooked a trout, such a joy?"
If you know the definitive answer, keep it to yourself
David Little Remembers ...
"If asked to look back over 30 years of fishing at Bewl, one or two special memories come to mind straight away. My first ever reservoir trout, quite probably in 1979, being one. An 1lb 10oz rainbow caught on a glass rod & a floating line & the fly was a Sweeney Todd. Wading out from the bank in front of the playground next to the clubhouse on a warm July evening as the south westerly wind was dying down & after the day trippers & picnickers had gone home. Around 7.30pm, all was tranquil for the first time that day, & then, was that a movement in the wave just now? Then another, & another. My goodness, rising trout. Hardly able to cast with the excitement, ugly tangles of fly line kept falling at my feet, where for the last hour my casting had been perfect ... for all of twenty feet that is! Trying to calm myself down, I at last managed a decent cast. The fly seemed to land just in front of where the last swirl had been ... one pull, & whack!"
"No memory of Bewl over the last thirty years would be complete for me, without sparing a thought for the, late, dear old John Hatherell, the club chairman for goodness knows how long. A fanatical fisherman, eccentric, cheery, wily, with a kindly word for everyone whoever you were, & dedicated to Bewl Bridge Flyfishers' Club. Who can forget those countless AGMs, when John would stand up to welcome us all back again for yet another year? I'm certain that it always made those who were there feel that everything was in it's rightful place & that all was safe & well at both Bewl & the club"