An excellent weekend past spent in the company of some good friends both old & new, those new being fly anglers that had successfully passed AAPGAI Provisional assessments.

The gathering… a few of the assessors, candidates and guests

Congratulations to the following who formed part of a record breaking pass rate of 85%

Nick Taylor, Jim Lowe, Alexander Chernysh, Brian Towers, Tiggy Pettifer, Gerald Spiers, Graeme Simpson, David Wiltshire, Trevor Hayman & Frank Moors

Alexander (left) flew over from Russia for the exam. Aided by ‘cunning linguist’ and AAPGAI member Alex Titov who acted as interpreter for the duration of his assessment… How good is that?

Over to the dark side… Paul Arden, Martyn Armstrong and I took on the role as trainee assessors, a 3 year development programme leading to a bona fide Assessors qualification, a journey of which I’m very much looking forward to. Stroll on the end of 2014!

Prior to taking on the role I normally get an opportunity at these weekends to participate in and play around with lines and rods (Everyone else’s that is), unfortunately there was little or no time in between assessments to have a real good go so whilst still in the lull of a closed season, this afternoon was spent making up for it, flexing carbon and splitting atoms on my local river… the Avon, did I say river?… there’s more water in the cup of tea I’m currently drinking, an exaggeration but I’m sure you know what I mean (Desperation comes to mind)

Crikey… this grass is deep!

How do Kingfishers get to know you’ve just removed your lens cap before darting off?

Lot’s of stuff to prep for the new season, leaders in design, some knee/shin protectors from Frank Williams to test, an exciting DVD from Jonathan Tomlinson to review and articles for the ESF online ezine to write… at least the evenings are lighter for longer which is a blessing. Tight lines and happy fishing to those early season starters ~ Jim