Welcome to Cheltenham & Gloucester Fly Dressers Guild. We meet at the Hucclecote Community Centre  GL3 3RT on the 1st & 3rd Tuesdays every month at 8pm.

Have we got you interested? Then drop in and visit us! We'll look forward to seeing you.

2018 Competition Winners

Advanced fly dressing – David Wilson

Intermediate – Colin Playdon

Novice – Mike Hutton

Best Fish – Mike Perrin

Photographic – David Wilson

Big Fish – Colin Playdon.

A great turn out lovely to see so many attend a really good evening

many thanks to Adrian for organising it and Lilla for officiating

Frampton Country Fair 2018

In my opinion this event is more enjoyable than The Game Fair which has really become a huge shopping centre for townies who might wish to go off fishing somewhere by helicopter or spend huge amounts on “exclusive” garden ornaments.   The emphasis at Frampton is on rural things – vintage tractors, all sorts of hounds and a few rare breed pigs, sheep & chickens, bale-pushing, pigeon-plucking, gundog events, terrier racing, stick making, and of course the wonderful tent-pegging contest, this year won in style by Prince Malik’s team in their flowing robes & turbans, with the Royal Logistic Corps in WWI uniform not far behind (the teams borrow local polo ponies and practise hard to accustom the ponies to the sport and enable their riders to stab the pegs even when alight and smoking).   Lots of events in lots of small arenas, far too much to see and still have time to demonstrate a bit of fly tying in the Rural Skills tent!   Congratulations to the members who valiantly manned the stand (Nigel, Adrian, Dave, Neil and Rob) who managed to get out and about a bit between tying and talking to visitors, who are always fascinated by Nigel’s amazing box of salmon flies.   Go next year (second Sunday in September) and see for yourself!

Lilla 8.10.18

THREE CHOIRS VINEYARD VISIT 2018

CGFDG  Social Evening 3 July 2018

On 3 July, Adrian had organised a trip to Three Choirs vineyard near Newent for the Guild’s annual Social Evening.   We had a tour of the place first followed by an excellent meal in the restaurant there.   Our tour guide was Polish so was totally impartial as to the superiority or otherwise of the machinery (French, German & Italian except the Chinese vats which were definitely inferior!) – Nigel took several pictures of the presses, the huge fermentation vats and the various machinery used for filling, corking and labelling.
We started with a look at the vines themselves;  the vineyard is 75 acres in total producing quarter of a million bottles of Three Choirs own wine annually plus the same amount for other, smaller, local producers.   Then we went round to the processing buildings to see the presses, which were two large machines outside which crush the fruit (no feet involved:  they did try this in the early days but the local girls invited found that it was really hard work and wouldn’t co-operate!) and the juice is pumped into two big vats before being transferred into the fermentation vats indoors in a controlled temperature.   Blending, bottling, corking and labelling follow.
Three Choirs make a sparkling wine by the champagne method (they aren’t allowed to call the method or the wine “champagne” but that’s what it is) which we tasted first.   Delicious!   We had three other tastings too, of rose, sweetish white, and a light red – it was a good value tour!   For the sparkling wine, they make white wine as usual, bottle it when fermented out and introduce a small amount of yeast and sugar into each bottle for a secondary fermentation.   The bottles are crown corked and laid on their sides so that the yeast, once dead, sits in a layer all along the bottle and gives the characteristic toasty taste to the wine.   After a certain period the bottles are put in a large metal crate and very slowly tipped up so that the lees end up in the neck.   Each bottle is then carefully (there is between 4 and 7 bars of pressure in there) transferred into a clever Italian machine which freezes the neck of the bottle, upends it, removes the cap so that the pressure inside pops out the frozen yeast, quickly powers in a champagne cork and attaches a wire cage, and there’s your bottle nearly finished!   Apparently early Dom Perignon (inventor of the wire cage) champagne used to be cloudy because they didn’t have this freezing method of getting the yeast out and that’s why it was often undrinkable.
We went outside into the sunshine for a final tasting of their red wine, which is matured in oak barrels to give it some tannin, as the English climate is not really suitable for red grapes, and then we adjourned to the restaurant for an excellent dinner.   Many thanks to Adrian for a very enjoyable evening!

Lilla 9.7.18

Dreaming !

ENTOMOLOGY EVENING

at

Colesbourne Park

22nd MAY 2018

by kind permission of sir Henry Elwes

Was well attended and many thanks Phill Bullock and Keith Passant

for their help & Margot for arranging the catering

Entomology Evening 22 May 2018

Nigel Holmes kindly arranged an evening of kick-sampling and subsequent identification of the resulting aquatic animals, on the Churn at Colesbourne Estate.   Several members turned  up to take part in wading about in the river on a beautiful May evening with the birds singing  their heads off;  then we adjourned to the Long Room for the splendid repast provided by Margot,  to look at the specimens collected, and to watch Keith Passant tying deer hair mayflies.

In fact the only fly in the ointment was that Highways England had decided to resurface  the A435 that night, which made travelling home northwards was difficult for some!

However, the event was much enjoyed by all and many thanks to Nigel and Margot for doing all the considerable work to make it such a good evening.

Lilla

BIG FISH 2018 WINNER

Colin Playdon

With a whopping 3lbs6oz Blue Trout

2nd was Terry Beale 2lbs 11oz rainbow

Big Fish Competition 2018

The annual competition was held at Springhill again, organised by our President Terry Beale.  
Despite a broken bone in his hand, Terry managed to fish and was leading the field for most of the evening with a rainbow of 2lb 11 oz until Colin Playdon hooked a large blue trout at the  last moment before the 9 pm whistle and landed it after – it turned out to weigh 3lb 6 oz!  
It was a lovely evening, enough of a wind to keep cool but not keep the fish down,
plenty of fishermen without being crowded, and everyone caught a fish (brownies are returned).   Long may it continue.

The competition for 2017 winners were:

Big Fish                         Dave Orritt

Advanced fly dressing   Neil Brooks

Novice fly dressing       Karen Twinning

Photographic                Dave Romeo

THE RICHARD STURDY  MEMORIAL TROPHY:   Mike Hall

Frampton Country Fair Sunday 9th September 2018

The Guild will  have its usual stand in the Rural Skils Tent a great day don't miss it

WHERE TO GO FISHING 2018

You can buy day tickets for

• Bull Hotel (Fairford) from the hotel – River Coln
• Burford Angling Club from Orvis – River Windrush
• Williamstrip Estate from D&J Sports, Cirencester – River Coln
• Lechlade & Bushyleaze – Small stillwater,Tuition & rod hire available
• Woolaston Court (near Lydney) – Small stillwater
• Chew Valley Lake (Chew Stoke, near Bristol) – Reservoir
• Blagdon Lake (Blagdon), near Bristol) - Reservoir
• Barrow Tanks (Barrow Gurney, near Bristol) - Reservoir
• Farmoor (Eynsham/Botley, near Oxford) – Reservoir
• Draycote Water (Dunchurch, near Rugby) – Reservoir.
• Witcombe Estate,Witcombe, gloucester Tel 01452 863591

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The Fishing Museum Online

Have you ever visited The Fishing Museum Online?  It covers fly, coarse and salt water fishing and includes sections on fishing tackle and a library.

The library comprises pdfs of books important in the history of fishing, which may be downloaded at no cost.  It includes titles such as Pritt’s “Yorkshire Trout Flies”, Halford’s “Floating Flies and How to Dress Them” and “Ogden on Fly Tying”.  The reason why you do not have to pay for these downloads is that the copyright has lapsed because of the years that have passed since their publication, and some dedicated folk have been willing to spend time scanning them.  The pdf format might not be as satisfying as the beautiful leather-bound reprints that are produced from time to time, but if you are thinking of buying a copy why not check whether it would be of interest before spending your money?  The site contains a link to Medlar Press via its “Shop” where you may purchase some of the titles.

This site is well worth visiting for anyone with an interest in fishing.  You can reach it by following the link below.

http://www.fishingmuseum.org.uk/

Adrian Pound

12/04/16