Published Mar 7. 2017 - 7 years ago
Updated or edited Oct 8. 2020

After the Festival

The Danish Festival is over and I'm slowly getting used to talking to people who don't talk about fly tying and fly fishing. It's not easy!

The flies I tied
The flies I tied
Martin Joergensen

Think about it... how much better can it get for an avid fly angler when you can't go fishing?
A full weekend spent together with a couple of thousand people who share your passion for tying and fishing.

And there are shops with stuff you can buy!
And there are racks of rods and reels you can try!
And there are rows and rows of fly tyers you can watch!
And there's demos by some very skilled fly casters!
And if all that gets too much you can sit down and listen to good advice or join someone on a virtual journey to an exotic fishing destination in one of the presentations...
Apart from the lack of fishing, a good fly show must be pretty close to a fly fishers heaven.

So I was pretty close to heaven this weekend.

As it's the case every second year, and bunch of very hard working members of the Danish branch of the Federation of Fly Fishers had invested a lot of time in setting up the show. Booths, tying tables, casting ponds and much more, ready to be visited by a couple of thousand people wanting to spend a weather wise pretty miserable weekend in March indoors looking at fly fishing stuff.
The show was as always buzzing with people, and as I made my way from a side entrance to the main entrance to pick up my name tag before the opening, I think I shook hands with at least 15 people on a stretch of about 100 yards. And that was even before the show was open to the public! Lots of old and new friends to say hi to and to put a face on. And when the doors opened and the audience flooded in, it just got better.
I was tying the first morning, and I hardly had time to put thread on a hook, constantly being pleasantly interrupted by people I knew and people who knew me. “Good to see you again”, “Great to meet you”, “Love the web site”, “Nice article about such-and-such”, “We're friends on Facebook”, and so on, and so forth.
I was tying pike flies for an upcoming trip, and although I did get a few flies off the vise, it wasn't really efficient. But then again: that's not the purpose. I'm there to talk to people as much as I'm there to demonstrate my lack of tying skills.

Charles Jardine
Kim Sørensen
Myself
Hans van Klinken
Tyers and artists... and me...
Hans van Klinken - Martin Joergensen
Two bags
Two bags of books
Martin Joergensen

After the first Saturday tying session, I packed my stuff, put it in the car and started my tour of the floor. And there was enough to tour. Lots of interesting booths with well known and new gear, tools and tying materials, lots of demos, people tying flies for the Danish fly tying championships and even more friends saying hello.
I won't start name dropping, but just say thanks to everyone who I talked to this past weekend. It was so great meeting you (again), and to all those who spontaneously came up to me and told me what a great site the Global FlyFisher is: you have no idea how much that means! That's one of the reasons the site exists, and it may be primitive, but man, do I love it when people tell me that I do a good job!
When the Saturday was over and the show had closed, the guys from Ahrex hooks rolled in a beer stand and there was free beer! That created quite a crowd as you can imagine, and even more hands were shaken and even more faces were put on names.

I left the show and skipped the traditional banquet to be with some good fishing friends in the house we had rented for the weekend, but I'm sure the rest of the tyers and exhibitors had a great time and a good meal. I usually do take part in this nice event, but this year I opted for my good friend Florian's ceviche and heavenly tuna steaks. He had after all driven 4 hours from Germany to serve them, so who was I to say no?

The cake!
The cake!
Martin Joergensen

On the Sunday I had an afternoon tying shift, and could take it easy in the morning. In the entrance the online shop Fluer.dk had put up a couple of large chocolate cakes, and you could just grab a piece. Even though I already had a healthy breakfast, a piece of cake and a cup of coffee was just more gas in the tank for the day.

And while we're at the perks, let me do a little name dropping anyway and thank Morten Valeur at Ahrex for supplying some great hooks for my pike fly tying demo – and a much needed beer Saturday after the show. Let me also thank Paul Morgan from the ever tempting bookstore Coch-y-Bonddu for bringing the Popovics book that I wanted to buy – and supplementing it with a generous handful of books for review, among them the impressing and fantastic looking “Farlows Salmon Flies”, which I look forward to reading and reviewing. And to Morten Bundgaard from Danish Pro Sportfisher for a sample of their new UV resin, which I will tie with and test as soon as I can.

Easy Shrimp Legs
Shrimp legs on a fly
Easy Shrimp Legs II
Kern Leo Lund - Martin Joergensen

And to the guys at Easy Shrimp Eyes for a great talk and a sample of their upcoming Easy Shrimp Legs, which look quite promising. And not least to Arturas Merkevicius, AKA Art Merk, who had traveled all the way from Lithuania to show his beautiful leather goods, of which he was kind enough to leave me one as a gift. I hope you guys get a few fantastic days on the Danish coast in spite of the somewhat rough weather.
I'd better stop here. The problem with listing names is that you are bound to leave out some, and since I can't name all the people who I met, I'd better cut the list short and leave out the majority so that a few single individuals don't feel that I'm ignoring them specifically. I promise you all: it was so great to meet you!

See you all again in 2019.

The scraps
The scraps
Martin Joergensen
.

Log in or register to pre-fill name on comments, add videos, user pictures and more.
Read more about why you should register.
 

Since you got this far …


The GFF money box

… I have a small favor to ask.

Long story short

Support the Global FlyFisher through several different channels, including PayPal.

Long story longer

The Global FlyFisher has been online since the mid-90's and has been free to access for everybody since day one – and will stay free for as long as I run it.
But that doesn't mean that it's free to run.
It costs money to drive a large site like this.

See more details about what you can do to help in this blog post.