It all started on Saturday 27th, when we took off to our national fly fishing saints day: La foire de la pêche à la mouche (the Belgian fly fishing fair).
We took off to this holy grail day with our Rodtrip team members, Johan, Stéphane, Mathias and myself. This year was kind of special for us because we used to come over to buy the latest hot stuff, but this year we wanted to present Rodtrip to our Belgian FF world. We couldn’t have chosen a better way to introduce Rodtrip…
At 09:45 we arrive at the flyfishing fair, meet and greet several friends, leaving them all flyers of our Rodtrip project. It’s rather hard to complete our tour and discuss our subject with the people we meet , because there’s people everywhere.
After various interesting meetings, we are able to talk to people who wish to be involved with Rodtrip. Wojtek Gibinsky, manager of Polish Quills and guide on the river San in Poland, is the first to promise me a fly dressing scheme.
Other fly tying specialists, show some interest in our project, to our satisfaction. Mitch, representing Fly Scene, who we have already met, proposes us to test their new Tunca Expert Hooks. A request which meets our humble approval. This test will be object of an article on Rodtrip, so stay tuned.
Time is running away, and we are acquainted to the JMC Mouche de Charrette team. These folks are extremely open minded and nice! We spend a lot of time on their stand, and discuss fishing and Rodtrip.
Philippe Giraud, fly designer on their stand, accepts to give us some fly dressing secrets, and suggests that we should come over on Sunday, to film a mounting session. This is beyond our vildest dreams, an opportunity to present to you the newest hot stuff from the JMC staff: Flies with lips. Philippe shows to be a very generous and cordial man.
After greeting loads of friends, we are able to buy some new hot stuff and give some of our Rodtrip fliers wherever we have the opportunity in this fair.
It’s crazy how time flies when you are involved with your our passion. It’s 17h20 when we leave the fair. How nice this has been! We’re already looking forward to tomorrow!
On Sunday, I start with Mathias at about 13:15. No need to say that this afternoon will fly by! So let´s not waste time! We arrive in this Flyfishing paradise and head to the JMC stand. Our friends are waiting for us!
We show some appreciation in offering some Orval beers to our friend Gerard Piquard, and also offer some flies to test on the Loue River.
We mount our gear to film todays fly mounting star. We are off and we start with loads of curious people observing our setting. Loads of questions on Rodtrip arise … our guests are rather curious and they want to discover our new website dedicated to our mutual passion.
Once we end the filming, we sense that the dealers are thinking of cleaning up and return home, we remember it’s time to do some great deals .
Our wallets take a hit and our mounting gear is exploding. Then we meet Eddy from Fishbone, he’s an extraordinary rod builder. You’ll know more about it soon.
Next we have a pleasant meeting with the creator of Field and Fish who accepts our discounting policy 🙂
He is very kind with the young flyfishing addicts we are. We discuss Rodtrip with him, and he approves the concept. We tell him we are very grateful for his interest.
By now it´s time to say goodbye! We kindly say thanks to several nice people we’ve met. How hard it turns out to leave this very nice-minded fair.
It’s 18h30 and we finally hit the road.
See you all next year !
Special regards to the people we’ve discussed with and discovered mutual interest, shared some experiences, and had fun with during these 2 days.
Article : Jérémy Habran
Traduction : Johan DM
Photos : Mathias Briquemont
