Mark Friday 5th September in your diary if you or a "mature" friend would like to learn how to fly fish courtesy of the East Sussex branch of the Salmon & Trout Association. They will also host a junior beginners day on 14th September!

Welcome to this new series of articles from one of the best known and respected fly fishers in the world. Charles Jardine seeks to offer advice gathered from a lifetime of experience to all beginners, newbies and those just plain wondering about how to get themselves started in the world of fly fishing.

In this very first article, he covers one of the main and most important tools of the trade - the rod! How do you decide what length rod you need and what do all those line numbers really mean? Read on and discover all you need to know and probably a lot more! Over to you Charles................

"A Children's Illustrated Guide to Fly Fishing for Trout" is the subtitle of this first book from the founder of the Tweedstart Program and World Team Champion Speycaster Eoin Fairgrieve.

Says Eoin "The book includes chapters on Water Safety, The Trout Family, The Trout’s Lifecycle, Basic Fly Casting, How to Handle a Trout and Our Environment. The book was inspired by the thousands of children I have taught to fly fish through our Tweedstart Angling Program based on the River Tweed."

The Peat Spade Inn and Upstreamdryfly present:
The Fly Fishing Ladies Day on Sunday May 18th 2008

Come along to our private estate lake in the beautiful River Test valley and learn this most graceful and relaxing sport. Let one of our professional instructors take you through the basics of fly fishing in a relaxed and informal atmosphere well away from the crowds.

Come along to our private estate lake in the beautiful River Test valley and learn this most graceful and relaxing sport. Let one of our professional instructors take you through the basics of fly fishing in a relaxed and informal atmosphere well away from the crowds.

The ‘Lady of the Stream’ A weekend on the river Test dedicated to the grayling. A chance to really understand this graceful but mysterious game fish in relaxed surroundings with renowned grayling enthusiast and fly fishing writer Paul Procter and chalkstream guide and instructor Howard Taylor.

Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th February 2008

EXTRACT FROM JOHN BAILEY’S FISHING ENCYCLOPEDIA
Author John Bailey shares some insight on how to approach one of fly-fishing's most pleasurable and visual aspects - Dry Fly Fishing!

"Before you start, obey lesson number one. Stand and watch from where you can see a lot of the river. A bridge is great but so too is a bend. Look for cobwebs on that bridge and see what the spiders have been catching over the last twenty-four hours. You’ll probably find sedges, midges and a host of other flies. Look in your fly box and see what looks similar. Look in the fields around you. If the pasture is dominated by sheep, the dung flies will be black. If cows abound, those same dung flies will be coloured brown. That gives you a clue to the sort of colouring your imitations should follow. "