Speaker – Martin Webster

Thursday 10th Apr 2014

Martin Webster, a lifelong angler with a wide experience of all kinds of fishing from all around the world, former England International, and now owner of the Selectafly Company, gave a fascinating talk about his background and his approach to fishing.

Martin felt that winning a place in the England Team gave him the opportunity to speak his mind about many aspects of fishing, and competition fishing in particular, with some authority and credibility.  Martin emphasised that his approach to fishing was very precise and methodical, and with regard to small water and reservoir fishing, said that he considered that only a small range of simple flies was necessary, but that they should be tied carefully and with precision.  His most successful flies were buzzers, Diawl Bachs, crunchers,  boobies with very small eyes so that they fished in the surface film, a ‘semi-Shipman’ dry fly and weighted and buoyant minkies.  Martin favoured floating/intermediate lines whenever possible, and really didn’t like using fast sinking lines.  There were nods of agreement all round to that disclosure.  Martin then demonstrated tying a buzzer, a ‘semi Shipman’, a minkie and a booby.

For the second half of the evening, Martin described his angling experiences around the world, for both fresh water and salt water species.  Some of us were a tiny bit green with envy!!  Martin then explained how he had come to buy the Selectafly Company and related some interesting facts about the commercial aspects of sourcing and selling fly tying materials.  Martin then went on to say that for him, one of the most important parts was the friendships that developed through fishing, and for Martin there was also the family involvement, from his father, who introduced him to fishing and continued to fish with him still, to his wife and sons whom he introduced to fishing and who still fish together.  That is one of the great things about fishing which we can all relate to.

Martin’s ideas led to some interesting discussions to round off the evening.

 John Goldie will be leading the Workshop on Thursday 24th April, tying those flies Martin tied during the evening and others that he talked about.

JG