Irish Fly Fair and Angling Show 2015.

I went up to Galway over the weekend to visit the annual fly fair in the Galway Bay Hotel, the weather was dismal to say the least with heavy driving rain and gale force winds not ideal for the fly casting demo's. The fly tying section was excellent with some amazing fly patterns on display, the fly tying experts were very helpful and friendly demonstrating the art of fly tying with all the new materials on show. All the tackle suppliers and dealers were there to cater for the good number of anglers that turned up and braved the bad weather. I wanted to try out some of the switch lines and rods and the guys from AM angling were very helpful showing me some of their new lines and  switch rods even in the pouring rain, sadly they haven't got a floating version of what i'm looking for but their short float / intermediate line looks good, ideal for low water conditions and grilse. Glenda Powell was on form giving a good casting demo even in the driving rain and gale force winds and also Hywel Morgan  and Charles Jardine were very entertaining demonstrating all the tips and tricks of casting again in bad weather conditions. Having tried some more rods and lines i was very surprised that all the casting was on grass and to be honest i'm not an expert on grass ( only water ) as it doesn't give a realistic feel or resistance to the line. In reality i'd say that a lot of anglers were put off by this and it definitely didn't show the rods and lines to their true potential. I must admit i have been using switch rods for many years and i'm still confused as to why rod makers are supplying dedicated lines for their rods that really don't do the job, my Oracle switch is a 7/8 and the dedicated line was very lack lustre in trying to turn over even the 2.6 ins rio sinking tips and when i asked about this at the stand i was told to use the 8/9 as it was heavier and would probably do the job. Really..... i now know why there is so much confusion with switch rods, the dedicated line is ok for casting tapered leaders but use a sink tip and all bets are off. I have a video that i'm finishing soon and hopefully this will help all switch rod fly fishing anglers, there are two lines for switch rods ... ( 1 ) Rio switch chucker as it will  spey cast most rio sink tips in tight areas that you have to cover during your salmon / trout fishing needs and ( 2 ) the Forty plus which will cover tapered leaders and intermediate tips with  single over head casting and a bit of spey casting thrown in. The Rio switch chucker line isn't for over head casting but it will put out and turn over sink tips and heavy flies in tight areas with little or no effort when spey / underarm casting and then to cover the trout fishing or single over head casting the Forty plus will do the job well just get the 8 wt line for your 7/8 switch and with this line you can use tapered leaders or even intermediate tips and it will spey / underarm cast them as well. Remember the switch rod is exactly that SWITCH it means you can under arm / spey cast and SINGLE  hand over head cast. It's great to be able to see and try out all the new tackle / lines etc., and really only for the fly fair that wouldn't be possible, so hopefully it will continue for years to come.