From time to time I get email messages from strangers who have stumbled upon the MAA website and have something interesting to tell me.  One such message arrived a couple of months ago from a chap who wished to know if I could tell him more about an old fly book he had in his possession.  A quick referral to the fount of all knowledge on the history of the club and I was able to tell him a little about his book of old flies.  He agreed to send me some photos of the book and here is just a sample of what he sent.





The second photo is slightly out of focus, but it shows the type of fly that was used at the Tarn a hundred years ago.

I sent these photos to David M and you may be interested in his comments.  It's difficult to read the writing in the second picture, but the flies are by Austin and Glass.

Quite exciting really.
David Reid gave a paper in November 1878 "An October day among Greyling", where he tells of the fishing around Bakewell and especially from the Rutland Arms. The Inn had the fishing upstream past Haddon. These flies could be the very ones he showed at the lecture. Reid was 38 at the time and had a small metallurgy concern that employed  twelve people. He had two living in servants at his home in 1881.

Edward Austin joined the  MAA in the middle 1880s and became sec (after J. Arthur Hutton) in 1893 and relinquished the post in 1909 when Percy Glass took over.

Percy Glass joined the club in 1895/6 so that the two pages shown are almost from different eras!!!

The anglers at their monthly meeting used to have a collection of flies that they "put on the table" for examination and reference. These must be some of the remnants from that time.

There was also a large photographic collection, I wonder where it is now, it would be very interesting to see it.

  David.


I suppose with such a long history attaching to the MAA there must be a very great deal of stuff out there waiting to be discovered.

It's not a bad morning so far in fact fishing conditions are near ideal with some sun, plenty of cloud cover, a light breeze and good water after last night's ran.  The river should fish well today for brownies.

Ian