Club History
Prior to Easter 1977, there was an evening class in Fly Fishing held at Breeze Hill School on Monday evenings. This class was run by Oldham Metropolitan Borough Education Department. The teacher was an experienced fly fisherman called Ivan Thomas. The students were taught fly tying, techniques for fishing various flies, some entomology, knots and fly casting. The charges were reasonable but students had to find their own fishing.
After that Easter, the charges by the Oldham Education Authority were to be substantially increased. The students and their teacher considered the increased charges no longer reasonable and they decided to form a Club at which the instruction enjoyed by the students up to that time would continue and, further, to strive to counter the difficulty the students had in obtaining fly fishing. Enquiries were made as to where the proposed Club could meet. Ken Boulton, the Head of the Werneth Park Studty Centre, indicated that the Club would be welcome there. Accordingly, on the 9th May 1977, the inaugural meeting of the Club was held at Werneth Park Study Centre, Fredrick Street, Oldham,. At that meeting, it was determined that the Club should meet every Monday evening at which one of the following activities should occur:
- Fly tying instruction and practice.
- Casting instruction and practice.
- Guest speakers attend to address members.
Those activities still continue today although the casting instruction is now usually given on Sundays just prior to the start of the fishing season at Piethorne and no longer on Monday evenings.
The membership of the Club was about 20 to 30 and remained at that level for some time. Many activities were arranged and included a number of notable 'firsts'. These included the first ever profile of a fishing club in the magazine 'Trout Fisherman'. A member, Angus Dixon, won the first ever fly dressing competition arranged by the magazine. Finally, in 1982, the Club secured a seven year lease from North West Water Authority for the fishing rights on Piethorne reservoir and the first 'fly only' trout fishery in Greater Manchester was opened on the 1st April that year.
A lot of hard work went into obtaining that lease. Initially, when it was decided that the fishing rights should be leased, it had been decided that the fishery should be a course fishery. However, the Club, through the Oldham Metropolitan Borough Sports Council, had been campaigning for a fly only trout fishery to be created or made available in the area and that pressure and support bore fruit.
It was inevitable that the acquisition of the Club's own fishery would cause membership of the Club to increase greatly and that is what happened. The increase was between three and four-fold. Many of the new members joined simply for the fishing and, consequently, some of the happy 'family atmosphere' enjoyed in the Club's early years has been lost. That is a great pity but was probably unavoidable.
The Club was initially called 'The Oldham Game Fishing and Fly Tying Club'. However, after we had acquired the lease to the fishing rights at Piethorne, the name was later changed to the simpler title, 'The Oldham Fly Fishing Club'.
The Club continued to meet at the Werneth Park Study Centre, which was later renamed 'The Werneth Park Centre' until the end of July 1993. At that time, there was a reorganisation of the administration of the 'educational' centre by the Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council and the Council decided that people attending such centres who were not ordinarily resident in Oldham should pay a membership fee to the centre which was almost 8 times more Oldham residents were required to pay. A substantial number of members of the Club reside outside Oldham and it was decided that it would be wrong to ask them to pay so much more the Club decided to move in September 1993. Since this date the Club has moved on a further two occasions and now meets at The Springhead Liberal Club.
Since its early days, the Club has sought to make fly fishing available to others. This has been through membership of the Club and by demonstrations of fly dressing, tackle and by giving tuition to the general public. Several fly dressing demonstrations have been given, including one in the Town Square Shopping Centre in Oldham. Fly casting tuition and fly dressing tuition have been given to people who might want to take up fly fishing through the taster sessions at the Festival of Sport which is arranged by the Oldham Metropolitan Borough Sports Council every two years.
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