On day three of our holidays in the south of England in August of this year, we were invited by Richard Banbury to visit the Orvis warehouse in Andover.
Some sixty people work here, they not only supply goods to Orvis fly-fishing shops in the UK, but all over Europe, as far as Russia and Spain.
There is a training center in the building, all repairs for rods and reels from European costumers are done here, for which the Orvis warehouse holds a huge amount of spare parts.
Webdesign, financial businesses, etc. are all concentrated on this location. The warehouse itself was filled to the roof, in preparation for the Christmas sales in late Autumn.
Richard also gave us a preview of some of the products that would come on the market in 2020, with some great new rod and reels series among them.
In the afternoon Richard Banbury took us to the Timsbury beat on the River Test. The river itself is wide and deep in places at this stretch, it flows generally not that fast.
The stretch holds some big trout, according to Richard. The small side stream that could also be fished from the same meadow, runs much faster and holds some more wild fish.
We fished the side stream for a while first, landing a few trout and grayling on small weighted nymphs.
On the River Test itself we fished the last two hours of the day with dry flies.
Cora had some nice takes on a BWO imitation, I did better with a beetle imitation. Richard had told us that there were beetles falling from the trees alongside the river.
We are very thankful that Orvis gave us the possibility to visit the warehouse and to fish a stretch on the River Test.
Website: www.orvis.com.
Also look at:
https://flyfishing-blog.com/flyfishing-blog.com/2019/08/21/orvis-how-to-catch-trout-in-shallow-water-undercuts/
https://flyfishing-blog.com/flyfishing-blog.com/2019/08/20/orvis-presents-off-season/
https://flyfishing-blog.com/flyfishing-blog.com/2019/08/18/just-be-with-me-vimeo/