Fario CRS talk with Alex Jardine

Alex Jardine – Guideline Power Team

Alex was raised on a diet of fly fishing and I am pretty sure that Charles Jardine only gave him fly reels to play with instead of toys! Alex has fished for the England Youth Team, representing them at World Championship level over a 4 year period winning a team Bronze and a highest individual finish of 7th in the world.

He has travelled extensively, looking after groups of people and guiding them as well as giving numerous casting demonstrations alongside his father. Alex ties flies for the Partridge pro team, is a qualified casting instructor and works for international fishing specialists Aardvark McLeod. He has extensive knowledge of fishing in the American West, East Coast USA, Canada, Iceland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Venezuela and New Zealand.

Alex has always been destined to work within the fishing industry, he spent a period working with Partridge hooks and he has also worked in Robjents of Stockbridge from 2010 to 2012 as a fly-fishing specialist. In 2014 Alex was also named as an Angling Trust Ambassador.

Alex about the film and rods:

When Matt Hayes and I first planned to film this short insight into the Fario CRS it seemed only right that I took the audience to my home waters of southern England.

I am very fortunate to live amongst the famous chalkstreams such as the River Test, River Itchen and River Avon, home to many great fly anglers through the ages. To walk and cast a fly in their footsteps is a real privilege. These rivers provide me with many enjoyable fishing hours every year, from brown trout rising to mayflies in the summer to trundling nymphs for grayling in the winter.

The Fario CRS has immediately become one of my go to rods on these rivers. A place where pin point accuracy and delicate presentation are important. The rod has been a joy to fish with, providing just what is needed even in less favourable conditions of the UK winter.

I am now eagerly awaiting the start of our trout season to really use this rod to its full potential.

Fario CRS rods will be available late April, read more here.

Words by Matt Hayes:

Filming the new Fario CRS promo with Alex Jardine was certainly full of challenges but I feel that we triumphed and the end result is pretty much what I had in mind. I wanted something ‘British’ and yet at the same time able to showcase the rod using some nifty camera work and angles.

From the outset, I was conscious that Alex had limited experience of film cameras and video production but I was also confident that he would take it in his stride provided that I didn’t subject him to a baptism of fire… My plan involved getting him to talk about what he likes about the new rod while not having to worry about walking and talking. Sitting would work but I would need lots of shots to make the film interesting.

George Howard helped me on the shoot, his role being second camera to help get those all-important casting shots on the Sony FS700 and to help out with reflector and fill light duty. The main camera, a Canon C300 was operated by myself, with both cameras synced to the same white balance.

Alex proved to be very good at delivering his lines, with a relaxed and compact style, few mistakes and a nice conversational pace. He was very easy to work with.

You will notice that the style of the film is different to the ‘Hipster fly fisher’ that is so common these days. No high fives, baseball caps on backwards etc., because this film had to have that British stamp about it. With Alex being young, creating the different mood was potentially a challenge but I think that we nailed it with the pace, the edit and the choice of music. Plus, Alex is a Jardine and hails from quintessentially British flyfishing stock!

The hallmark of the film, I think, are those iconic slow motion shots because they illustrate precisely what Alex is referring to – the very fast tip recovery of the Fario CRS blank. These were shot in Super Slow Motion at 200 frames per second in Camera Raw…. Meaning that they are genuine slow motion and of super high quality: far superior to simply slowing down regular footage in the edit.

Well done to Alex – I think that his first venture into filming was pretty impressive!