As anyone who knows me well, will know that I think 3000 days of a specific type of fly fishing is enough to know about 95% of it. Here on the jungle lake I’m on about 3500, pushing 4000. 3000 is enough to be a guide. I am a guide. But I need to get out of here soonish and become a beginner again. I prefer learning the big stuff and I believe that the greatest attribute of fly fishing is that you can become a beginner, many times over, simply by changing fish species and/or sometimes location.

Two things have to happen before we go. 1) I need to acquire a sailing boat, so I can be a pirate. And 2) I need to learn Malay in order to get Permanent Residence, in case we come back. I think it’s unlikely we will actually come back, but I’d like to leave that door open. I think it’s much more likely that we end up living on a pacific island, or shipwrecked and living like Robinson Crusoe, but I really don’t know. I don’t plan my whole life out. It’s not an exploration if you know where you are going or what you will find!

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It was a holiday weekend. I stayed behind and watched the commemorations for Anzac Day, our local memorial for armed personnel who served.

The rumours I'd been reading online about the starting winter run of trout read like code. It was happening, but fish numbers might not be high and they'd likely take some finding. Still, the weather was nice and I've had luck at this time of year. The fish tend to be bigger early season, and catching those ones is worth a trip. Work had been heavy lately and difficult to get away from, which was another good reason to escape for a fish. Fired up the car and loaded the fishing gear.

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Tracy and I are now back in Wales recovering after our trip.  My feet still feel like I've just walked off a rocky flat after an eight hour day of wading, and my sand fly and mosquito bites are still a bit itchy.  I was pleased when I weighed myself though, I've lost at least half a stone (7lb) which is exceedingly hard to do at my age (I've been trying to lose some weight since Christmas).  I think the weight loss is testament to how hard we hit the fishing – however the effort paid off, it was a very successful trip for us.

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This week's fly is a nice, simple saltwater pattern that will do a turn on loads of species: the E-Z body sand eel. A excellent fly for the beach that's worth having anywhere sand eel are found, which is a lot of places.

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It is only one month before fishing season really starts here. May is long month, especially if there is no change for ice fishing like now. You can't do farm work as groung has frost and growing season hasn't start yet.
 
It is just waiting summer to come. Four years ago we had flights to Malaysia and we were getting ready for that. Two years ago we were already in Malaysia and spent this nonsense month there.

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I just saw a post from a physio mentioning that hotter weather means that some people get problems with swollen feet and legs. This made me think of white mans feet that happens in the jungle. The temperatur shift when going to the jungle is a bit more extreme so the people experience it here in Sweden during spring but the solution could work for both cases. The reason being that fluids cannot be transported away efficiently and the solution suggested is to strengthen the calves. 

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