It’s been an excellent trip to Europe. 1/2 Ironman in France, week’s family holiday, Stuntman Ronan’s wedding in Ireland, catching up with Peter and threatening to shoot my lawyer in Hungary and now a couple of days of casting and by the time you read this I’ll actually be back in Malaysia.

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Anglers in South Florida have been whining about the weather for weeks now, or at least those that I know. The entire summer has been rather uncomfortable, first mostly wet but lately just damn hot. The other day a weather announcer on TV noted that the daytime high temperature around the Miami area hit or exceeded 93 degrees F for 45 days in a row. Recently, of course, we had to deal with Hurricane Dorian. To continue our misery, last weekend we were in somewhat of a shit-weather sandwich. We had another tropical system growing into a hurricane (Humberto) right off our Atlantic shores (more bad news for the Bahamas) and another big storm brewing to our west in the Gulf of Mexico. This time of the summer is not called the “mean season” without cause, but geez, give us a break!

If it was not for teaching, I would not have touched a fly rod for over two weeks.

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I was away on business last week so there was no fishing or casting for me. I was visiting Albuquerque, New Mexico where I lived for a short time a while back. It was here that I first cast a #5 weight over 40m assisted by the thin air (the city is around a mile high) and the steady winds that funnel past the mountains. This was in the days of casting the MED on noodles such as the TCR#5 and while I was still improving my distance casting pretty rapidly. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to go out for a practice on this trip, I’d have been interested to see how far I’d cast these days with a more honed technique and a much stiffer rod.

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Last day of August, fishing season is ending on main rivers. It is also nature’s day in Finland. Normally we go fishing on Kitka or Kuusinki on last day. I made last casts just before season is ending at midnight. This year we ended up to do something we have been talking about often this summer. We use to spent night over in our lake now and then earlier years…. then we grow up and got old. Or just get lazy. I was rafting on that day and Satu packed things what we need, some cooking stuff etc.

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For a while now, I’ve ben working on an article on the current state of affairs when it comes to line ratings. It’s a subject I that’s been annoying me for quite a while, because there’s something rotten. I’m at the point in my article where I need to talk to some industry people, so if your’re Simon Gawesworth, Jerry Siem, Jim Bartschi, head of design at SA (for some reason i can’t remember his name), please get in touch - read below if you want a bearing on what I’m going to ask you!

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When I started fly fishing back in 1996, it would be an understatement to say I became obsessed with casting. I purchased books, watched videos, and spent thousands of hours on the local football field honing my technique. Because of the casting attributes that saltwater sight fishing demands, I have developed a lot of drills and exercises over the years to sharpen those skills. One of which was demonstrated by Carlos Azpilicueta right here on Sexyloops in 2004. You can find it under the Fly Casting exercises titled "Andy's Game"

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