During my tenure here with Sexyloops, I have often referenced my admiration for Tim Borski. Not only as a fisherman but even more as a fly tyer. Tim, in my opinion, epitomizes what it means to straddle the line between artist and hunter. While many of the masters of this art go for the super realistic, ultra-life-like look, Tim's patterns in many ways do just the opposite....which is where the genius lies. They don't resemble anything specific in a highly detailed or imitative way. What they do resemble, is something that is ALIVE. Out of the water, they don't look exactly like anything, but in the water, they resemble in movement, color, and profile, just about EVERYTHING.

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I had a guest last week from the UK. It was only a short trip; two days! It’s very difficult to catch a snakehead on a two-day trip, particularly if it’s your first trip. In fact I rarely do two-day trips and usually book a week! Anyway, right towards the end, Simon landed a nice snakehead pushing 4kg.

There are many babies around at the moment. With Simon we found 11 sets, with the first afternoon session (and next morning) being very slow. Fortunately there was plenty of action on the second afternoon and on the final morning we had success!

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This week on Facebook I read at least three different posts about a proposal being put in front of the Bahamian Government to ban DiY flats fishing. Now unlike many on FB, I like to do a bit of fact checking before I go into full online 'rant' mode. I didn't actually find anything new during my searches relating to this story, that's not to say that the postings are fake – there was a genuine push a few years back to regulate flats fishing, so it's possible that it is under consideration again. If it is rearing its head again, I hope the Bahamian Government see sense and don't bend to the will of a few militant Andros Island Guides.

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Christmas presents are a brilliant deliverer of change, in the annual Trout habitat management schedule.  Specifically it seems, Single Malt Whiskey; plain chocolate ginger truffles; and a home-made greetings cards with a snowy picture of the Brook printed upon it. Delivered, on a grey cold and dreary Saturday morning, they achieve so much …especially when hand delivered, not be little elves but by two sheepish contrite looking grey haired gits, and many weeks late!

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Last week we had a look at the killer worm, I think I forgot to mention its real name Dräparmasken, and this week it is time to take a look at Kobberbassen, the Copper Bully. Looking around the Internet it is credited as being created by Frank Jensen in 1996. I think the dräparmasken was created somewhere around then also. The 1990s appear to have been a productive era for fly design.

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This past spring, in the course of my continuing casting education, Paul Arden recommended a few titles (by Rob Gray et. al.) on modern athletic coaching to support  his emphasis on external cues versus internal monitoring of body position. There’s a substantial body of research on this, mostly pointing to the efficacy of developing a set of constraints or metrics for a student anchored in observations and orientation of relationships outside their body rather than devising detailed instructions for bodily movement. As far as I can tell these insights have bled into fitness training as well. For example the capacity and measured performance of an athlete doing push ups improves if the motion is visualized as pushing the floor away rather than as forcefully straightening their arms. Waiting for the butt section of the rod to appear vertical in the caster’s peripheral vision is preferred over attempting to guide the caster’s hand along an ideal path. 
All this, according to the literature, points to a new role for the coach. Apparently this is happening everywhere. Modern coaching uses terms like “constraints led training” and “self organization of movement solutions.” There is less emphasis on prescribing precise motions and more on exploration of movement possibilities, harnessing external cues and observations of results in search of a unique approach to mastery for each student. It replaces the  training of muscle memory of an ideal motion with a more reactive training, accepting variable movements. 

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