Month: October 2017

9lbs!! Such a high..

I have sat at the computer a number of times to write my entry for the Hot Torpedo Owners Club competition.. Each time I drew a blank! Many great fishing events spring to mind but which one to write about? I couldn’t choose! So, today I decided to go out and fish, as per usual, with the 6 weight in search of a great shot. I have the 4 too, but the 6 was the better choice for the big fish river I decided to fish for the day. My plan was to try to get a great under water shot with the rod and a fish in it, maybe my face underwater too but that didn’t happen! What did happen was that I landed a feckin big trout! I set up the 10 sec timer and took one pic before releasing the brute. This fish was a real high!! On a tough day with a number of fishermen about I was happy to catch this fish behind another angler..

On another note about this rod and its builder. I have known Paul since about 2003. We have shared many a campfire, beer, bottle of Palinka, days on the river, multiple sunrises after we pushed through till dawn, many mutual friends, a few beers, seals fur, at least 5 countries, some stunts, a tv show, a youtube channel, some beers,  the list goes on. I think one of the first times we shared a campfire Paul told me he was going to design and build fly rod and call it the Hot Torpedo. We laughed, but he was serious and I believed him! One thing I’ve learned about Paul over the years is that nothing happens quickly – but if he says he’s going to do something he will do it! It may take a while but it will happen! This rod is no exception and it’s a pretty accurate reflection on what a 6 weight should be!

More to come about the 4 weight!!

Cheers,
Ronan..

My most recent fishing acquisition is the newest member of the HT family, the HT4. Fast with feel, and virtually unparalleled attention to detail are rare qualities that somehow collided in Paul Arden’s brain. Actually I’m writing this because I want a new shirt. If you need an excuse to purchase a HT4, and you are not a tackle tart, the new Sexyloops invisibility shirt is a justification enough.

The HT4 is by far my favorite trout rod that I’ve cast this year. Besides being beautifully hand crafted by Lee, this rod is incredibly versatile. In a pinch with a WF4F line, it will cast just about anything from a Gurgler for sea trout, to a size 20 parachute. The HT4 feels great when prospecting with dry flies out of a boat. However, I think the rod is best when one is accurately putting small to mid sized dry flies into hard to reach pockets. The progressive action, forgiving tip and a hint of flex in the butt section, is able to provide the user loads of feedback, reach and mend-ability. This allows members of the HT4OC to fish areas where others might not be able to get to while still being able to protect tippets thinner than 5x or 0.15mm, though I rather not fish stuff that fine.

I hate Paul. He is the root of all evil and consumer spending. Where’s my HT6?

[ 🙂 🙂 🙂 HT6 is coming, dude!! ~ Paul]

Fishing for Red Drum (Red Fish) WITH HOT TORPEDO 10
Tim Kempton CI

We fished for Red Drum in Louisiana at the Chandeleur Islands and the Louisiana Marshes in the USA in October 2017.

The Chandeleur Islands were so named by the French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville in 1700. These Islands are part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana. The islands are shrinking after being battered by severe hurricanes such as Georges in 1998 and Katrina in 2005. They are now uninhabited, and only accessible by boat.  We flew into New Orleans and sailed from Pass Christian.

Hurricane Nate hit New Orleans 2017 a few days before we arrived.  It travelled at 44km/hour, and was the fastest moving hurricane ever recorded in the history of the Gulf of Mexico.  It had blown out by the time we arrived, however there was a lot of debris in the water, so we elected to sail from Pass Christian in daylight. Chandeleur Island is 42 nm from Pass Christian.

Red Drum.

Red Drum or Redfish (Sciaenops ocellatus) is a gamefish of the Atlantic Ocean, on the East Coast of the USA from Massachusetts and into the Gulf of Mexico. They are related to the Black Drum and can interbreed.  Red Drum has a distinctive spot, or spots near the tail, that can disappear as the fish matures. They get the name Red Drum because they give a drumming or croaking sound from their swim bladder when agitated. The nice part is that they relax in the net when kept in the water and do not struggle.  They recover quickly and are a great catch and release fish. They have a downward mouth and eat snails, oysters, baitfish, worms and crustaceans.

At Chandeleur Island we were fishing on flats boats, or wading in about 2-3 feet of water, over grass beds.  The water was somewhat discolored from hurricane Nate, but we could till sight fish.  There were Redfish, Speckled Trout, Ladyfish and Crevalle Jack  (a cousin of the GT in the Jack family. It is the thug of the flats).

The weather forecast was for the wind to increase to 20-25knots, so we moved to the Louisiana Marshes.  The fishing was different… we fished bayous, oyster flats and grass beds as this is the drainage gateway for the mighty Mississippi River.  You can often see the Redfish working in the grass for crabs and snails. You can often hear them “boofing” like a Barramundi as they inhale their prey.  At times, when Redfish are in schools and in feeding mode they will attack surface flies. We did not see any schools. The water was somewhat dirty and the level higher.  The fish were probably on holidays, but there were enough to catch and give an account as a respected adversary.  The wind blew up as predicted.

The Hot Torpedo 10

This is a great rod, and has joined my collection of Hot Torpedoes (4,6,8 and now 10).  It has great feel and does not wear you out trying to cast and fish with.  I previously had a Sage Xi3 10wt and the difference was considerable. The new  Torzite Titanium lines guides   are smooth, and made Pauls’ pick and laydown quick cast the cast of choice.  I was using a Tarpon Technical 10 WF line, and 7’ leader of 40/20lb. We saw fish that were easily 30- 40lb and so the 10 WT was an insurance.

I used black over purple flies, tied with either bunny tail on 1/0 turned up jig hook (the guides choice), or with ostrich feathers. Land the fly near them and they were catholic in their tastes. They crash the fly and pull hard.

Red Drum are an exciting gamefish for sight fishing.  The Bull Red was caught conventionally. Having a HT 10 made the Red Drum experience memorable, even though we were eventually blown out by the weather.

Sadly in Louisiana there is a 25 fish per angler per day bag limit (the same as for Speckled Trout).

My new found pastime – Fly fishing

I began fishing when I was 5 years old. I used to put on my life vest, grab a bucket and my rod and go down to the jetty together with my cat and fish for baltic herring, just the cat and I. How many parents would allow that today I wonder? When my mother made dinner later at night I only ate the tail fins that was crunchy like crisps.
When I got older I began fishing more for pike but when we moved away from the sea in my teens, I kind of quit on fishing.

The road to a Hot Torpedo
Fast forward some 30 years or so to April this year.
We were going with our band Yakumbé on a four week tour, playing our music for kids in schools around in Sörmland, Sweden. One sunny morning, on our way to a school, we passed a beautiful lake that laid totally blank and I just got that compelling urge to go out and fish again. Said and done, a couple of days later I went to a lake stocked with rainbow trout and brown trout with my spinning rod and a new bombarda and began fishing without any luck. That same day they had a fly fishing theme at the lake so one could try casting with a fly rod and I tried it out. I found it hard but fun to cast. That made me research the net for fly fishing and resources on casting technique and I stumbled upon a site called Sexyloops.

The site looked a bit dated compared with todays standard but there was something really exciting with it. There was a section called The Experience. Here, there was this guy Paul, teaching Karen casting and used a relaxed approach with a language and humour much to my taste. I also found tips on fishing stillwater, which is what’s at hand here in Stockholm if you want to fish for trout and a lot of other good stuff. So I bought myself a cheap second hand but unused rod-set and flies from a guy at a swedish fly fishing forum and began to struggle to get my flies out in the lake, which proved to be a bit hard. I tied the most incredible knots on the leader without even touching it in some kind of magic way while casting. Needless to say I didn’t succeed in catching any fish for a couple of months.

Then I found out that this fly casting wizard Paul designed rods that was to his liking and according to the reviews I read, both on Sexyloops but also on a thread on the swedish forum where people named their best rods I understood that the Hot Torpedo was the best rod available! A couple of months after the tour with the band I got the salary from that and suddenly I had the money to buy this exceptional rod. But since I read everywhere that good rods weren’t for beginners, I contacted Paul and he told me that it would most likely improve my casting skills, so I went for a Hot Torpedo 6 and I made up my own colour scheme with my favourite colours on the whippings. It came to me and was super nice to look at. It was also so much nicer to cast, compared to my cheap rod that I haven’t used since.

Now I cast with much less magic knots and have actually managed to catch my first good fish on the fly rod! The first was a 3 kg pike in river Ljusnan though it was trout I was after. And a couple of weeks ago after so many days spent at my favourite lake this summer, I caught my very first sought after rainbow trout on a dry fly and I can’t describe the happiness I felt at that moment. I still have a lot to learn about casting, but now I have the best tool in my hands and I am positive I will have a lot of good moments together with it in the future!

End of ramble/ Piffen