Hot Torpedo Owners Club – Page 23 – News and Stories from around the World

Gary’s HT6

Gary’s custom HT6 (Full Wells grip – quite a few of these recently!)

This is our normal thread colours!

Thanks guys 🙂

Ralf’s Instructor 6

One of our more interesting projects! Looks great I think 🙂

The reel seat was produced by Renato Vitalini of V-Stick Custom Flyrods.

True Love

You know it must be true love when you buy a Custom-built HT6 for your girlfriend! An Ren Tan already has all the HT rods in the series. 🙂

Stealthy finish complete with removable fighting butt.Comes with a little bag for removable parts! I hope that they have a superb bonefishing trip.

So far we have two finalists; Ashly Chan and Konstanse Larsen making it an all-female final so far! However we need two more finalists. All entrants receive a Stealth Master shirt. The four finalists will all receive a Sexyloops Flyline and the lucky winner a new custom-built Sexyloops Hot Torpedo.

We need you to select your best two entrants from Round 3…

You can either make your choices known on the Sexyloops Facebook page

Or here on the Board.

Please do get involved!! Since Ashly has managed to make the list of finalists, I will not be judging, and instead we will call upon an independent judge to make the final choice as to who is the ultimate winner.

Shirts are coming soon!!!

Many thanks, Paul

Round 3 – Entry 29 – James Evans

I’m the proud owner of Hot Torpedo Competition #5 serial number 15. Owning this rod has always been very special to me, not just because it’s a great rod, but because of the way I acquired it – I won it at the first Sexyloops gathering that I attended in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. When I say ‘won’ I actually finished in second place in the casting competition, but Paul wasn’t going to give the rod to himself for coming first!

The format of the competition was simple; 4 outfits were placed in four casting lanes and you cast each one for two minutes, recorded the best distance and then moved on to the next lane until you’d cast all the outfits. Once everyone had cast in the morning the outfits were changed (after a lunch break) for new ones in the afternoon and the process repeated, thus everyone had eight scores to compare.

The fun thing about this type of competition is that you don’t know what you’re picking up and you don’t get time to practice – 2 minutes of casting is all you get during which you have to figure out how to get the best from the outfit you’ve just been given. To make it even more interesting there were some ‘peculiar’ (or so I thought at the time) tackle choices, the #4 line on the rod marked #10 was particularly memorable. I must say I was astonished at how well this cast and was very pleased to record a distance of over 40 yards with it.

I also distinctly remember thinking I’d blown my whole competition when faced with a 55g salmon shooting head outfit in the afternoon. This was the first time I’d ever cast one, and by that I mean a double handed fly rod – I’d never felt the need to use one previously (I’ve still never actually been fishing with one). As such, having my first ever experience of wielding a 15ft fly rod in a 2 minute distance competition, with no prior instruction, meant that I didn’t do that great. However my performances with the single handed rods compensated and I scraped into second place overall.

Since winning it, the HT #5 has become my go-to rod for reservoir trout fishing and summer carping. It’s with one such carp that I’m basing my entry into this competition, a monster of a fish caught towards the end of the summer. I don’t know how much it weighed (although some experienced carp anglers have given me their estimates), but I’d be interested to know if anyone thinks they’ve caught something bigger on the HT #5.

Used correctly, the Hot Torpedo #5 has more than sufficient low-down stiffness to bully big fish away from snags and overhanging trees, plus a very responsive casting performance that makes it a pleasure to sight cast with all day. I should note that I’ve also won a number of BFCC #5 casting competitions with this rod, recording many casts over 120 feet in doing so.

So there you have it, I’m using a rod I won to try and win another one, with a big fish and some long casts thrown in for good measure.

Cheers, James.

Round 3 – Entry 28 – Carl Martin Vennefjord

For me the HTOC journey started when me and my friend Simon where discussion different rods as we were starting to prepare for our upcoming FFI CI-test. He have had the HT 6wt for some years, and he had mentioned it earlier but it was now, during our discussions and preparations that we started to talk about this rod for real!

As we where going to work together at the Swedish Sport fishing fair in March 2017 I told him to bring along his HT 6wt so I could try it out! Every night after the fair had closed we headed over to the casting pound and started casting, discussing and comparing the rod to other premium rods.

Aside from all the things you would expect from a premium rod; a really high grade cork, lightweight, excellent wraps on the blank and so on, the HT 6wt was a little different from other rods I’ve tried before, it had a different feel and a vibe to it.

I can honestly say that I had never tried a fly rod before that made it so easy for me to get those really tight sexy loops, it felt effortless! The HT 6wt had a really nice action in the tip section which I love. Light, fast, crisp and sensitive but yet powerful and compered to other fast rods the HT wasn’t as stiff in the lower part of the blank. Power and feel thought the hole blank, I love it!

At this time I had been doing casting lessons on a regular basis for a little more the 2 years and I really would love to have the HT Instructor, a white visibly rod for my casting lessons. To be honest, I have had fly rods with white blanks before but those rods where not that good, not even close!

The white blank would also be really good for me as I was starting to practicing for the upcoming CI-tests. It’s perfect because of the visibility when looking at video recordings of my casting. Aside from my personal progress and casting lessons I was looking forward to fish with this rod!

It’s been almost 6 months since I got my Hot Torpedo Instructor rod and it has been through a lot.

I bought the HT Instructor Nr: 131

First of, this rod has been trough a lot of casting, a lot! During the whole summer I’ve been practicing for the FFI CI-test. Hours and hours of casting, filming, reflecting and hours of discussions.

It’s been with me while I’ve been traveling and fishing. In the hunt for giant 30lb sea run browns in the Swedish river Em, casting for salmon in river Klarälven, chasing sea run browns and European flounder in the archipelago of Stockholm and it has been my go to rod when street fishing perch in Stockholm City.

To sum it up, my Hot Torpedo journey has been nothing but awesome! As stated above It has been through a lot of casting, fishing and I do feel a little bit ashamed to tell you this, but, I even forgot my Torpedo in a mall once, luckily it was still there when I got back 10min later!

I’ve lost ha HUGE Sea run in river Em, I caught salmons in River Klarälven, I’ve caught sea run trouts and European flouder in the Baltic sea, I’ve caught perch in central Stockholm and I reached my biggest goal of the year when using this rod, I become a CI.

I can honestly say that I’m a very proud member of the HTOC!

Round 3 – Entry 27 – Mike Duzynski

LOST VIRGINITY- AT LAST HA HA HA

This HT entry should be no more then a picture and a full page of HA HA HA, but I will add a little story to it.

Since I own HT 10WT no.1 (it’s been a while now) I’ve only used it to cast my 5wt line for my distance practice. For my usual flats fishing I’m using 8WT rod, but today I decided to finally take the HT to the flats.

Set with intermedium line and a clouser, NO LUCK, as usual BTW.

Of course my main goal is to catch a fish when I’m on the water, but if this doesn’t happen, I really enjoy fly casting, and HT doesnt disappoint here. Current gets a little faster on the outgoing tide, I wanted to fish some deeper holes, and steep drop-offs. For that I reached for my big gun – RIO LEVIATHAN 400GR (26feet of fast sinking head) and a heavy prawn.

Again casting was fantastic, but then there it is. After stripping my fly to my feet, I notice something blackish on my fly – weed I thought – as I’m going through the bottom.

Looking closer and I recognised a familiar flapping tail motion – HEY, THERE IS A FISH, YES, FINALY I CAUGHT THE FISH, MY FIRST FISH ON MY HOT TORPEDO 10WT…..

Let the pictures tell the rest of the story ha ha haha

Cheers,
Mike

Round 3 – Entry 26 – Paul Harps

I received my 6 weight Hot Torpedo (No. 2) just about five years ago, in the middle of the winter, a month before my job was to be terminated in the spring of 2013. My heart was broken, my life turned upside-down, but I had a wonderful wife and I had fish.

Of course, upon hearing that news, I went fishing.

I brought the Sexyloops Hot Torpedo to Mexico for bonefish, ladyfish, and snappers on the flats, I lost a permit with it. It came as a lightweight rod to Cuba.The rod came north with me to Baffin Island, three times now, in search of land locked Arctic Char. The rod has been the first out of the truck on rivers in Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. It has stalked trout, and grayling, and pike, and carp, and bass. It has also sat on the bank or stayed in the truck during naps on the river, but always ready to cast.

I cringe when dumbbell eyes hit the blank on a bad cast. I have tossed the rod up on the bank as I fell into the water. I have forgot it at home and missed it during three hours of driving without fishing. It has made time more enjoyable on many waterbodies, and I am thankful that it is part of an excuse to get out. If objects can hold memories, the rod has a fair share.

For me, the rod is more than a just a tool. I have other rods that I enjoy to cast – slow rods, large rods, long rods, even a rod without a reel. I fish in places where the 6 weight is not the most appropriate tool.

But for what it’s worth, I received the Hot Torpedo during one of the most unstable times in my life. To me, it symbolizes more than just a piece of graphite. It is an escape, forever tied to being able to find a small piece of enjoyment and solitude during dark days. While things haven’t stabilized in my life, I know that tomorrow or next week, or maybe sometime next month, I can grab a box of flies and the Hot Torpedo, and head down to the river as a tonic for my soul.

Thank you for the rod and the memories, Paul!

Marco’s HT6 Instructor

A beautiful rod destined of Macau. Thanks Marco!

Our top seller! You can see here. 🙂

Round 3 – Entry 25 – Gavan Hennessy

What can I say?! The rod is great. A nice balance between a casting tool and a fishing rod.

I’m well on the way on my CI journey. The photo here shows some of the crowd we had in San Francisco for casting lessons and demonstrations this week. After 40 years of fly fishing, it’s great to put something back into our wonderful sport (or in my case and obsession and way of life). We had kids as young as seven and adults pushing 90! What a great buzz.

Keep up the good work and make sure you have a 4wt built and ready after the Christmas holidays.