When I was competing in weightlifting I learned a thing or two how to prepare for a competition. Like when in the time leading up to the completion I could go heavy and when I needed to dial things back. Dialling back is good, but you also need to know how much. Too much and you also loose the edge. Some people could take the whole week before the competition off, I had to keep the training going or I didn’t feel “connected” and sharp on the competition day.
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Summer in Finland is short and furious, just like in any northern country. We have three months, absolute maximum four months, when everything has to happen. Birds laying eggs and have new generation ready to fly before autumn comes, berries, insects etc. Sun and warm has short period to do their magic.
And this same period is flyfishing season, that you can extend little bit from both ends, depending year. So extension part is depending luck, how spring comes and so on. So let's stick in main season.
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This week I couldn't take being stuck at home anymore, so I went fishing. Actually I was planning to stay home and continue my recovery/tidy the tying room. Then I saw a picture of some ripe Tokyo mulberries and there was no way I was missing the chance of that fishing. I'm not sure it was actually a great idea given how done in I was afterwards, but I don't regret it.
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I took the cast off my hand/wrist this week in the hope that I'd quickly be able to get back into my casting, but how wrong I was. At the end of our trip, once the pain had subsided, I had switched back to casting right handed, despite only having two fingers and a thumb free to grip the rod. I actually found that wrapping my 2nd finger and thumb around the rod, whilst having the index finger pointing up the blank, offered me the opportunity to make a half decent cast – mainly because I could haul normally with my left. As I was already back to casting right handed I expected things to get back to normal pretty quickly once the movement restrictions forced by the rigid medical cast was removed, but if anything my casting has got worse.
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Last week I told Rickard that I had discovered a way of keeping my heart rate lower on long runs here in the tropics. I explained that by placing ice cubes in a head band, positioned against my forehead, I could keep more control over my heart rate. Rickard said it must be great not to care what other people think about you! I pointed out that I’m the only white man in Grik, I look like a combination of Santa Claus and a Yeti, and I’m running around an airfield in a tri suit. Ice strapped to my forehead is the least peculiar thing about me!
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There was a time in my life that my daily driver and guide van was a white 1992 Cadillac Hearse. I suppose I should add a little context to the circumstances that led me to this situation. My family owned and operated a funeral home and crematory. It just so happened that the vehicle I was driving before I got the hearse was an old white suburban. This suburban had two front seats, and a piece of plywood in the back. The piece of plywood made it easier to roll gurneys in and out of the back of the suburban. Yes, I was driving what we called a body bag truck before the hearse. These vehicles were perfect for car camping. They also afforded me plenty of extra space for rods, waders, and gear. I loved them.
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This was Catskills week. This of course is storied water, where the pioneers of American fly fishing developed their methods. It’s where the Dettes tied their flies, the Wulffs, Leonard Wright and the Darbees fished, and of course Theodore Gordon. I’m leaving out many people but you can visit The Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum, in Livingston Manor, or virtually, to learn more about them and the history of our sport. It had rained hard for a few days last week and the three rivers I went to fish were running high. By the time we got up there on Monday, the Willowemoc and the Beaverkill had cleared but the volume was still up. Insect activity wasn’t enough to get fish to show. There were some residual Hendricksons, early March browns, grannom caddis and yellow sally stones as well. The fish weren’t responding. The Delaware was running too high to wade effectively.
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Sometimes less is more. After a day at work and feeling tired, empty, and even miserable, a long training session probably isn’t the best idea. There might be a couple of productive minutes in the session still, but pushing through a long session will likely result in many more unproductive minutes as well. Those bad minutes can put doubt in your mind, might lead to an injury, or in the worst case, ingrain some bad habits. Practice doesn’t make perfect—practice makes permanent. Good practice is the key to perfect. If we could practice perfect, we probably wouldn’t need practice.
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We had short trip to Kuopio with Satu, few nights in hotel with spa. Some could call it holiday, for me it was more like to spent time somewhere as we are between seasons. Well I did sleep a lot and did nothing.
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I'm still ill, as such I haven't been fishing. It's been 3 weeks and I'm losing my mind. Usually when I don't/can't fish I climb mountains, but that's also out.
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Tracy and I are now back in Wales after our holiday. I found the trip tough and frustrating after my accident which forced me to cast left handed with little or no haul. Given that it was one of the windiest trips we've had, pretty much a full month of 25+ kmph winds, losing a significant part of my casting ability meant lots of missed shots and spooked fish from poorly placed flies. I posted a before and after accident chart of my catch rate compared to Tracy on the board, if anyone doubts the impact of good casting on fishing in the future I'll pull this data out showing how my success rate fell by 80%. I intend to work hard on my left handed casting over the next year so that if anything happens like this again it won't be such a disaster. I don't think it will ever be as good as my right handed cast, but it can be improved a long way from where it is now – my target is to be able to hit 100ft with a bonefish outfit, I suspect I'm around 80ft right now. Obviously sharp, fast loops are more important than ultimate distance when bonefishing, however I think sharp and fast for me will automatically put me in 100ft plus territory.
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Today is my weekly supplies run to the local metropolis, Gerik. I try to avoid these high-paced hives of human-activity. A few of my Zoom casting students have asked me how far I live from civilisation, and I would definitely call Grik civilised. Particularly since it has two legitimate spellings, both used on road signs as you approach the sprawling mass of two story buildings. Gerik and Grik — which are both correctly pronounced “Grik”. If you check out Wikipedia’s entry on Gerik, it says that one of the town’s notable locations is the bus stop.
So to get there from here, depends on where here is. Today here means a 45 minute ride by “speed” boat to Belum Rainforest Resort, a couple of nimble climbs up the Staircase of Death and then a 45 minute drive along arguably the most dangerous road in Malaysia. If it wasn’t for my fighter pilot fly fishing reactions I would be dead twice this year already.
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More than a couple of years ago I had graduated from college, and decided to go spend some time fly fishing on a river. I had really developed the itch with a fly rod at that point. Even when I was using more conventional fishing techniques, like tying a ten-pound Bonito to a cinder block and dropping her 300 yards off a beach to tug on sharks, I often wondered if I could have caught whatever species on fly instead. I was off to spend as much time as necessary on this river to really know the fish that lived there. I learned what sections held what types of fish. I learned what bugs were where during what time of year. I knew exactly where the stocking truck dropped fish, and what species or size those fish were. I learned a lot about leaders, tippets, rigs, how long of a leader I could still turnover, and how to make that leader exactly right. With one degree recently awarded, I was really working on another in fly fishing for trout, then I learned about the pipe.
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I’m back in the air flying toward NYC. I booked a flight to Newark International. This airport has been having problems. Besides the long developing understaffing at EWR in particular, and Musk’s DOGE layoffs, there was, a couple of days ago, a 90 second loss of the ATC radar contact with all the flights in the air. Apparently the controllers and pilots were freaking out. There were stories of stress, fear and tears. Pretty awful. It’s understandably getting a lot of press. There’s a feeling that all things aviation are falling apart, collisions at Dulles, the outage at Newark, near misses as well, and fighters rolling off the deck of the USS Truman into the Red Sea -- dogs and cats living together. No point worrying, but I hope they sort this out sooner than later as I’ll be flying out of Newark to Wyoming at the end of the month.
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The past week or so, the weather has been a bit strange—lots of wind and colder than usual, with some nights even dropping below freezing. So, long johns and warm jackets have been back on the menu
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Last weekend we had heavy snowing and it has been doing some during whole week. Starting from Saturday evening to Monday we had 40 cm new snow. That snow was heavily missed end of November, not now. Yet each year we will have about 100 cm snowing and now we have reached that level. This winter it just didn't happen before most of snow was already gone. Now summer can come.
Three years ago we were packing and getting ready to our first Malaysian trip. I remember how heat and humidity hit us when entering to Penang airport. We left from Finland just above around +10 celsius and next time when we were out it was +32 with humidity. Those were days. Our first day at lake was 13th of May. I missed my birthday fish, which was totally takeable, found by Paul. I still blame jungle juice with rotten mountain dew. I was not really in shape at that point, also there is small chance that arrival night drinking and jet lag could have had something to do with it.
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Due to how the holidays fell, a dose of pneumonia and the farmers getting the paddy fields ready which colours up the rivers round here I've had another week without fishing. Awful!
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Yesterday I finally caught and landed a barracuda. Not a particularly big one, but it made some spectacular leaps out of the water while I was playing it. I also hooked and played two sharks of about 40 lb-size, but lost them in the 'fight'. This was the first day where I have actually had success with these predators – every other predator 'hook-up' this holiday has been whilst using the 'wrong' tackle. (I should note that since James' injury, he is unable to cast the 10wt outfit, so I have been carrying mine everywhere. Or rather I have since the day I didn't and we saw several sharks and cudas acting in an aggressive manner! Carrying the rod though adds weight to my backpack and gives me back pain, but I am determined to catch something. James often carries it for me so that helps.)
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It was interesting how three-quarters of my students disappeared during Jan-March this year. Apparently there were two things at play. One was the cold and miserable second half to the US winter, and the other, that’s been mentioned to me many times now, has been the uncertain politics.
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It’s interesting to reflect on the elements that stand out the most in a memory, be it a song, a visual image, or even a particular smell that can transport you back to a cherished moment in your past. For this memory, it is the song “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’” by Wu-Tang Clan.
“Ghostface Killah is one of the GOATs!” “No doubt, man. No doubt.”
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OK - So I’m still confused. I’ve lost some confidence in my diagnosis last week of my lazy tail. I need to film it - and watch the work of my betters. I know how to fix it, but just don’t know what it is. I’ve fallen into a rat-hole. I’m out on a limb, circling the drain. I’m all over the road. I re-watched all 44 minutes of Graeme Hird’s “The importance of Tension...”- twice. What jumps out at me is his demonstration and discussion of the speed and spacing of waves moving toward the end of the line toward the fly. Hird says and shows that waves caused by rebound or intentional wiggles in any plane maintain their spacing throughout the cast. They all move at the same speed as the loop “nose” traveling through the line until, with skill or luck, the fly rolls out to its intended target. The waves formed after the loop is formed remain in the rod-leg when the line hits the water. The waves that form before the loop is formed, such as that formed by too-early power application and a concave tip-path, affect the fly’s flight, forming tailing loops or other intended or unintended fly paths because they are queued up ahead of the “nose” and play out out before the final turn-over of the cast.
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This weekend, I was a bit north of Gothenburg. The main reason was Truttan Open—Truttan as in Salmo trutta. It’s an event hosted every year by Öringsakademien, an association working to improve living conditions for trout in the Tanum municipality.
The main attraction of the day is the fishing. A fishing competition is held, and—say what you want about that—it brings in money for the other activities. Very nice measuring mats were provided: durable plastic with printed measurements, big enough to handle any trout that could possibly be caught. On top of that, the competition is always held at a time of day that somehow coincides with low water—neither rising nor falling. And for some reason, it always seems to land on a beautiful spring day with no wind and lots of sun. So, the fish are usually very safe. Each year I’ve attended, the competition has been won by a single fish. Only fish that meet the legal size limit—45 cm—are counted.
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Last weekend we had annual ice fishing event. Same company has been coming for 6 years now. It is always about same weekend, Friday and Saturday is ice fishing. They have pretty nice prizes as extra paid day off from work, one week paid holiday etc. It is more like event and Happy time and still they compete seriously.
We organize food and drinks so they can just fish and enjoy. It is also nice time for us as people are really nice and we start to know them as same guys are coming every year. We do have two huge fears with Satu, other is that they won't come for some reason and other is that they are coming. :D
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We're deep in a patch of public holidays this week, so I haven't been on the water. I'd rather avoid the crowds, but I have been out looking at things.
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