Anchored out on the Condom Titanic in yet another Wet Season thunderstorm! I might switch to helping out by running a mate's rainforest bar in the evenings and growing my beard and fishing hard in the mornings. It's great fun because I get to meet lots of people and talk about fly fishing! Also there is the annual Belum World Masters Pool Championship to be taken seriously. We're refurbishing the table for this great event. Last year I let Des win because I was feeling sorry for him. This year, however, I'm going to kick his arse.
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It's Christmas time, and here in Australia people are going mental. Every single company is organizing Christmas parties for their staff, and everybody meets with friends and mates they haven’t seen for long time. What does it means to me? Well I don’t want to swear on the FP, but this means shits load.
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I'm often asked why I fish from the float tube, kayak or pontoon boat as much as I do, and of course, there are several reasons.
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Fly tying books … I have not so very many new ones. I likes old ones, like Skues for example. These guys did actually fish and catch fish - in the hundreds. I am more sceptical towards some of the new books … 50thousand patterns for grayling isn´t a title getting my attention. Who "needs" this?
To me that sound just like another one in the „50 shades of olive“ series. Anyway, very impressive such books - given the fact that the author surely has tested all these flies intensively ... yeah, right. Very nice to look at and maybe even inspiring … but how about an entomology book? …. nough said - don´t want to get into more trouble.
Some material (books & videos) I´d recommend ... read on in part 8 of the SFTS
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After some fishing with older fly tackle - say a couple of 40-or-more years old fly rods, close to the same age or maybe older reel, plus a modern variant of a "traditional" natural silk fly line, I found that its all perfectly OK to fish, despite the rods being a bit heavy. The truly modern parts were the nylon mono leader and the tippet, also the two tungsten bead nymphs rig. A book on history of fly fishing was claiming that some 100 or so years ago , the fishing line of use at the time was equal to a modern nylon line with a diameter of 0,25mm , but with a breaking strength of a modern 0,12mm mono. I made my calculations and decided that with no doubt the most important advance in fishing not only for our time but even for the past centuries of rod and line fishing is the invention of the nylon fishing line.
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Last week simply was a hell of a time fly fishing for pike in German Pike Wonderland. Several of my guests caught their first fish on fly rod or their first pike on fly ever!
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Lately I’ve been exploring spring creeks around the world and how to fish them. I’ve become so enamored; I even wrote an article about three endangered streams in New York State, published in Fly Fisherman Magazine. When I travel, I like to combine trips to destinations like the International Fly Fishing Fair and sneak-in some fishing. The last time I attended, it was held in Livingston, Montana. Livingston is a college town with character and some history. It is home of the headquarters of the International Federation of Fly Fishers, famous authors, Jim Harrison and Tom McGuane and several artists and chefs. It also has the famous Dan Bailey’s Fly Shop and George Anderson’s Yellowstone Angler for guidance and equipment.
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It's been an interesting few weeks with, at times, some rather vibrant discussions. "It must be about fly casting!", you say to yourself - and you'd be right! It actually comes down to the British Casting Team. Following the last World Championships where three of us attended from Great Britain, Lee and I, inspired by the progress made by other teams, such as Norway and Finland, decided that we should start a British Team to hopefully try and match them, if not in numbers then in spirit. However for one reason or another we have now split into respective countries. It is felt by a few people that this route will result in more participation. Time will tell - let's hope so!
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Back in Europe everything seemed much easier. When planning a fishing trip I knew if I would be targeting Trout, with the possibility of hooking a Grayling. Other times I knew if I was going after Pike - heavier rod, bigger flies -easy. All this saltwater fly fishing business is giving me a headache.
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I think I've tried just about every carry system there is, and currently, I'm back at the good, old fishing vest (apart from when I'm in the float tube, pontoon boat or kayak). Salmon season has just ended, and last weekend, I was packing the gear away, including emptying the fishing vest, and I took this snap shot of the contents, and here's what I carry around.
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You do not need all this, really. Don´t get confused by all the paraphernalia „they“ try to sell to you. A little tool for this and a little tool for that. No worries.
YOU DO NOT NEED ALL THIS.
So follow the SFTS and learn the essential techniques of fly tying - with a twist.
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Following my last FP regarding the great G.E.M. Skues, Frank Sawyer is the next man in line as far as the history of proper nymphing Enlightenment goes. Some three or four years ago, I read his son's edition of his work about nymphing and I was as much impressed by it as I was when reading Skues. We may have better tackle now, but those two fly anglers are top of the sport for me by any standard. Keen naturalists, observant fishing minds, I can only admire the level of the game they both maintained in fly fishing.
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Working as a full time teacher for fly fishing means to teach students how to adjust their tackle, how to fly cast, how to tie flies, how to fish and most important how to CATCH fish. Last week we had a CATCHING week!
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Larry Dahlberg, star of the Hunt for Big Fish, and I made four trips to Venezuela in the early 1990s to pursue a variety of species for the show. As I remember, we had a number of sponsors who directly made it possible. Guri Lake Lodge, Goldon Travel and a private oil company were the majority. We caught payara, peacock bass, redtail and tiger catfish, pacu, blue and white marlin, sailfish, spearfish and tarpon. Larry mostly used tackle manufacturer sponsored bait or spin tackle and lures but when we finished filming with conventional gear, Larry enjoyed catching fish on a fly rod. After all, he was a fly guide for 23 years and a “good stick.” I also got to fish when we were exploring and experimenting. One of the most challenging trips was the hunt for world record tarpon, on a hunch Larry had.
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Terrible news from Paris. I hope everyone is safe. My sister lost a friend. Very sad news on her birthday. Unfortunately I think we are going to be plagued by these people for a very long time to come. On with the fishing. (Don't let the bastards grind you down.)
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I got a bit down with my fly fishing ego after completing a lot of saltwater gear, flies, and then spending time in the salt without much success. As you know I came across Australian Bass, and WOW - couple trips to the same spot and every time there was a fish. So what is this fish that put smiles on many angling faces?
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All thoughts go to France today!
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Friday again - SFTS day. Section 6 … we are stepping up the game a few notches. The famous Klinkhamer. Some say it was sort of a revolution in fly design. Even though halv of the fly is submerged, it´s a dry fly. Even purists agree, I hope.
Anyway - you will benefit fully from the modules and techniques we have covered so far - so fear not. You (not Paul though) will master this terribly complex pattern without any problems.
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I didn't get too many live fly fishing lessons, so I would rather mention as my mentor someone who impressed me when reading his books. In fact the only fly fishing lesson I got was when I was 12, just after I started tying wet flies with some hackles pulled out from my grandmother's pillow. My father introduced me to a local angler who was supposed to show me how to fly fish. His name was Kotse and one day he took me with him to a trip to my home town river Maritsa, Plovdiv. His tackle was a simple wooden rod with no reel, a metre or so of sort of braided line and a mono leader. The fly was a live male honey bee.
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Finally the IFFF published a set of fly casting definitions via the IFFF magazine "The loop".
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When you ask American baby boomers who grew-up fly fishing, what was the first fly tying and fishing book they read, most say, Art Flick’s New Streamside Guide, Nick Lyons Books, 1969. Even though rod designer Steve Rajeff grew up in California and this book is primarily about Catskill fly tying, he says this book was very influential to his early tying and fishing. It describes and shows color photos of a handful of insects and his Catskill dry fly imitations of them but only pencil drawings of the insects as nymphs. He did include nymph tying recipes though.
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It's taken a long time, but I'm now ready to start shooting video of the fantastic fishing to be had here on Lake Temenggor, North Malaysia. The fishing here is challenging enough at the best of times, and trying to angle the boat so that a mounted video camera can shoot the action just makes everything a whole lot more complicated! Today I was experimenting with a GoPro mounted to a paddle, tied to the bow of the boat. Surprisingly - apart from steaming up - it worked. So that's exciting!
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As a Restaurant Manager in a busy famous restaurant I have to be always ready, prepared and be one step ahead of things happening. There is no space for random, casual things to happen. This is very related to the my fishing trips, as from now on I double check everything before I go fishing.
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There are places I go, even if I know the chance for a fish is slim, and even though I know other places which, under the same conditions, where the chance of a fish is much greater.
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Friday again — fly tying time. I hope you have had a chance to look at the previous instalments of the SFTS (Sexyloops Fly Tying School). The SFTS is a modular concept. I will go through techniques, rather than patterns. I use fly pattern to show the use of the various techniques, but please feel free to try them with other materials, colours and sizes.
Todays fly is the Red Tag. Maybe one of the most effective dry flies around. I know many who fish it for trout and grayling.
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For 18 seasons now I still have a lasting fondness for fly fishing the local small streams. The fish are not big - 18cm to 25 cm is the common size, with 30cm being good size and very rare 40cm to 45cm fish. It's often easier to find solitute and to spend a relaxing day out on some of the hundred of local trout streams. The beauty of the mountains where the streams flow, the fresh air away from the polluted city, will recharge the batteries of the misfortunate citizen every time when he or she fishes the streams. I will take the map, see if there is a stream somewhere, look at the altitude, guessing what are the chances for a good trout habitat, bring the fly rod, some flies - nymphs, wets, dries, emergers and have a go! Every season I will try to find and fish a new small stream to have a rest from my usual choices of regularly fished waters.
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I am having a hell of a week teaching fly fishing for pike day by day. Yet all students have caught proper fish!
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Lake Ontario, one of North America’s Great Lakes, functions like a freshwater inland sea. If not for the water quality problems in its tributaries back in the 1800s, the lake would still have a freshwater population of native Atlantic Salmon. The only native salmonid left is the lake trout. Since the Atlantics were extirpated, a variety of invasive non-native salmonids from the Pacific have been stocked.
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Tim Kempton stopped over for three days of fishing last weekend, following a Rompin Trip for Sailfish (which he caught of course!). I was really hoping to see him catch some Snakehead up here. I know his casting is good enough and I told him it would be both fun and interesting! Tim's been here before but hasn't stuck a big Snakehead. He had a nice Jungle Perch on the first evening followed by three days proper of fishing for Snakehead. The result was one big fish on and lost (not sure why, but it broke off) and a solid chase from another big fish - both off babies, and a third free-rising fish attempt to charge down the popper at the boat. Hard work! But we had a great time. Tim knows that Snakehead shots are the toughest sight-casting shots going and I think he learned a lot, certainly we had a brilliant time as usual, watching the rugby at night and fishing hard during the day.
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