I think Gary is away this week fishing the Smoky Mountains, which gives me another chance to point you to the Video Fly Casting Manual that will ultimately be 64 fly casting videos on everything from the basics (or "Essentials") which is the point we have reached today to presentation casts and all the Spey casts amongst other things. Those of you who purchased the APP will recognise the videos. For you guys I am making a special folder where you will be able to download these videos for offline use.
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For those of you who know me, it should have come as no surprise that the first Hot Torpedo rod to appear was a 9ft #6 since this is the rod weight and length that's been my "go-to" rod for over 30 years. A 9ft #6 is the most versatile trout fishing rod; it can throw a big heavy nymph combo, at a push a heavily weighted streamer, but is equally comfortable fishing dry flies from size 8 down to 16 (and can be pressed to fish smaller, tiny stuff, when required). Furthermore it is the most common rod length and weight for single-handed teaching purposes. I know that in the USA the most popular fishing rod is a 9ft #5, but apart from competitions (and one year when I fished XP5 exclusively) it is not my preferred choice - and as you'll have figured out by now, any time I feel the need to go lighter than a 6 then I'll jump down to a 4WT, which has considerable advantages over the 5 in my opinion.
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What a nice suprise! When we came home from hunting this week we saw that there are two small browns in our backyard preparing for their wedding. They had already built quite a nice spawning place and what a nice picture to see them staying fin-to-fin together getting ready for the big moment! A little bit further upstreams already the next spawning place, that gives hope for the future because our rivers are in a really bad condition... many reasons such as hydroelectric power and stupid laws.
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I haven't really tied many dry flies and over the last 6-7 years - mainly because 1/ I have hundreds and 2/ Trout and grayling fishing in Denmark isn't what it used to be. Thankfully, at least grayling are on the recovery in some streams after being almost wiped out by winter fouraging cormorants, and I have enjoyed a some good days this year.
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Number 5 in the Mikes salmon flies series. The built wing of the “Butcher”.
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My Instron is up and running again now, apparently during the routine electrical safety testing there had been a mix up between circuits and the wrong fuses had been replaced. This meant that my machine instantly blew the fuse it was on, whereas some other equipment wouldn’t have had the protection it needed – so the safety testing actually introduced a hazard, I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere.
Anyway, I thought I’d do some knot testing, specifically tippet knots i.e. joining two identical pieces of nylon together. My set up for these tests involved two metal bobbins around which the nylon could be wound, without knotting. These were held in the Instron mechanical tester where force and extension were measured as the bobbins were driven apart. I’ve mentioned in my previous mechanical testing FPs that I’d prefer to ‘shock’ the leader material in order to replicate the kind of failures usually seen in a fishing scenario, however I’m bound by the maximum speed of the machine. As such, each test took a couple of seconds to break the nylon.
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During the past week we met a lot of fly fishermen who didn't succeed in catching a pike on fly here on Rügen Island - Germany. BUT we did catch a shit load of fish based on having found the right tactics.
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We are slightly out of synch this week because the roll cast is such a long video and consequently we have juggled the order. Later in this week I shall drop in the stripping/retrieving line video.
Still covering first lesson material. This is the stuff you need to master and practise because it's the building blocks of the more technical casts coming later.
If you have never mastered Single Handed Spey Casts then I thoroughly recommend you do and the humble Roll Cast is your the foundation.
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Autumn arrived in Montana with a heavy hand this year. Some years there are a few cooler nights leading up to a first frost, combined with some overcast days in between bright and warm moments. Autumn 2017 hit us with two nearly-back-to-back snowstorms just a couple of days after a high temperature of 90 degrees F. That first storm smashed my tomato plants and dropped local water temps precipitously, and also thankfully extinguished the many forest fires we'd been dealing with. Now things have finally sorted themselves out apparently and returned to the bit of glorious “Indian Summer” that we are currently having.
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I've been reading (haven't read it all - yet) Jason Borger's new book, "Single-Handed Fly Casting". Mine was on the early pre-order list, and I'm fairly convinced you all know why. Here's a few of the reasons I really like this book.
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Number 4 in the the Mikes salmon flies series. The Snow Fly sporting a heral wing.
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I was planning to do some more Instron mechanical testing for this week’s FP, however when I came to switch the machine on there was no power to the circuit. I suspect a breaker has been tripped somewhere upstream of my lab during one of the all-to-regular electrical safety checks and it now requires appropriately trained electrical specialists to track down where and why the power is off. This can’t be done by a single person, as the hazards associated with electrical work mean that two person working is the rule – and then only after formal ‘work authorisation’ has been given etc. When I read about certain institutions being charged £1000 to change a light bulb etc. I have a wry smile to myself as I can see on a daily basis where the costs can escalate. Working in a high hazard facility can be very frustrating at times.
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Because that's where the fish are!
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After what seemed like a dearth of flyfishing activity my plate overtopped in the last few days.
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Firstly a big congratulations to Stuntman Ronan and Iza for getting engaged!!
Now, sometime during the middle of last week I uploaded a video on the importance of the Loop. Due next is the Grip and Lee's Triangle Method which are live today. I'm currently working on more videos and their respective pages at the moment. The more advanced stuff is coming! All up there are 64 videos, so it's quite a lot of work. I must thank Lena for helping me out moving videos around and uploading them to Vimeo. It saves me a very great deal of time - Jungle Internet is not all it's cracked up to be around here.
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Like Lars I have the same problem that season end, so I had just a last chance to say goodbye to our brown trouts. It was just a small fish, but still nice to close the season with a few red spots in my hands. Now I'm just looking forward to the sea trout season in Denmark, sadly I have to wait a little bit until we can drive up but I can already tie some flies for the trip. A perfect match that there arrived just some new shrimp-legs from a danish company who like to make flytying really easy.
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Or - not quite - end of season is what it's really about, and then, not quite that either. Can you tell I haven't been fishing much the last 2-3 weeks? Something strange always happens around October 1st. Three of the salmon rivers in Western Jutland close on October 15th, and I'm always conscious about that around October 1st, thinking that I still have a fortnight to get in a few trips or three.
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Number 3 in the Mikes salmon flies series. The durham ranger – feather wing.
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The BFCC competition fly casting year came to a conclusion on Sunday with Matt Tonkin taking a well deserved British Championship win, beating me into second place. The format of the championship meant that it was still all to play for going into the last event of the year and, as it transpired on the day, the result was decided only after the very final discipline, accuracy.
I was drawn early to cast the accuracy and was pleased to post a good (for me) score which took the lead and edged me ahead in the championship standings. As such Matt needed to improve on the scores that he’d posted from previous events – and duly he did exactly that, registering a score that put him in second place. And that’s how it stayed and Matt won the ‘virtual’ championship trophy – although there is a real one on the way to him sometime soon!
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After a busy weekend with lots of fly casting I am tying some pike flies right now.
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I think I am going through flyfishing withdrawals. Since the hurricane, almost all of my time has been spent on recovery, both on the home front and on the job. Even if I had time, Everglades National Park is still about 90% closed. Only recently have they opened the front gate, for daylight use only, and essentially all facilities are gone. Even grass casting has been unavailable as my local field is still littered with tree debris.
So, I really have nothing new to talk about. Instead, I’m pulling something out of the archives that I wrote years ago for a different internet blog that unfortunately is no longer really on topic about fly fishing. I never posted it there, so it really is not a retread. I had planned to but then thought better of it. Now I don’t think it will matter.
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Today I'm launching a new section on Sexyloops that will ultimately see 3 hours of fly casting video tutorials.They were originally the Sexyloops APP, but it is hoped that in this format they become even more useful to you. I'll upload a few videos every week as time allows. You'll also notice that I make mention of the Academy. You'll be hearing much more about this particular aspect as well over the next few weeks.
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Matt is currently on the road somewhere and Daniela is moving home! So here is a blast from the past from Matt some ten years ago...
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If the choice was in fine, scottish malt, I'd take a double anytime :-). But I'm taling about the number of hands on the rod, and also outside of the normal types of fishing where you'd usually choose a doublehander. Salmon(steelhead fishing is where 98% of the worlds double hand rods are used, I think, and for a good reason. Theyy carry heavy sinkers with ease, makes casting a long day easy, speys go a long way and they aren't bad for handling a big fish on a long line either.
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Mikes Fly number 2 - the Achroid
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At the last BFCC Meeting (in Jersey) we had an accuracy competition on water held according to the World Championship rules (flies and all – at the BFCC we make do with fluff) and it was really fun to participate and watch. Many of us seemed to find targeting the line of the centre of the rings fairly easy, but had difficulty getting the distance correct. Personally I find I often cast past the target as I’m not that good at determining where the bit I can see, i.e. the fly line, should land in relation to where the fly ends up (I’m also particularly poor at trying to tell James the distance where a fish rose when fishing – much to James’ annoyance).
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Next week we will start our annual hosted fly fishing trips to the (German) island Rügen. Until December we will offer 1 to 7 days trips fly fishing for pike, pike perch (Zander) and perch.
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This will likely be short. I’m not in much of a mood to wax philosophically about flyfishing.
We traveled down to Everglades City on Sunday to see what the hurricane did to the environment. I might be tempted to call it an “eye-opener” but then I might have to include an unmanly admission of tears.
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It's been a week of false starts for me, I have a problem with one of my outboards which has been a total PITA. It's only three months old so this has taken me by complete surprise (in my innocence I expected 5 trouble-free years of running). Anyway I'll take it back to town again tomorrow so they can take it apart again. Fortunately I have a spare boat and engine ("The Ronan") so I'll be picking that one today (it's currently up the lake with a friend) - because, like everyone else, I really need to fish!!!
I'm actually trying to get really organised this month; test-driving a houseboat that I've had my eye on for the past 8 months, organising The Sexyloops Wedding, as well as pushing Sexyloops up a few notches. The plan is to really get settled into Malaysia so I feel less like a ping pong ball. One of the great things about Malaysia is that there is good fishing to be had all year round but with the Wet Season fast approaching (it's raining almost daily now) I need to move my life forward too and find better shelter.
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