We had discussed claret very often in the recent a more distant past. It seems to work very well for trout and grayling. So I dyed a few hare front feet in that colour.
The fibres spun in split thread and than wound on to a small dry fly hook make really nice buzzer or stonefly dry flies. The float very well and aren´t slimed up like CDC after a fish.
The colour reminds me of Zinfandel somehow ... that might be the reason why the fish like them I guess. If you read this and think I should have some good Zinfandel, feel free to send a bottle. Norway is deprived of good, affordable wine. ... don´t ask - don´t get me started --- tax laws gone crazy
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This is going to be a short FP today as Tracy and I are busy getting prepared for a saltwater fishing trip to the Bahamas. Between trips I like to strip the lines off the reels and store them in big, open coils. Invariably I then use the reels for something else, for example my bonefish reel had a ST27 line on one spool and an MED on the other (from when we fished Grafham Water with Paul last year). Tracy’s spools were similarly re-allocated with shooting heads and freshwater fly lines. This is all well and good until you’re trying to find specific spools that contain the backing that you want – 70yds of braid is more than adequate for the UK but not what we want for the tropics. I’ve therefore got lines stripped off everywhere, but I’ve now found the correct spools and re-attached the appropriate lines.
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This weekend we will run a 2 days workshop about coastal Sea trout fishing and then the week after we will leave for a 3 weeks trip to Gotland, Sweden. Lots of Sea trout fishing ahaead - can't wait!
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Lousy weather this weekend – the wind is blowing (from the wrong direction), its getting warm, and its raining: not the best conditions for a trip into the back. I guess I’ll get in some casting practice? Despite the anticipation of tarpon season revving up I’m sorry to see the cool season fishing coming to a close.
Sometimes I hesitate to talk about my fishing trips, but most of the time, when I do, I receive a look of skepticism, or maybe concern, from whoever gets the report. This response is common from the select few that know me well and I trust. It is not that they don’t believe my fish stories. I seldom stretch the truth, and quite frankly I don’t usually catch bragging numbers, in fact it is not uncommon for me to get blanked lately. What most people find hard to believe is where I go and how I get there: far into the uncharted mangroves by paddling a canoe.
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If I had to pick my favourite Sexyloops rod it would be the HT4. This is my"go-to" trout rod, dry fly rod, grayling with ultra-fine tippet, stillwater buzzers at distance, stumping Giant Gourami, weighted streamers, and a whole lot more besides... it's the rod I pick up just about any time there's fishing to be done! But it wasn't intended that way, it was originally designed simply for river fishing in the Balkans where a 6WT feels overgunned for fishing size 16 flies and smaller, particularly with the .10 tippets (7X) that are necessary there.
Now I know you're probably thinking you need a new rod, and I would agree with you - this is it!
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A quick and simple fly tying related idea for today.
Shank flies and stinger hook flies like the string leech and Intruder have been very popular among steelhead anglers for a number of years. For good reason, too. The advantages of having a replaceable, short shanked, ultra-sharp hook off the very back end of a very long, wiggly fly are many – more hookups, better hookups, better land ratio, fewer flies ruined when your hook inevitably hits the stones. So, it didn’t take long for trout anglers and others to grab onto the ideas and begin incorporating them into their patterns.
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Legs …. a prime trigger for fish accepting a nymph when looking at a fly from a distance checking for «triggers» in the silhouette. I believe fish do the same. Tiny details which set an edible item apart from a piece of debris floating in the water column. A big part of this is the correct presentation of the fly, the appropriate size, shape and very very important ..... LEGS
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After every day’s flat’s fishing Tracy and I take a few minutes in the evening to write up some notes about the day. These prove to be invaluable when deciding when it’s best to return to any given area e.g. the state of the tide, the position of the sun (vital for visibility), the wind strength and direction, the type of ground (will we need flies with weed guards etc.) and lots of other general comments. We’ve recently been reviewing our notes from last year in preparation for a return trip that’s coming up soon.
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One of the main keys to be successful in teaching fly casting is to find the (often small) causes for all the trouble in the student's casts. Once you've indentified them most students can eliminate them within minutes (often seconds).
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After numerous challenging trips where I saw plenty of fish but caught few or none(!), this last weekend I got more than my money’s worth. Things are changing, as they always do, some for the better, others for the worse, but it seems nature takes a lot of it in stride.
Yesterday as I launched my canoe in the predawn light I noticed something strange on the surface of the water. I was scared it was some new type of floating algae as blooms have been a recent problem throughout south Florida. When I trained my flashlight onto the mass I found it to be aggregated plaques of emerging mosquitoes and shucks. Well, at least there was no doubt that this day was going to be different from the last few trips.
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I suppose that for those of you on the outside looking in, it must be rather bewildering that fly casting instructors have spent well over a decade arguing about fly casting definitions and more to the point, still can't yet agree on them! Last week Bernd was training candidates for the IFFF test and found considerable difficulties in understanding their definition of Creep, indeed he disagreed with it, but equally I disagree with both of their persepctives. So allow me to try to explain the Definitions Story which really started 14 years ago...
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Jonny King invented a awesome baitfish pattern years ago, it turned into one of my favourite pattern in our lakes. Because there is no weight on it it's really easy to cast and there is a lot of movement and a nice baitfish shape. Last but not least, it's easy to tie and the material is cheap. So here we go step by step:
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Spring is in the air - all you need to do to make sure is go outside every once in a while, There are several certain signs - the lark, the lapwing, snowdrops, erantis, everything greening. And then...
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... and off to the next show - during the recent Danish Fly Festival not only Lars has recognised my outstanding language and talk somebodies ear off skills ;-) ...
Ralf Vosseler, a humble and sorted German craftsman of the more serious kind thought it would be a good idea to ask me to help him on his stand at the upcoming Angling Fair in Jönköping in Sweden.
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Tracy and I were invited to give a demonstration of distance casting at a gathering of instructors on Sunday. We went armed with the outfits that we typically practice with – a #5 full line, a #5 shooting head cut from an old MED line, a #7 full line (on a rod marked #10) and a ST27 outfit. A number of people cast these outfits after our demo and I picked up a common theme from the subsequent comments made – the ST27 outfit felt heavy!
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During the last days I was teaching fly casting - both single and double handed - to beginners, advanced and experts. Obviously I need a serious knowledge to be able to succeed on all levels of teaching fly casting. So I should be able to understand the basic (common) definitions being used to teach, right?
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There is a conundrum for fly anglers in South Florida right now. Our coldest winter temperatures are probably over, with air temperatures now ranging from the high 50s to low 80s (in degrees F), which to most folks reading this might just sound fantastic. But there is a downside: the winds. For about a week ago they were predicted to blow between 15 and 30 knots. That is a bit higher than usual, but the prevalence of high winds will remain for the next few months. For the spoiled anglers around here, who can fish almost 365 days a year, it is a time for lots of bitching and complaining, and little fishing. That’s too bad for them. I’m going fishing at every chance. Those winds can make for some of the best fishing of the year.
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It's been a great fishing week for me, hanging out with Flavio, chasing Toman (Snakehead), lighting campfires and playing the occasional game of chess. Flavio is an awesome cook by the way - far better than me - and luckily for both of us he likes to eat spicy food! This is good because "Ring Burners" are my speciality.
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If you are in the UK, and for some reason set your alarm clock for Midnight each night so you can read the new Sexyloops FP as soon as it goes live, then you may have noticed that today’s FP was late by a few hours. That’s because I was fishing all day here in Montana, 7 hours behind GMT, and I didn’t get around to writing until after dinner. But I’m sure no one noticed, so it’s ok.
Today was a fantastic day on the river for us – a nice float trip down a local river where almost everything happened unexpectedly.
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The Danish FlyFestival 2017 is over. It's always a fantastic event, but I think this year's is one of the best I've experienced, and I've been to them all, except the first in 1995. It's really is a nice event with such a good atmosphere all round and there are so many good friends that you only get to see at that event.
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And here is the report from the Denmark .... Konstanse and I had a wonderful time. It was busy, not as busy as the previous one but still very very busy. After 700km of driving from Oslo we arrived Friday around midnight and slept in our mini-camper we call "postman". We just love our little red Kangoo.
Next morning we had breakfast on the house. and wondered around a bit. What a show! So many exhibitors and casting pools and flytiers ... it is almost too much to take in. After a quick lunch we sat down at the fly tiers tables and started tying. Konstanse got a lot of attention for her semi-realistic nymphs. I on the other hand showed very very simple flies. It was a good collaboration and we were able to show the spectrum of complexity in trout flies.
Saturday evening was crowned by a luxurious three course meal sponsored by the organisers of the festival.
On Sunday we continued our tying / tuition work until lunchtime. We had another two hours to wonder about on the show floor and meet and greet some of the nicest people in the trade. Sadly we had to leave by 14:00 on Sunday to catch a ferry. The trip back did not go as smooth as we hit a blizzard in Sweden, which forced us to stay overnight at a parking place besides the highway. However, we made it home save, but tired. Very tough on Konstanse as she had to work on Monday. Never the less we really want to go to the 2019 festival, should we be invited.
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Tracy has been busy working with the BFCC committee this week trying to finalise the event calendar for the year. I believe that most venues and dates are set, with the first meeting of the year to be held in Cullompton, Devon on the 23rd of April. Unfortunately Tracy and I won’t be able to attend this one as we’re away on a fishing trip, this is unfortunate as we really enjoy travelling down to the South West (apart from when I got a speeding ticket on the motorway last time). The BFCC have again been asked about running the casting competitions at the Game Fair this year at Hatfield House, just north of London. This is at a very early planning stage, however it is good to know that the organisers of the fair are very supportive of casting sport. I’m sure that Tracy and the committee will be contacting BFCC members in due course to ask for support for this event, so please look out for that. Last year was great fun, even with some raging hangovers (honey JD slips down too easily).
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Most fly rod designers have a certain field of fly fishing in mind that they design a fly rod for. What they don't know is who will buy the fly rod and where it will be fished then. Many fly rods happen to be used very different compared to what the designer had in mind when labeling the line weight recommendation on the fly rod. This is where most of the discussions about the right fly line for a given fly rod start.
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I've been fishing with Flavio this week and he's been doing quite well - although we thought we had lost him one night when he went out for a spot of kayak-fishing! But he's still alive and hasn't been eaten by a tiger yet. While he was fishing I was filming and managed to capture one spectacular Snakehead strike. It's really an eye-opener to watch the strike in slow motion, since the fish follows the bubble stream, speeds up and launches from underneath the popper to engulf it.
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My last post was about a tobi pattern made with polar bear fur and dubbing. The danish coast fishermen are using a lot of polar bear for their flies and since I had a UV lamp in my hand I also know why.
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I'm covering for Lars today, in the middle of a fishing trip with Swiss Board member, Flavio. On Wednesday Flavio had the best Snakehead day on fly that I've seen. First cast a trophy Snakehead somewhere between 8 and 10lbs - my battery on my electric scales was dead :( - then throughout the day he lost another four eats, before landing a fish of between 13 and 15lbs, and then one more - this time a free-riser of about 2.5KG round some stumps. On the second day, second cast, he caught another Snakehead close to around 10lbs... Fantastic!!
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Danish Fly Festival 4th and 5th March 2017
Look forward to a weekend in the sign of fly fishing, when Northern Europe's largest flue festival opens its doors. The many exhibitors and dedicated fly fishermen who you can meet at The Danish Fly Festival, will all make your two days in Kolding is unforgettable. There can be traded, exchanged experiences, listening to interesting lectures, experienced world class fly casters, testing equipment and not least meeting old and new fish friends.
Konstanse and yours truly will hold the sexyloops flag high at the fly tying tables :-)
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In preparation for our next saltwater trip, we’ve been reviewing what flies we need so that James can tie up some that we’re low on. One of my most memorable fish from our last trip was a huge garfish that I hooked with a fly I was using to target sharks. It was swimming around with several smaller Gar and seemed intent on taking my fly. It took line, jumped quite a few times and was great fun to catch, though a bit fiddly to release with so many teeth! I remember distinctly that it had a beautiful blue colouration on its back.
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For the last 2 weeks it was pretty cold in Germany. Most waters were covered under ice. In addition I had to battle with the influenza virus during the past week. Of course all this didn't keep me from moving on with a daily fly casting session, but right now it's getting warm again and I can't wait to start fishing again today!
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