6 weeks ago a pretty resistant bakteria got inside my rod hand and ate a significant part of my skin all the way down to the bones. Antibiotics didn't work and due to that I had a serious surgery. Being in the hospital for 8 FUCKING days I almost was freaking out! Then I decided to no longer listen to the doctors. Instead I went home in order to try fishing again, which didn't work out the way I wanted it to.
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ALL the fly casting videos are now live in the video manual. There are 64 APP videos plus an additional 4 or preferably 5. These were filmed some six years ago but are pretty much still up-to-date. I have plans now for this section to integrate further with the Discussion Board and of course the Sexyloops Fly Casting Challenge. I shall be developing these things during this Malaysian Wet Season. You'll be able to easily identify the old videos from the new ones because I'm turning into Captain Caveman.
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I never got around to visit that little stream I talked about a few weeks ago - for a lot of good reason, and a few bad excuses. Last week I was in the UK with my daughter, where we stayed at Paul’s, which was great. I spent the days visiting stores (and the odd castle and ruin) with my daughter, and the evenings casting lump-lines with Paul, Lee and Peter. There was also the odd religious debate and philosophical discussion. Oh, and I also, by chance (yes, by chance, dammit - it wasn’t planned, which no one seems to believe) visited the Orvis store on Regent Street in London. Not that that was any success. The flyifshing department was app. 1/4 of the store (basically one corner) and yet, it was where all the customers were. Go figure…
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There is difference between fish horny and fishing horny. I don’t know if you know these terms but those are straight translations from Finnish language. And this is latest time to warn you, we don’t have small talk in Finland (well we do but….), normally we say things straight. So horny might be strong word for you but…. it is more like how you say it or use it.
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The last competitive BFCC meeting of the year was held on Saturday in Brentwood, Essex. It was great to see so many people attending, especially as many of them had made a special effort by travelling large distances to get there.
There were a number of great winning performances, not least from Paul, who picked up wins in the T38 and T120 (also the #7 and the accuracy). I assume Paul hasn’t cast these super-heavy outfits since he was last at a BFCC event over two years ago, so to win without any practice shows an inherent ability that I wish I possessed. That said, my vote for ‘cast of the day’, in fact ‘cast of the year’ went to Bart de Zwaan for his record breaking cast in the #5.
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My loops are not yet sexy, cute at best, in a clumsy sort of way. I’m practicing casting for somewhat more than a year now, of which the last 5 to 6 months more intensively. The reason I joined ‘The Kingfisher’, my friendly neighbourhood fly fishing club, is because I wanted to learn how to catch fish close to my home. I live in a suburb, and while I’d love to go to Sweden, Lake Ontario or New Zealand to catch one of those Youtube trouts, it is just not feasible at this point in time. When I go fishing, I have about two hours to spend, so the magic has got to happen within those precious hours. Today, it did.
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I am recently returned and currently recharged. My trip to the Smoky Mountains could not have been more enjoyable. Well, maybe the fishing could have been better, but I think that is on me, not the mountains.
It was such a pleasure to sit around a campfire and actually enjoy the heat produced. Sipping bourbon and replaying the day’s fishing with a good buddy added to the enjoyment. Sleeping in a tent and being rather comfortable even during the few moments of less than perfect weather was, in its own way, rather enjoyable too.
The quality of modern camping equipment and outdoor clothing, available to anyone with a computer and willing to spend the money, is simply impressive, and much, much different from the stuff I grew up using.
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It’s the end of an era. It was maybe 12 years ago when I set the British Fly Casting Club record for the 5WT at 130’6”. That record stood for a long time. A couple of years ago James beat it but I was there too and beat James and recovered my record a few minutes later. I’m not sure what the distance was - 132, 134? Anyway that’s not important because King Bart smashed it last weekend with 138’ and some inches!
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It’s been quite a while since I did one of these “new species profiles”. My original quest to land 100 species of fish on flies ended in February 2015 and was immediately upgraded to a quest to land 200 species. A dream trip to Australia added a bunch of species to the total, but since then additions to my life list have been more rare. To be honest, I’ve not been focused much on new species recently, but a trip down to Louisiana to hang out, eat amazing food, and fish with my friend Capt. Greg Moon put me back on track.
Truth be told, the alligator gar was not really even a species that I had in my mind going into the trip, but in terms of surprises, this was a pleasant one.
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I just read an article in the Danish Sportsfishing Association's magazine about catching the often difficult September/October seatrout and salmon. The article was great, written by Claus Eriksen, one of Denmark's best saltwater guys and a sea trout legend.
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There are plenty of groups and pages for fishing in Facebook. I’m just talking about those which are in Finnish. There is one for fisherman, flyfishing, flytying, flyfisherman, fishing, responsible fisherman etc. It is endless list. I’m not saying is not good but there is other side of coin which is ruining something. Or maybe it is just me and me being old-fashioned and asshole.
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This Saturday sees the last BFCC competition and tuition day of the year (the iFish show has been cancelled for this year so please ignore that one on the calendar). The competition promises to be a good one with a number of casters coming quite a distance in order to throw. I’ve mended the T120 line again so hopefully it will last the course of the event, unlike last time. I made a slight adjustment to the joining technique that failed – as before I’ve tied and glued to cores and then whipped over the tag ends, however this time I also folded the tag ends back towards the knot and over-whipped the whole lot. It’s a bit bulkier than last time but I’m hopeful it’s strong – if it isn’t then I’m all out of ideas.
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Last year we put our rod warranty price up to 70GBP per section from 70USD (the lower value of the pound was the culprit). We were losing money at 70USD/section. And unfortunately we are now losing significant money at 70GBP/section! Other manufacturers can afford to replace sections at these low prices - and still make a profit - but their costs are lower both in terms of the blank and fittings. And anyway if you break a Sage rod (for example) outside of the USA it costs you considerably more than 70USD for a replacement section!! For example in Australia it costs 165AUD (approx 90GBP).
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The fishing is Bosnia was good as always. I learned a lot, caught a few fish and had a great time. On the Pliva fish were active from about 10am through to midday. And again in the evening. On Ribnik they followed a similar schedule but were active for more of the day. I personally much prefer the Pliva if only because for most of the time it was only Flavio, Zeljko and I fishing. Ribnik always feels busy!
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A step by step for my favorite heavy as hell nymph. My joker for deep pools in the river is this double tungsten nymph. A 3,3mm and a 3,8mm tungsten head is bringing that nymph really fast to the ground! Don’t forget to duck while casting
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I just gained access to fish a new, little stream that I've never fished before. And when I say little, I mean little. It's probably less that 3 feet across in average, and to be honest, I didn't think much of it. I've seen it, crossed it and driven over small bridges going else where several times.
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This is not first time, probably won’t be the last either. My first time was 1999. I had been flyfishing about one year when I told my friends about this. Flyfishing was considered to be elitist sport, little bit same than golf. That was case at least amongst my friends on that time. And so I kept flyfishing alone. And same thing happened 10 years later with same friends, different issue.
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Being as summer is now over in the northern hemisphere I thought I’d write about some Instron testing of ‘aged’ nylon that I performed yesterday. Some time back, when I was doing a series of knot testing FPs, I decided that I’d place some of the leader material that I was using on a window sill and leave it there to soak up some sun light.
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Bernd is still under the weather with his hand. I’m fishing this week in Bosnia on Pliva and Ribnik with Flavio and Zeljko. The fishing is good - bloody frustrating at times - and the fish are semi-comatose for much of the day. The nice thing is that no one else is fishing the Pliva! So today we will go to fish the Ribnik just to meet some other anglers!
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I’m sure anyone who has been reading this section is tired of me moaning about hurricane damage and lousy fishing weather. I know I am tired of writing about it.
So, with great anticipation, I was looking forward to getting out of town (S. Florida) and heading up to the Smoky Mountains for a welcome change of scenery and some trout fishing. I was almost drooling over the weather reports predicting low temperatures in the 40s and highs only in the 70s. After months with daytime temps hovering around 90 degrees, that just sounded fantastic. Sleeping in a tent after sipping bourbon around a campfire, I thought, was just what the doctor ordered.
So, what do the weather gods send me this weekend? A (censored) hurricane is brewing in the Caribbean and heading north up through the Gulf of Mexico! Thankfully, it is not predicted to have a big effect on where I live. But, can you believe it… it is predicted, as of now, to travel right over the area I was planning to fish!
At this point in time, I think I’m going anyway. It will be long gone before I get there, but the streams will likely be at flood levels. Besides, I’ve got hundreds of dollars in reservations already committed. Turn baby, turn!
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There is a list out there for sure but this is the Sexyloops one. Apart from me, I can think of three others that you must meet before you die! Stuntman Ronan, Bernd Ziesche and Sex Machine Zeljko. Between the four of us I think you will have experienced all of fly fishing.
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It’s Autumn here in the Rockies, and that means there is a war going on between Summer, and Winter. This war happens every year. We all know that Winter wins this war every year, eventually, but we never quite know how each battle will play out. Weather can change from day to day, hour to hour, or even minute to minute. The complex interplay among high and low pressure systems, cold and warm fronts, bright blue and gray overcast skies, and larger precipitation systems makes picking clothes feel complicated, and making fishing plans feel nearly impossible at times.
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Right now, with less than two weeks to go before river season closes on the first rivers, the rivers are packed full of salmon and sea trout. And while they might have a better, fresher strike reflex early in the season, they really move around now. They get territorial, they annoy one another, falling and rising water make them move and it's generally a good time to get out.
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Winter is just behind of the corner. How you know? Frosty nights with northern lights, our reindeer coming back home and sunny chilly days with great dryfly fishing. This all is happening just before snow falls and season is ending totally. Fishing season in my region is short comparing many others but now we have one of the highlights.
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Well it’s me again, so I did indeed cast a seasons best T120 at last weekend’s BFCC meeting in Jersey. The weather assisted a lot mind you, there was a helpful tail wind, and I probably should have cast further in hindsight. Unfortunately the join I’d made in the line did not survive the meeting and the T120 event had to be suspended with one or two casters still to go – I’m going to have to make sure we have a back-up line for future competitions. I’m slightly surprised how easily the join I made failed; I stripped both sections of the line to the core, tied these together and coated the knot with a flexible adhesive. Then I whipped over the tag ends and the knot with gel-spun tying thread and followed that with another coating of flexible adhesive. This arrangement failed completely though when the fly caught the rod on a back-cast – why the nail knot holding the leader on didn’t just slip off is a bit of a mystery – I’d of thought that would be the weak point, but obviously not.
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Bernd has some terrible bite on his right hand that’s preventing him casting and writing FPs, so he is currently learning to both cast and type left-handed. I’d post some photos but it would put you off your breakfast so instead let’s all wish him a very speedy recovery.
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It was nice to finally get out in a canoe again. It seemed like I spent most of the summer finding reasons not to fish instead of reasons to fish. Maybe I’m just starting to show my age?
It is not like it was hard to find the excuses though. Hurricane damage from a year ago is more obvious now than it was at first. There are devastated areas where the red mangrove trees simply have not recovered. Where there once was a green impenetrable forest is now a stark graveyard of barren grey tree trunks haphazardly angling skyward. The leaf fall and rotting wood have created large zones where the water is stained dark brown and sports streaks of suspended algae blooms. These areas seem to be completely devoid of life under the water.
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Sorry I’m in Portugal for a triathlon and didn’t manage to find the time to upload a page in advance. So I don’t really have a Front Page for today! Triathlon was fun - it was a half IM, which might be a good distance for me if I trained for it! Anyway I’m happy to just have survived the race and finished.
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