Ashly and I have just spent a nice weekend at the UKCS record breakers competition held at the same venue of last summer’s world championships. It’s a regular competition to world rules held every three weeks. We do similar in Malaysia (but only with the single handed events) every month and it’s interesting to compare distances!!
One of our reasons for going was to catch up with Lee and Angie, James and Tracy and Daniel and Gemma. It was great to meet Keiichiro again who I met at the last BFCC meet in Brentwood.
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Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve! I’ve been thinking back on a wonderful year filled with many new experiences. But now I’m looking forward. It’s good to have goals and resolutions going into the new year, I think. Something like a list to consider when you are “bored” or stuck in a rut wondering what to do with yourself.
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I took advantage od the mild December weather yesterday and spent the afternoon on the coast. It was mild, not too much wind, water temperatures were 3-5 degrees and I caught the turn of the tide. All in all - near perfect conditions for winter fishing. On the first spot two (or maybe one twice) sea trout turned just under the rod tip, on the second I had an ever so gentle tightening, and on the third, another guy caught a small sea trout.
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It is time to wrap year 2018. First idea was go through shortly my fishing season 2018. But it would like something like this: 80 fishing days (from 120 possible in season), nice guests from South-Korea, Hong Kong, Switzerland, USA, France, Italy and Finland. Season was low water and extremely warm. Anyway good fishing and we had good time, also Satu and I had trip (great one) to Varzina trout camp. But during the year there was big fish which I lost but it contains so much good memories and friendship that I end year with that one.
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I’ve left this page pretty late on Boxing Day to write. We’ve been to two family gatherings today – first a Christmas dinner with Tracy’s parents and secondly an evening gathering with my immediate family. It was Tracy’s turn to drive, so I’m quite a few glasses of red, a couple of beers and a whiskey and coke or two down at this point (Tracy is also on proof reading duty so if there’s any spelling or grammatical errors you can blame her).
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Time to say THANK YOU to all our clients for sharing such a great fly fishing year with us. 350 fishing days 2018 passing by in a blink of an eye!
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(Blimey, I had to check what year it was)
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A good idea from “Slack” Larry is to run a regular Snapcast with updates from the Board. It’s a great idea for those readers who don’t tune in every day! So what I’ll do is make a weekly roundup of Front Pages, Stuntman Ronan’s Report, Hot Torpedo Owners Club and Board discussions, along with any recent videos we upload. We haven’t mailed a Snapcast - the irregular monthly Sexyloops news shot - in about I don’t know how many years. But I’ll make it part of my Monday routine from now on.
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Back in 2001, I did my very first angling related interview with noted fly fisherman, caster and rod designer Jimmy Green. How I found Jimmy is a bit of a fortuitous story in and of itself that I'll save for another day. Suffice it to say that it was Jimmy's willingness to give me a peek into his highly accomplished past, that put me on a path of documenting the careers of some of the most influential and iconic tackle designers in our industry. I didn't really think about it at the time, but that series would go on to have some historical significance as well, as many of the folks I interviewed are unfortunately no longer with us. About 6 months after Jimmy's interview was published in RodMaker Magazine, I received a large envelope in the mail. The return address was from an individual in Japan whose name I did not recognize. I opened the package to find a copy of a Japanese magazine called FlyRodders, along with a nice note from one of the writers whose name was Hiroyasu Obana. Hiroyasu had also done an interview with Jimmy around the same time as I had, and was kind enough to send me an unsolicited copy of his article for my collection. It was an unbelievably thoughtful gesture that to this day I still appreciate....however that was not all. You see, Hiroyasu had the privilege of time spent casting with Jimmy and his wife Carol, who is an extremely accomplished fly caster in her own right. During Hiroyasu's stay, Jimmy made several detailed instructions and illustrations for Hiroyasu regarding his personal thoughts on the mechanics of the casting stroke. Although much of what was in the drawings had previously been detailed in Jimmy's book "Fly Casting From The Beginning", these handwritten pages were a unique piece of history done in Jimmy's own handwriting that I found, from a historical point of view, very special.
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Some time ago - in december 2017, I wrote an FP about Oliver Edwards. I’ve been a fan of his ever since I took up flyfishing. His approach to semi realistic imitations using offthe-shelf materials is unique and what earned him his place and reputation in the industry.
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I have been wondering how things are in other countries. If you look photos on Instagram and in different groups on Facebook, it looks like that you can fish trout and grayling all year round. We have in Finland spawning protection for trout and grayling. For trout it is 1.9.-30.11. for grayling 1.4-31.5. Some rivers are open only from 1.6 to 31.8. And I know that in Sweden and Norway has their own rules for same reason. But then the rest of world…. I don’t know. In fact, that is not issue what I’m really wondering it is what happens after spawning protection.
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This is going to be a short FP as Tracy and I are getting our stuff together ready for heading to North Wales for Christmas and the New Year. When I say ‘stuff’ this mostly consists of fishing and casting gear. I’ll be taking all the outfits that we cast at the BFCC that way, if it’s too windy to cast a 5 weight, as it quite often is, then I can practice with the heavier rods such as the ST27, T38 and S55. If anyone is in the area and fancies a cast rather than stuffing more food and drink in then let me know.
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Fly fishing German winter nights can be very tough! For sure it will be a lonely place no matter where you are fishing, even in the big cities!
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This past weekend some dicey weather predictions and homeowner responsibilities kept me from fishing - which is almost a sin this time of year. So instead, I played with my new solo (non-fishing) canoe in some local waters and took to the practice field with my HT6 and a GT125 5wt.
I think the canoe and the rod have a lot in common: they are both simply a joy to play with and nicer than anything I ever expected to own. While the rod will definitely be fished, I cannot say the same for the new canoe as I will never be able to stand up in it. That is OK though as I have some wonderfully stable canoes for fishing.
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The fly fishing world is an interesting one. In the professional side there may be motivations such as a yearning to be recognised - what is this? Insecurity or ego? The same coin anyway.
Others may be driven by money or wealth - greed! Ha! It’s hard enough to make a decent living out of fly fishing, but becoming wealthy is going to be very challenging indeed. If you are very business orientated and work your nuts off then it might happen, but if that’s your ambition in life then you’d probably be better off investing all that time and business energy into something that makes more money. The fly fishing market is after all... how shall we put it... rather niche!
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One thing that I’ve noticed about writing the FP over the last 11+ years is that it is a lot easier if I’ve been fishing recently. It gets even easier if the fishing has been interesting, the catching successful, or the adventure exciting. So it was this week.
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Practising fly casting is fun, and I’ve done it more in 2018 than I have for 3-4 years, and it’s been great getting back in to some pratising routines. I’ve always practised, but mainly just gone out and had some fun for an hour or two. And in some ways, I still think that’s a very good way of doing. Having fun doing something is always the best.
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So we went few days earlier to Ammarnäs than tvcrew. It was our holiday. I had been guiding whole summer more or less and not really having time to my own fishing. Satu had been busy also with other things (puppies). Idea was to have some fishing, get to know people and area for coming years. That’s all. I knew that there is nice fishing but what we found out was something beyond nice fishing. It was more or less record breaking week. And no, our fishing is not about breaking records but it is nice to have bigger ones now and then and be fish horny. Before this trip my records were, grayling 56 cm and trout 63 cm, Satu’s grayling 45 cm and trout 40 cm.
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If you’re a regular board reader you might be aware of a thread from some time back discussing the ‘lift’ generated in a the loop of a fly-cast, a well known journal article proposed that this ‘lift’ was highly significant in achieving the desired distance etc. The paper beautifully explained the physics behind the lift and the mathematics allowed for the effect to be quantified. This was obviously peer reviewed and published in a respected journal, a really nice study that has been quoted on internet forums many times since. It’s obviously complete bollocks though (I think I’ve said that here before)!
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Last week Matt Harris came over and Matt, Hansi and I had some excellent days catching a serious amount of well sized pike. We had a hell of a great time fishing together on Rügen!
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It seems like every other day I see people online asking about dubbing wax; what's good? When to use it? Do I need it?... The responses range from spit to chapstick to glue sticks and even to wax!o
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It’s been a very long time since I’ve experienced a full winter and I hope never to do one again! Here in tropics it’s hot and humid all year. “Seasons” such as they are are Dry, Wet and Very Wet. Or as I like to call them, Spring, Summer and Wet but no one else understands this distinction - and here in Malaysia it is even more confusing because different parts of the country experience the Wet at different times. Anyway whichever way you look at, the part of Malaysia I am in, is currently either Wet or Very Wet.
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Just outside of the tiny town of Sallis Mississippi, at the corner of County Roads 4127 and 4135 sits a small farm pond. It's not much more than a small depression in the ground, bordered by an earthen dam and a beautiful stand of large pine trees. I would guess that most folks that pass by it don't even give it a second thought, as there is nothing to really distinguish it from all the other farm ponds in the south. To me, however, this small pond, in spite of its lack of uniqueness is special. It's special because it has been one of many threads that have woven a love for fishing through multiple generations of my family. My Great Grandparents settled this piece of land back in the early 1900s. They built a house here, they raised kids here, and as my Great Uncle Clarence "Buck" Dear once said, as farmers, "they barely scratched a living out of the red dirt" here. Perhaps equally as important, is that they also fished here.
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If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. If a product is suddennly a lot cheaper than it used to be, it's also advisable to alert. Plenty of goods go on sale, which is good for the consumer and something a lot of people look out for. Many shops and sellers have sales when a product line is discontinued, celebrating birthdays or other events and that's a good time ti strike a good deal.
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I have been doing some tvshooting earlier with these guys, four episode to be exact. Now they have season 7 going and 8 will be coming. Arktiset vedet –Arctic waters is Finnish fishing and nature tvprogramm. Year ago Juhani, who is producer and friend asked me if I have any good locations in my mind. He told me that we (my wife and I) would join them. His timing was perfect, I just had request from guests about fishing trip and first thing in my mind was Paul. Or more like Stefan Siikavaara, because I knew that Paul and Ashly went fish with him from here 2016. And they had good time and fishing in Sweden. So via Paul and thru Stefan I was connected to Peter. So when you have friends you find right persons to help you when needed.
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Tracy and I went along to the Hanak grayling festival at the weekend. This is a fun but competitive team competition that brings anglers from all over Europe to fish the river Dee on the beats between Corwen and Llangollen. Each team has three anglers, two of which fish a session whilst the third controls for the team downstream of them. There are three fishing sessions in total, two on Saturday and one on Sunday, so everyone gets to fish twice and control once.
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Because, that's where the fish are!
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My trip this weekend was a half-hearted investigation into the “way back”. We had some cooler weather around midweek and the water temperature took a dive. There is this small window before winter really sets in when you can find catchable snook that have just been driven into the backcountry due to the dropping water temperatures. When they first arrive they less likely to know the neighborhood well enough to quickly wrap your leader. And if you find them before they go into a temperature-induced torpor, they are quite likely to eat. Like a winning lottery jackpot, that window is a tough target to hit, but if you do - the fishing can be epic.
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I’m interested in buying quality, no matter where it is made. If it’s made in Timbuktu then fantastic! I realise that others like to buy goods that are manufactured close to home - even if of lesser quality - and that’s a choice which is also fine by me.
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It’s now December here in MT. Well, everywhere really. But here, that means we’ve gone way past the tipping point between Autumn and winter conditions. Big game hunting season has ended, and the stillwaters are freezing over. We have many rivers that are open to year round fishing, though. So, that is what I’m starting to think about these days.
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Right now, in Scandinavia, there is a massive focus on fish farming and the heavy, negative impact it has on the environment. In Denmark, our government is trying to pass an act that will allow for more open fish farms along our coast lines - directly against all advice given by sicentists and environmental organisations.
In Norway, open cage fish farming is huge, environmental issue. Escapees are causing mixed genepool in wild populations, the open farms pollute the waters they are in with feed residue, copper they use to protect nets, antibiotics, fish excrements and the open farms attract sea lice in number that kill the smolt as they exit the rivers. There's a host of other problems concerning this.
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