Viking Lars - Saturday, June 30, 2018
The sun is shining is it's blazing hot and I'm in mood for fishing, so today is maintenance day on the Anderson Speedster pontoon boat. They really require next to no maintenance, but even so, a little goes a long way in keeping it in good condition for a long, long time.
t.z. - Friday, June 29, 2018
Bad camp cooks are okay as long you can keep them away from the food, but bad cooks who mix cans of spaghetti and chilly together in the same pan as a way of continuing to punish their mothers for something should be avoided, as this tendency may show up in non culinary areas as well. - John Gierach, Trout Bum Oh yes, bad food is to be avoided by all means. The meals on the fishing tours I’m involved in are nothing but culunary highlights. I´m organising a trip to one of the best troutwaters Norway, heck maybe even the planet has to offer. There are a few places left and we were able to add a second week. Read on ...
Tracy&James - Thursday, June 28, 2018
James and I have been enjoying the gorgeous evenings by popping along to our local carp lake just a few minutes from our house. Flinging in a few dog biscuits whilst we sit drinking a cold beer watching the carp swimming just under the surface, then there’s a ‘slurp’, then another and we watch as several take the floating ‘bait’ until there’s a feeding frenzy. Then cast out a fly and hope that we get a take.
Bernd Ziesche - Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Last week the weather here in Norway was quite cold, windy, and mixed up with some rain. Still we caught a lot of fine fish. This week the weather is warm, sunny and just about right. Fair to say we are having a hell of a fantastic fishing every day now!
Stu - Monday, June 25, 2018
It was a delayed start and I was stuck in Penang, Malaysia, for ten days more than originally planned - I was told that I was too old for laser eye surgery and the cataracts - that have been plaguing me tying flies and tying on small flies for the past two years - were not going to go away; and so they recommend taking out my human lenses and inserting synthetic ones. It's less than half the price of the cost for the same operation in New Zealand. "3% of people may have problem" they tell me, as I go back for the third time. Meanwhile, Paul's telling me to hurry up and I'm getting restless too and so I decide that one eye is good enough, and hopefully, before I fly home to start guiding, they will fix the right one! In my hotel I have all my rods and equipment laying on the bed. My Hot Torpedo, good old "Mabel", is looking a bit sad. I tell her she will be happy soon because she will be feeling the pull of fish again, plus she’s on holiday! It's all arranged... Paul being the night owl that he is, will drive down from his base in the middle of the jungle and pick me up early in the morning at 3.30am to avoid traffic jams since there are big religious events happening and this is the busiest time of the year. I decided to have a couple of beers...
Daniela Misteli - Sunday, June 24, 2018
A long drive tru many hills at really tiny streets was nesessacy to come up here. The worst thing on the alp-streets are bikers and guys from Germany or Netherland with canpers who never saw a mountain before!!! Aarrggg use you‘re side and drive! But if you're up here it's just awesome, the mountains are high, still some snow around and the water, in the lakes and the rivers is just gin clear. We fished the lake Silser, a typical alp lake - between 1 and 30 meters deep and not many fish. But they stocked some big namaycush many many years ago and they are really big now but tricky to catch.
Viking Lars - Saturday, June 23, 2018
Sorry about the late FP. Paul was supposed to be on strike today after my (also late) emergency FP on Monday, and then I got a text this morning. Paul calims to be bogged down with work. I'm quite certain this is Sexyloops speak for a massive hangover, which is think is way more likely :-), Which ever it is, both a viable excuses to put me back on strike, and so - let's have a look at fishing vest vs. sling pack.
Tracy&James - Thursday, June 21, 2018
Apologies for missing last week’s FP, Tracy and I were in the middle of completing a house purchase and sorting things out got in the way. This purchase is hopefully going to result in some significant changes to our lives with fishing taking more of a top priority. We’re moving to St.Asaph in North Wales, a very small city (second smallest in the UK) that is on the banks of the river Elwy. The Elwy has a population of small brown trout (some of which I was watching rising to some unseen flies from the main road bridge just last weekend) and a run of sea trout if there’s sufficient water. Currently there’s not; it’s been very dry in N.Wales for quite a while now so the rivers in the region are presently very low.
Bernd Ziesche - Wednesday, June 20, 2018
At the moment we are hosting our fly fishing trip to the Glomma in Norway. We are having a hell of a time fly fishing for grayling, Brown trout and pike.
Gary Meyer - Tuesday, June 19, 2018
According to the calendar, summer is right around the corner. I, for one, will be happy to see it come. There are many from the northern states, those we local folk call “yankees”, who say there are no seasons in Florida. Their meaning, I guess, is that it never freezes down here, so we never get to see the onslaught of ice, nor its thaw. Other more intelligent types, the likes of whom are meteorologist or hydrologist, say south Florida has only two seasons: the wet season and the dry. Their opinion is tough to refute as it has a basis in reality on the largest scale, but I think it ignores some very obvious subtleties.
Viking Lars - Monday, June 18, 2018
Paul is out of reach, and he's also busy planning a visit and it's Mrs. Sexyloops' birthday tomorrow, so there are flowers to be bought and food to be prepped, I suppose :-).
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Matt Klara - Sunday, June 17, 2018
On many warm summer weekends you can find me out one of my favorite lakes, casting flies for trout. I particularly enjoy the long casts and relaxed pace of cast and retrieve angling with either floating or intermediate lines, searching likely parts of the lake with a damsel or Callibaetis nymph. In my experience there are really only two things that can ruin the calm that I find in this type of fishing. The first is a grab from a nice trout, but you will never hear me complain about that! The second is a tangled mess of fly line clogging up my stripping guide during a cast. Fortunately, I’ve found a simple, inexpensive piece of gear that solves this annoying problem while offering some additional benefits. What is this piece of gear?
Bernd Ziesche - Wednesday, June 13, 2018
The current issue of the German fly fishing magazine "Fliegenfischen" offers an article coming with some pros and cons about fly casting lessons compared to self education in fly casting. The author Werner Berens recommends self education and marks less advantages but more disadvatages for fly casting lessons. My own experience is very opposite though. Interestingly Werner Berens in his own article explains to have zero experience in consuming fly casting lessons.
Gary Meyer - Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Somehow, probably due to some sort of advertising, a short while ago I came across a new-to-me flyfishing tactic called “micro-Skagit”. I think the name is somewhat misleading as many of the rods used are not all that small, at least lengthwise. It seems most rods are two-handed, or at least switch style, and usually longer than the standard 9’ single hander. I guess what makes them “micro” is that they are lighter weight for Spey rods… 3 weights seem to be popular. The idea is to use Skagit style heads and casting for smaller streams or smaller fish, mostly trout instead of the usual Skagit target - salmon. From my limited understanding of anything about trout fishing I guess it would make sense to swing streamers or wets this way. And, I guess, these longer rods would be useful for fishing nymphs? I’m puzzled on how they would work for dry flies, but again, I understand very little about trout fishing, especially advanced techniques.
Paul Arden - Monday, June 11, 2018
Following up from TZ's page last week I thought I'd talk about one of our essential life skills - fire making! Now I am happy to inform you that I an expert fire maker :p I've had very many thousands of fires, all over the world, in all conditions, altitudes and with burning different types of wood - some years I've cooked well over 300 days using outdoor campfires. Being able to successfully light a fire in a heavy rainstorm is an essential survival skill and will transform a miserable and dangerously cold night into... well a party! I've never actually "lost" control over a fire however you most certainly need to respect fire because it has potential to burn down entire forests. So I'll talk about the fire lighting skills that I've learned over the years, and some of the short-cuts, but first there are times when not to light a fire - such as during fire bans or when everything is parched bone dry. If the wind picks up you may end up causing severe devastation and even loss of life - so you do need to use a bit of common sense, which is something in short supply these days.
Daniela Misteli - Sunday, June 10, 2018
Soon the world championship in Russia starts and all over are flags... with everything you can show which countries you're fan for. So I designed also streamers in the color of flags, our Kantons-flags there are just regions in Switzerland and it's a little bit like a religion if you are from Bern or from Zürich. I think every country has that regionalism but it feels like we swiss guys are extraordinary good in that "small thinking" so here are the flies "i designed and I have to tie a lot of them and send them in the different parts of my small funny country.
Viking Lars - Saturday, June 9, 2018
I've been thinking about doing an article or maybe even a video series on how to make loops and/or otherwise connect a shooting head to a shooting line. There are several options, not one os better than the other - they all have advantages and drawbacks and not all are siuted for the same lines. Here's a quick overview.
t.z. - Friday, June 8, 2018
Fire. Always one of the four or five elements, depending on which book you read, so let us talk about fire. I actually must admit that I mainly moved to Scandinavia because one has the right to light a campfire here. Cooking coffee on a small fire is a Norwegian and Swedish custom. The local fishing shop even sells coffee. So fishing and campfire are closely knit up here. Many of the YouTube films made by the Vikings feature at least one “campfire and coffee pot” scene. But now we have a problem. The risk for forest fires is very high. The very hot and sunny spring dried the forest that much that any open flame is banned. Pretty much. Paul asked me why everything is so very dry? It seemed counter intuitive that in an area where the snow piled up in meters just 4 weeks before, it should now be dangerous to light even the smallest of a campfire. Actually frost is the reason. When water freezes, it crystallises. Nothing new here. In that form it cannot get inside any cell structure and part of the the water inside a cell structure is pressed outside by the water which is freezing. Ice crystals need more space than liquid water. In short that's my very simple understanding. I learned about this when being a winemakers apprentice. The wine from frozen grapes has the least amount of water and the highest sugar content. The famous Eiswein is made from the grapes. A dessert wine delicacy almost like a sweet a liquor. Get a bottle if you come a cross. It goes very well with a good, strong blue or other soft cheese.
Tracy&James - Thursday, June 7, 2018
Tracy and I have finally got round to purchasing summer season tickets at our local carp lake. We wait until the weather has warmed up and the fish have spawned before we venture out, we also very much favour the sort of conditions that puts the conventional carp anglers off – hot and still. It was in such conditions that we fished last Sunday.
Bernd Ziesche - Wednesday, June 6, 2018
Last week I was asked about the best fly rod for roll casting. That question is easy to answer though!
Gary Meyer - Tuesday, June 5, 2018
Last week I spent a few consecutive days in the Keys with my tarpon addicted friend where we were, of course, chasing tarpon. The weather was not perfect. We experienced our first tropical storm during the preceding week although our supposed storm season does not technically start until June 1. We were lucky and were able to push our reservation ahead a day, but even still the visibility was seriously hampered by overcast skies for the first two days. Although we covered miles of famous water we saw few fish those first few days, and we were unable to convincingly present a fly. Finally, on the last day, the skies cleared somewhat and we were able to enjoy a morning of classic tarpon migration sight fishing. It is hard to describe the feeling when a dark string of large fish suddenly appears and heads toward your boat as you stand ready to do battle with a flyrod, of all things, in your hands.
Paul Arden - Monday, June 4, 2018
I made a video a few years ago, about rod design and what I look for in fly rod response. However some people, myself included, prefer the written word. So what follows is the method that I use when trialling a fly rod for the first time. It’s a little routine that I go through with every fly rod and have been doing so for the past twenty-five years. From my years of experience in selling rods, for both my own business, as well as for other retailers and manufacturers, I can tell you that very few people do anything remotely similar. The vast majority of anglers false cast 10-14m of line and little else; occasionally you might see some distance casting. If this sounds like you then maybe this will help...
Matt Klara - Sunday, June 3, 2018
This week I'm passing the FP mic to my friend Steve Hoovler. Steve has fished around Yellowstone Country for over 20 years and is a guide-and-more for Big Sky Anglers in West Yellowstone, Montana. I'm excited to share his piece with everyone on Sexyloops because, to me, the Salmonfly is a fascinating insect and a bit of an icon of fly fishing in the western US. I know that in Europe, if I said Salmonfly, the first thing one might think of is the Atlantic salmon, maybe a Sunray Shadow, or a waking Bomber. In Montana, it's a different story alltogether. So, I'm hoping that our international readership enjoys this and learns something new!
Viking Lars - Saturday, June 2, 2018
The Danica hatch is full on right now. The hatch is peaking in these very days, and if there are fish in the rivers, this hatch brings them up.
t.z. - Friday, June 1, 2018
The heatwave has reached Norway too. It’s crazy hot and the only thing I am able to do is to lay in my hammocks, which is hard work too of course. Hammock camping has gained more and popularity in the last years, not only amongst backpackers and hikers. Pretty much everybody from the aforementioned hikers to those travelling on two or more wheels to get closer to nature and the amazing views and experiences only camping n the woods can provide. It just make sense to get off the ground and sleep hanging between the trees. The benefits are many, some are very factual - others are more based on feelings and the experience involved. Looking at the stars while being soothed in a slightly swinging hammock generally results in a very comfortable and refreshing sleep. There are several hammock concepts on the marked - two of which we endorse and use ourselves. There is no better than these two systems we believe. Your mileage may vary of course - but hey - it´s all a matter of taste an personal preference but some facts need considering when choosing an overnight full metal jacket camping hammock.