So it is final day and tomorrow it starts, long waited river fishing season. Some rivers has been open but I have been waiting official opening. So it is time to check gears and get everything ready. Previous season ended 8 months ago so I have had lot of time to check everything. Luckily there is always last day and last minute. I have 18 sets rods and reels, 10 wading sets, 7 spinning sets and then small stuff, like flies, tippets, leaders, landing nets etc.
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Tracy and I recently had a really good evening’s fishing on the Dee. We’d actually passed by the river the previous day on the way to our home in North Wales. I think we’re like most fly fishers in that we find it almost impossible to pass a river without stopping to peer over the bridges or talk a walk along the banks, and being as we weren’t in a rush to get back we did both. Although the river was very low, a result of a very dry May, the warm weather had encouraged a prolific hatch of olives which the fish seemed to be responding to. Unfortunately we didn’t have our fishing gear with us so all we could do was to make mental notes regarding where the fish were rising with a view to coming back armed the next day. [I’m actually considering getting an outfit that will permanently live in the car – I’m sure on days when we’re just ‘travelling’ it will come in very handy].
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Seems we were pretty lucky all week long. No matter where we went, we ended up in the middle of fish in all places.
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I think the ironic saying originated in an old US spy comedy show on TV in the 60s?
“Missed it by that much!”… at which point the person making the assertion holds up their hand with fingers separated by mere millimeters.
That saying pretty much sums up my recent tarpon fishing excursion down in the Florida Keys.
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Something I regularly do is go through the instructor tests theory with Sexyloopers via email. Obviously it’s not practical for me to do this for everyone but for owners of the Sexyloops Instructor Fly Rod, you have my time! Of course if you are a Board member you can simply ask your questions there, but for those of you thinking of taking an instructor exam and who have HT rods then feel free to get in touch. And if you are thinking of taking a single-handed exam then the Instructor 6 is the perfect tool - I took most of my exams long before the development of this rod, however I did take and pass the AAPGAI Masters with the Instructor 6 (which is IMO still the toughest test out there, certainly when it comes to single-handed Speys).
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I've always been fascinated by the names given to fishing spots. Not really the obvious ones like "Lake Sam Rayburn" or "Lake O' The Pines", as those are pretty self explanatory. More interesting are the ones with monikers not so easily discernible like "The Meadows" or "Middle Ground". Even better if they have a dramatic, even ominous tone to them, like "The Graveyard" or "The Badlands". Although names like that may have originally been given as a warning to the uninitiated or inexperienced, for those of us with an exploratory spirit, and an insatiable desire to fish the remotest of locations, those names serve only as a sirens call to what could be the angling promised land.
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I've recently been spending a lot of time looking through old tying and fishing books which has been thoroughly enjoyable. One think it's made me do is start thinking about older fly patterns and how the profiles and materials have changed.
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I’m HT6 and when I left from England, I was just no 164. They put also my owner’s nickname from Paul, Mika the Legend and Mika’s company MLguiding on me. I arrived to Finland just week before Mika needed me and he found line for me just two days before fishing trip. So we didn’t have much time to get to know each other before leaving to Sweden. When Mika took first grip from me, I knew that he was proud of me already.
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When preparing for a saltwater flats fishing trip I tend to have a quick glance into my fly boxes and then tie up patterns that I think I’ll need. These patterns don’t necessarily reflect what’s been lost on the previous adventure as the flies I tie tend to evolve year by year. As such, I can be a bit hit and miss when it comes to replacing flies that are specific to species. However, this year I decided to make a note of every fly that Tracy and I lost. I’ve just been through these notes – each one brings a memory flooding back, even if it was of ultimate disappointment.
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Last week we hosted a fly fishing trip to the Danish Skjern river - supporting our guests to learn the important key essentials in salmon fishing as well as hoping for one first Atlantic salmon to be landed among our fine group.
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A while ago I wrote an FP that touched on the topic of streamer heads but never got round to doing one that actually covered it properly... So here it is.
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Over the years I think that the single biggest fault I've seen most beginner, intermediate and even experienced anglers doing is fishing too far. Now of course there are exceptions, often in Imaginary Saltwater blind fishing the thing to do is to cover as much water as possible, both in front of you and along the bank and at different angles but even then there are times when close-range casts are more effective. However what I want to talk about is "short-lining".
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Back in the early 2000s, I made several trips over to Houma Louisiana to fish for Redfish and Black Drum with a fly rod. South Louisiana was very much an untapped resource for the saltwater fly fisherman back then, and there were really only a handful of guides specializing in sight fishing the marsh with the long rod.
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So today I started my summer fishing season. We have private small pond (I think you called pond because it is only about 3 hectare). On that water we have naturally whitefish, perch and pike, but we also stock some rainbow trout also in there every second year. It is closed water so rainbow trouts can’t escape. There is 4 streams coming, two of those are from spring and one stream is leaving. So there is always fresh water.
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Last weekend’s fly fishing show at Sportfish in Theale, Berkshire was a really good one and seemed to buck the trend of declining attendance at such events. I think this was largely due to Sportfish making the weekend appeal to families, plus the presence of a TV celebrity – Jeremy Wade from the show ‘River Monsters’.
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I’m filling in for Bernd today - seems like you can’t have too much of me this week! Piffen and I are heading to a different part of the jungle lake having successfully spooked everything on the East side...
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Gary is tarpon fishing today and so I'm covering for him. And while there is a video on this subject, that I filmed some years ago, I thought I should write a page for those of you who don't watch videos. What follows is how I "test drive" a fly rod and how I have done so for nearly 25 years.
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Piffen is over from Sweden again; one week down, two weeks to go. The fishing is not easy at the moment but we are getting more and more shots and by leading the fish by more than usual they are catchable. I had one Snakehead in the boat this week and about four or five other chases and another that was hooked but snagged me when I failed to stop his run. Not easy, but truthfully we missed most of the morning sessions because of late night campfires! This week we will shift our time around to ensure we manage every morning session from now on - even if it means throwing buckets of water over Piffen’s hammock!!
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Time isn't the main thing. It's the only thing.
---Miles Davis
In one of Paul's recent Facebook posts, he and another fisherman were discussing the feeling of "time slowing down" during difficult angling scenarios that require quick, accurate presentations. Although I'm not completely convinced that Paul's masterful casting ability actually allows him to rip a hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum, I am convinced that through manipulation of the variables we do have control of, that we can maximize the time and space we do have.
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It often seems to me that as anglers we probably suffer from some kind of delusional mental illness.
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I have use different brands during the years. It doesn’t matter if is it fishing gears, phone, snowmobile or ATV. I would say that with all the products I had to use warranty more or less. I have several experience about warranty of fishing gears and how those work out. There is good sides and then well… the other side. Because of those experience I have moved to use certain brands and I have different approach when buying fishing gears. I won’t go thru brands and how it worked out but just sharing my experience with different issues. It is up to you how read it
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DiY flats fishing can be tough at times and the trip Tracy and I have just returned from was one of our toughest. In retrospect, perhaps it felt tougher because last year’s trip was such a good one where we had one of our best bonefish catches to date. We didn’t expect to beat this total, but we also didn’t anticipate struggling to the degree we did.
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Since one week I am chasing one specific pike in a pretty small water. Yet I am not sure, if she is too smart, or if I am too stupid!?
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I don’t know if this is something limited to South Florida but fly casting for the pure enjoyment of simply casting is seldom, if ever, done around here. I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone else field practicing unless I personally knew them or was directly involved. Sure, fly fishing is understood, or at least recognized by many local anglers, but if you go out onto a public athletic field and simply cast you will get all kinds of curious looks and comments.
Of course, there are always the comedians who ask if you are getting any bites, to which I usually reply, “Only one sucker!” My favorite comment came from a friendly young lady who said something like, “ I don’t have any idea what you are doing, but you look like you are really good at it!”
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I’ve been flat out recently with the Hot Torpedos. Remember we have a new competition this year and lots of activity. Be sure to enter for your chance to win your own custom designed Sexyloops Stealth Shirt and to be in the finals where you can win a brand new custom built Hot Torpedo fly rod. We have a couple of new models coming out soon, so even if you are a lucky owner of all four Hot Torpedos you also have the choice of a 7’6 3/4 and the HT12. (We also have a few Rampage blanks which are competition T27/38 prototype blanks. Stefan caught his Snakehead on one of these last week).
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For the last several years much of my collection of fishing literature has been in storage. Mostly for no other reason than when my son got old enough, he commandeered my old bookcase for his room and his books and left me without one. The irony of it is that most of my fishing rods and hunting rifles now reside under his possession as well.
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A couple of weeks ago, I'd never have thought of swinging streamers as a viable option for carp on fly. It's almost the opposite of everything I've learned targeting carp on the fly; fishing blind instead of sighting targets, feeling the line rip out of your fingers instead of watching the fish to hit the eat before the fish spits the fly.
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Last two weeks we have had great weather. Sun has been shining and some wind, it has been close to +18 celsius in some days. It has been really great, snow has been melting and it has been nice to outside, but there is downside also when it is so great in spring. In this kind of weather when snow is dissapearing is not really melting but ooze away.
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During our Bahamas trip, we hired a small boat to go fishing with another Sexylooper and his friend who were staying on the same island. We should have realised something wasn’t right when the boat hirer took a while to start the boat just before we set off, the engine sounding distinctly rough and ‘coughy’. We thought we were prepared for anything with lots of rods for any species, plus a GPS and map with specific spots we wanted to fish. However after stopping at the furthest point we were intending to get to (several miles away from the mainland – we intended to fish various spots as we moved back in), the boat started to make a high pitched whistling sound and then refused to restart.
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Today is the first of May - right here in Germany this is the opening day in pike fishing!
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