Daily Cast Archive

Well, I guess it had to happen at some point....my wife and I both tested positive for Covid-19 last night. Emily started having mild symptoms early last week, while mine didn't start until late Saturday night. So far, she seems to have had a mild go of it, but mine...well, let's say it has packed quite the punch.

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Right now we have 2 FISHING days left in 2020! Time to look back...

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Flycasting is not flyfishing. The following are ten key practical skills (the Ten Commandments) that I have believe will take you beyond casting a fly in a park, to start you on the journey to becoming a proficient fly fisher. I will share my thoughts about each of these as a weekly contribution to Sexyloops.

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When I was younger I really didn't like sea fishing. This was long before you saw anyone saltwater fly fishing in Scotland, it was all heavy, clumsy gear that just wasn't pleasant to use.Perhaps if I had started on it rather than fly fishing I would have felt differently, I can remember the excitement of getting chrome pram handles, crushing the end and filling them with molten lead to make pirks which would be used with the mackerel feathers in the hope of a getting a cod. The experience never really held up to expectations for me though. So it was fly only, with occasional Walker's Key Chronicles inspired forays down the coast with my fly gear that garnered plenty of odd looks from the other rods around, sadly the fish were less plentiful - interesting how things have changed on that front and saltwater fly rodding isn't an unusual sight in Scotland any more.

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This is mine and Tracy’s last FP of 2020, I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday period (if you’re on holiday) and is looking forward to the New Year celebrations. I have to admit that writing these FPs has been tough this year because of our enforced lack of fishing and casting competitions. I don’t think I’ve ever fished less in a year since I first took up angling as a 9 year old. I’ve only fished one venue all year, the Welsh Dee, and my number of trips was seriously curtailed due to a movement ban for a good part of the year.

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There’s an interesting thread on the Board on the importance of details in fly patterns - the importance of precise imitation against semi-realistic against impressionistic, I suppose. This discussion is as old as fly fishing. I really don’t believe that there can ever be a consensus, because there are so many factors involved

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It is Christmas eve when I'm writing this. Santa has just finished his round in Finland and is heading to Europe and USA. Last week was kind of shitty. I flipped my snowmobile on last Thursday and twisted my left knee little. On Tuesday I went in the evening to Oulu (230km), so they could do mri. Result was that side of the knee ligament is partially torn. Time will heal I hope there is no need for surgery right now. On the way back I was passing by one parking place which reminded me our first fishing trip to Kosto river with Satu.

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The cast of characters that laid the foundation over the past 75 years for the style of fishing we engage in here in Texas has been "colorful" to say the least. The most famous of which I wrote about several months back which profiled famous Texas angler, Rudy "Plugger" Grigar. Today I had the privilege to actually meet and befriend one of the last living legends on the Texas Coast....Eddie Douglas.

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Too early to wish you a great new year 2021, since there are 9 FISHING-days left THIS year!

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Flycasting is not flyfishing. The following are ten key practical skills (the Ten Commandments) that I have believe will take you beyond casting a fly in a park, to start you on the journey to becoming a proficient fly fisher. I will share my thoughts about each of these as a weekly contribution to Sexyloops. Tims Ten Commandments...

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It’s funny, for as long as I can remember, there have been people who have told me that I should do this, do that, stop travelling, get a real job, take life more seriously, grow my hair, cut my hair, find God, eat meat, don’t eat meat, get married, live in a house, fish less, fish more, stop, go, turnaround, stand on my head, run on the spot, wash my socks, get lost. And I’ve never listened to any of it! I think this “telling others how to behave” is deeply psychological, and let’s face it, the underlying assumption is that they’ve got life sorted and we should all be just like them. Boring!!!

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how Tracy and myself name flats fishing areas between us to give them a more ‘logical’ title that is both descriptive and memorable. This week I’m going to tell the story of my first visit to ‘Aquarium Bridge 2’ as it was a sight that will be etched in my memory forever. Obviously ‘Aquarium Bridge 2’ isn’t its real name, in fact I have no idea what its official moniker is. I’m pretty sure that Tracy and myself used to call it ‘broken bridge at the end of the flat that’s too far to walk to’ before I bit the bullet and trekked down to it, once there what I saw was quite remarkable. Sometimes, when flats fishing, you do get to see things that make your jaw drop, sometimes from the sheer beauty of an area, other times from the harsh viciousness of nature, ‘Aquarium Bridge 2’ was a bit of both.

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Believe it or not, Paul is 50 years to day (almost yesterday where he is, which I happen to know is currently Malaysia, just so you know - it's not easy to keep track of). We have a set rotation here on Sexyloops, so we all write our front pages on the same week day, so I'm quite please that by coincidence I get to write Paul's 50-years birthday frontpage. We've had quite a special friendship for just over 20 years.

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As you might guess all my great plans for this year were throwed away. Flushed from toilet. I had planned trips to Russia and Sweden, all cancelled. So I was fishing home waters and one trip to norhtern Finland. You have read about that allready. Last weekend Satu was watching TV, there was programm Arctic waters going, same crew that we have been filming with. But Satu got idea and I was buying it immediately.

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Last month, as I do on a regular basis, I was backing up my hard drive data, and noticed an old folder titled "Reel Seat Pictures". This was a folder I started way back around 2001 that documented many of the custom turned reel seats I used to make when I first got into product development. Out of all the pictures in the folder, there is one that I often forget about, but that was at the time...and still is perhaps to this day one of the highlights of my rod building career.

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Last weekend I got a student for mentoring him on his way to pass a Fly Casting Instructor exam. So I checked the organisation's website for the current test and the latest updates.

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Maybe you have spent hours in the park and can cast nice loops. You have read all the books, watched all the videos and been to all the schools. You consider yourself proficient at flycasting and you can cast perfect loops. Maybe you can cast a full flyline. Some just like the soothing rhythm of casting…it’s a great way to relax and reset. Some like to catch fish on a fly…but can you cast to catch fish, if fly fishing is your ultimate objective? Fly casting is not fly fishing.

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We have a change this week. Gary wrote to me a few weeks back telling me that he didn’t have anything to write for the FP... so I tried – of course – to give him a few ideas! Gary, in my opinion, is one of the finest writers we had on Sexyloops. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed learning about his entertaining experiences and practical insights. He says that he’ll submit articles again in the future, when he has the inspiration! In the meantime, I have series from Tim Kempton to run in the Tuesday slot. Thank you Gary, for an absolutely brilliant run on the FPs!!! Fishing the old road bridge on the Keys must have been a wholly remarkable experience and has been indelibly imprinted in my mind. I really hope that you have more to share with us in the future and that one day, in the not too distant future, that we can finally meet and fish together!! That will be fun :)))

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I wish hooks sizes were standardised. I know it'll never happen between manufacturers but it would be nice if it was even consistent within a single manufacturer's range. And I'm used to it, I suspect a lot of folk on sexyloops are too. Recently a friend from home, who's recently taken up fly fishing, called me complaining about a problem caused by just this issue. He's fished for a long time with conventional gear, throwing lures for pike so he knows how sizes work. He had been out trying unsuccessfully to catch grayling in a local river, met some other angler on the way back to the car and got some tips about fishing nymphs on a french leader and a look in a fly box and a couple of bugs to copy. This was all great until he ordered a few hundred jig and Czech nymph style hooks only to discover that they were massive compared to the sample flies. About 2 or 3 sizes bigger was the report... "what does 14 even mean?" was the lament. And I sympathised, well after a bit of light hearted abuse anyway. At least he noticed before tying hundreds of flies....

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Baitfish imitations are impossible to avoid if you're fishing for predatory fish anywhere in the world. Apart from experiments and variants testing various ideas, I basicallystick to two styles. The sand eel, the core of which is Bob Popovics' immortal Surf Candy-design. The Surf Candy (and variations) takes care of any bait fish in sand eel shapes, which in the waters I fish are sand eels (duh!) and gar fish fry in the late summer/fall. For stickle backs, gobies and other smaller, less slender fish, the STF Fish is my go-to imitation.

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Insane week behind, I thought it would be slow week with reindeer but hell no. Monday my snowmobile got new name, Kursk. Kursk was Russian submarine which sank 20 years ago. Sad accident but name has been living after that.

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They say "time flies when you're having fun". I can now officially confirm this old saying to be true, as this week marks not only my 100th Front Page, but also exactly 2 years since I got the call from Paul to write for the sexiest fly fishing website on the inter-webs, and it does indeed seem like yesterday.

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When fly fishing for Zander and perch near the bottom or even on the bottom, it gets very tricky not to miss most or even all of the takes. For years I have been working to understand what really happens down there!

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My last page was about not being too eager and overadopting in the name of progress, this time it's almost the opposite. Don't be a curmudgeon! I've not been fishing much over the last fortnight for various reasons, just a couple of hours down the river snatched here and there chasing the carp before they really slow down as the weather cools. I have on the other hand been tying a lot of flies though, revisiting old pulling patterns as I build my new stillwater trout boxes for Hokkaido and Scotland.

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It’s been a bit of a survival year in most businesses. No government funding to stay alive out here but that’s ok! Teaching/hosting fly fishing trips is down 95% this year. Tackle sales down about 50%. I’ve really felt the pinch at times however I know people who have lost their livelihoods, I know businesses that have gone bust, I know of people who have unfortunately lost their lives or loved ones. When you look at it like that then things really aren’t too bad. Lockdown, after having to move from the lake to the house, was pretty damned depressing; I live outdoors! Even although we currently have a restrictive movement control order in place here in Malaysia, with zero International guests, I am at least allowed to be on the lake and, most importantly, I can fish.

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Hopefully I won’t ever have another fishing year like this one, it’s been dismal for the obvious reason. I’ve only caught two species of fish this year, grayling and brown trout and these have come from just one river, the Welsh Dee. I have had some very enjoyable trips, but nowhere near the number that I would normally have due to movement restrictions for a large part of the year. From here on in the opportunities for fishing can also be patchy as the river is up and down like a yo-yo, the weather is rarely settled for more than a few days at a time.

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If you spend enough time in a certain activity, hobby or profession, you will eventually end up with a certain amount of paraphernelia, some of which (maybe in time even most of which?) is rarely used. Does that make you a collector - maybe even a hoarder? Well, I don't know, because I don't think so. At least not in my case - when applying my own definitions. Which I will, because this is my FP for today :-)

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Past two weeks has been like walking dead, kind of. Our life goes around nature so, it will say what to do. So last week we thought that there will be break from reindeer work, but then things changed. Reindeer were coming on the areas where we need them to be for round-up. More snow was coming etc. So last week was reindeer and snow work. Begin of this week we delivered few hundreds kilos reindeer meat to south and last night I read Bernd’s FP. It remind me about Booby and some other remarks.

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The annual Thanksgiving trip to Indianola is in the books, and I’m now back in the land of reliable internet connections. In all honesty though, one of the things I love about Indianola is its remoteness and lack of modern amenities. I guess when the town was wiped off the map by two hurricanes back in the late 1800s, the locals decided it might be a good idea to find somewhere a little less prone to bearing the brunt of mother nature’s wrath.

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Presenting a dry fly we do see our fly and the fish taking it on the surface. But what exactly do we know about the details for those flies being taken somewhere down deep? Yet NOT MUCH, I think!

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I’m covering for Gary today. With COVID and hurricanes, Gary has had limited water-time this year. It’s been a strange year for sure. Something else that we now have to worry about, is that next month no-one knows what – if any – sort of trade deal between the UK and Europe will look like... and with one month to go we still don’t know how to plan. Lars has just ordered his HT7063 no.666 to be sent before Xmas, which we will do. If you are on the mainland and you are thinking of ordering a Sexyloops HT rod then it would be prudent to do so as soon as possible. We do have complete rods in stock but any custom builds need about a week to build. I, like everyone else, has no idea what will happen next month but we are expecting challenges and have stocked up with as many HT blanks as we can. We have options, but whatever happens, the first months of 2021 are completely unknown and potentially very disruptive.

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