It appears to be a never-ending pandemic at the moment. I don’t expect any international guests for six months at the very least, who knows? Maybe not all year. But fingers crossed it gets better and soon!
Fortunately rod sales so far this year have been fantastic! So thanks for that fellas! Lee is currently about to be snowed under, not in the way that Mika is of course, but in rod building!
Brexit has slowed down a blanks shipment and is a headache. But business is never plain sailing. With the double whammy of Brexit and COVID-19 there is certainly some choppy water to navigate.
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We have about 2 inches on snow, right now -7 degrees Celcius (around 20) where I live. The water is 1-2 degrees cold and that means that sea trout are quite inactive, not eating much. It also means that they seek warmer water, and just 1 degree can mean the difference between finding fish or not. I once fished a small bay not far from where I live. The inner parts had slush ice so I walked to the mouth of the inlet, where there was no slush ice. My thermometer said 0,1 degrees Celcius. The waiting game was on, and after about an hour, I spotted a small school of sea trout (it was a calm, sunny day) and managed to catch one (not very big) but as I played it, it spooked a couple of big ones (I’d say 3-4kg ones). In this case, just that change from slush ice to water made the difference.
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My FP is little bit late, which seems to be new normal. It has been snowing whole week and last night with wind. It means that snow is running and gathering some places more than normally. I started to clean snow early enough that I have time to write FP on time. But, I got few calls and some neighbours needed my help to clean snow so my schedule had to be rewrote. Did you know that everything before but is a lie.
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Any of you who have read my front page with any regularity will be familiar with my old friend who we call "Bubba". A couple of years ago Bubba called me one afternoon and wanted to know if my (then) 10 year old son was still tying flies. When I responded "yes he is" Bubba insisted that I make the trip up to his farm in East Texas so that he could give Jackson his collection of fly tying materials and tools. Since he was no longer tying flies due to arthritis, he wanted his collection to go to someone who could get good use out of it. Little did I realize that it was almost TWO TRUCKLOADS of materials. I guess when you've been tying 40 years you amass a serious quantity of stuff!
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A fly fishing lock down is without doubt the last thing anyone of us needs! I understand not all of you agree. So we agree to disagree - fair enough!
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TIMING OF POWER APPLICATION.
Timing is everything as we quickly learn when we try to cast distance. There are lots of videos and articles on distance casting. Stance, tracking, picking targets, rotation and application of power are all important. But there is more to application of power and casting distance.
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Andy’s page last week, about knowing when art was complete, or indeed when to change the fish, made me think about fishing here for Giant Snakehead in Malaysia. As you will no doubt know we have a few “rules” in fly fishing. The important one in this case being “never leave fish to find fish”. But of course there are times when you need to do exactly this to be successful and I think it’s one of the most difficult fly fishing decisions I have to make when fishing (and it always leaves me wondering if I made the right one).
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Lockdown continues here in Wales so I’ve no fishing to report. I have been avidly watching the gauges on my local rivers though and this week has been pretty exceptional in terms of the rainfall. The Welsh Dee hit a new record height of nearly 2.5m, massively high considering I normally only consider fishing when the first digits read 0.7m (if it’s higher I fear getting swept away – I’ve had a couple of close calls even when the river was at 0.7 something). The videos posted from the area showed severe flooding to the point that main roads were underwater.
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I had to come someday. I had for a long time been teasing slightly older friends when me met for fishing or flitting that they needed readers. Until a few years ago, I had no problems tying a size 22 dry without readers. Alas - not any more.
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This week I have continue my building project. It has been quite chilly, -15 celsius around. We need to have ”shelter” for rubbish bins at the farm. But why just built shelter just for them, so I make it 2 part shelter and in other end we can keep snowmobiles and quads depending about season. Building something in winter is not easy, at least for me. You need to have lot of clothes and protect your hands more than in warm weather. You can have frost bites just touching your tools etc. And no, I’m not meaning that tool even it can disappear when it is really cold weather.
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The thing is, art is never finished, it’s abandoned and you have to know the right place to abandon it in order to continue doing it.
--- Mark Slaughter
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We're getting a real winter here in Tokyo, it seems like the first one in ages. Here that means dry air, sun and high pressure with fairly consistent sub zero temperatures overnight and low single figures during the day. It's not entirely bad- the clear skies and sun make for reasonably reliable sight fishing weather if you can put up with the cold.
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You have to be prepared to make the cast. A lot of fish are not stationary like trout, and often there are times, when by the time you have unstrung the fly, the fish has moved on. Or the line gets caught in a bush, or you are standing on the line, or it is caught on your clothing or the reel handle...
Line management is seldom taught but essential for all forms of fly fishing.
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Ashly and I went down the lake to a remote fishing spot last week because there were rumours of another lockdown. It turns out that there are renewed lockdowns here in Malaysia but fortunately the district where my boat floats around is still lockdown free. Phew! The fishing was very slow by the way, there are babies around (Snakehead) but the very high water level is seeing them hiding in the jungle undergrowth and almost impossible to find. This should change soon now that it’s almost stopped raining.
The end of the Wet Season is a happy time here. The trees bloom, Snakehead teach their babies the ways of the Jungle and the rivers are clear. This last event in particular is very exciting news for the Sungai Tiang project. As soon as the river clears I’ll make a final trip up north to prepare the Orang Asli for fly fishing guiding operations on the river which are starting very soon.
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Following on from James’ FP on shooting heads, I feel I should mention how my casting has developed significantly from using them. Over the last few years, he has made me several, the first being quite short and mainly aimed at improving the speed and efficiency of my double hauling technique. The next few have been longer and longer, with the aim of improving my carry so that I can cast the MED fly line more effectively. By using these shooting heads, I have extended my PBs several times in both the 5# and 7# events and I’m particularly pleased with casting over 40yds with the #5.
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There’s a stream not far from us, maybe 20 minutes drive and a good walk. It’s actually very close to where I used to study and back then, I too a walk along it quite often. I never fished it. It was in acceptable condition back then, but not far from the sea, there was (and still is) a mill with it’s weir and pond.
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This week it was heavy snowing in southern Finland and also in some part of Sweden. That what I heard. We had – 30 celsius and around few days in here. Today it is warming up and it is only -17 celsius. In south it is more. This week I have been mostly indoors, just feeding reindeer and that kind of work. We are also renewing our website and because of that I have been going thru photos. It took me back to my childhood and to summer of 86.
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After a long two week battle with the monster called Covid-19, I am FINALLY back among the living.
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Is what the RIO fly line company tries to teach us by their latest teaching fly casting video.
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Having an energised backcast is the most undertaught skill in fly casting. No backcast, no forward cast. Most people watch for nice tight loops on the forward cast. When you are next casting in groups or with friends, look at all the backcasts….you will be surprised by many have wide, non energised back casts.
They simply don’t look back.
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I thought my comment in the Hot Torpedo Owner’s Club would get a reaction! You see I often read that “heavier lines load the rod quicker for fast shots”, which is something I fundamentally disagree with and I believe relates back to the mistaken idea that a fly rod is simply a Big Spring. Instead, I’m of the opinion that a stiff rod (less bend) is quicker to cast than a soft rod (more bend) and as a consequence underlining is what we should be doing for fast shots (with a given rod). And that’s what I do do by the way. Lines that are 1/2WT heavier than AFFTA I use half weight lighter for Snakehead shots - we have 1 max 2 seconds to deliver the fly, (usually 1). And while I’ve done a lot of experimenting in this regards I haven’t filmed it.
With heavy lines I feel I have to slow the stroke, widen the arc and wait for the rod to unload and do its thing. In other words it’s a tortoise! Another example, on the other end of the scale, is the Italian TLT casters who underline by a couple of line weights and generate exceptionally high line speeds or indeed the World Championships casters who underline by 5 line weights or more for distance.
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I ruined a fly line practising over the recent holidays. When I say that, I actually mean I finished it off although the kind of practice required for competition distance is quite tough on the plastic coating of even the best quality lines. To be honest, I always take the deterioration too far before I decide to retire a line i.e. only when it sounds like each haul is sawing the core of the line into the snake rings do I contemplate swapping the line for a new one. This reminds me of when I took my #7 rod in to my local tackle shop for a ring replacement, the rod builder in the shop had a quick inspection and told me to change them all bar the stripper guide. I’ve started seeing the same mark on the same ring on my current #5 distance rod that prompted me to take in the #7 rod, so in reality perhaps my #10 also requires a complete re-ring. (Perhaps in my defence I should say that both of these rods get used on my saltwater trips, so all the wear isn’t down exclusively to distance practice).
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With “development” so much knowledge is lost and so much of what once common wisdom and standard equipment is lost as well. In fly fishing, this of course has led to the development of carbon fiber rods, which are now the standard - and for very good reasons. Reels are lighter, large arbor and for good reasons. Leaders are monofilament nylon and there’s a good example of a “development” I don’t like. I think nylon casts better and fluorocarbon takes aeons to degrade if lost. I recognise that it has it’s applications, but for the vast majority of the fishing I do, it really has no place. And it’s bloody expensive too and I find it’s actually outperformed by nylon as far as casting goes.
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Year 2009, I have just bought belly boat/drifter/ floating ring. Pick name you like to use. It was also first fishing trip for Satu with me, well it was holiday trip and little bit fishing. If you ask from Satu it was fishing trip with little bit holiday. Anyway, we headed to Sweden and Stora Sjöfallet. It was exploring trip, I had never been there or never heard anything about that area. Just looking map and trying to find something which could be nice to fish and also see nature. So when we finished our north Finland- Norway (Finnmark) tour earlier, we stopped at home and washed our clothes and of we went to Sweden.
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As I've had to self isolate the last 2 weeks, I've not been fishing. Luckily that ends tomorrow so I'll be able to get 2 more days on the river to see out the year.
Aside from being bored to tears and spending a couple of days working my way through a trifle I made for a Christmas party of 10 people that obviously had to be cancelled, I've been watching just about every fly fishing and fly tying video I can find on YouTube. Especially if it's about places I've never been, or types of fly I've never seen.
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WOW - I am glad to live in Germany though!
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The Ten Commandments to Fly Fishing.
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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I thought I would write a little about strategy this week. I grew up fly fishing the reservoirs in England and the strategy I’m thinking about is how you go about searching for the fish as opposed to letting them come to you. Quite frankly not only is fishing the same fish-less cast twice in succession rather boring, it’s also a poor approach. There are times when it is the correct approach however, for example if a peninsular is forcing a current that feeding fish must move around, but by and large the more successful option is to divide the water up into sections and work your way logically through them.
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Ashly and I had a nice New Year’s Eve in a remote part of the jungle lake. I haven’t visited this part for about a month since it really requires a 3-4 day trip without Internet, making it a small slice of Heaven! It’s fishing well right now too, and I’ve successfully caught a Snakehead every day this year so far :D Apart from today actually, but I’m just about to head out on the hunt on this “one fish a day fishery!”
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I’m heading down a dangerous path - I’ve dived into classic salmon flies. I’ve been slowly learning some of the techniques from a good friend. Fly tying is fly tying you might say, and you are right, but if you want the wing of a classic salmon fly, say a Silver Doctor, to sit right, you need to learn some techniques. The same wing the tricky, low set mallard wings typical of the spey flies or the also low set wings of the Dee-flies.
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It is last day of the year 2020 when I’m writing this. When this is alive it will be first day of 2021. I was imagine that this FP should be how awesome past has been and how great new one will be. On March and April I was worried how we get thru this year and just waiting this winter when everything will be more or less back normal. Winter has started and it far away from normal. We have normally in Christmas season about 700 guests visiting us, now it has been about 30 people. Rest of the winter is looking like that. So year 2021 is looking like hell for us. But…..
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.jpg "Dangerous Path")
