It’s funny, for decades I used to think that the Induced Take by moving dry flies on Stillwaters was a form of cheating! It’s not that it was “cheating” exactly, but when a fish ate the moved fly it meant less to me, because it wasn’t naturally fooled into eating my fly, but instead attracted to the movement first.
I had the same feeling with nymphs and wets too. It’s often far easier to “knock a fish off” with the induced take, than a static presentation.
Anyway while those days have mostly long gone now (although I definitely have self-restrictions in my jungle fishing), they were undoubtedly very important in my development as a fly fisherman at the time.
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Well, another visit to Powderhorn is in the books. I always say that if I can get one day out of three where the wind doesn't blow 15 knots or better, I consider myself lucky.
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We had planned to go casting today but events transpired against us. I had planned to start a casting experiment to be reported here so I’ll have to save that for another day – hopefully it will be an interesting one but without actually going out and testing I’m not sure if what I’m planning will work. Instead we spent the day shoring up the fences in the garden which had been blown down, or nearly blown down, in the extremely strong winds we’ve had this weekend. When I say we ‘shored up the fences’ I should point out that in terms of practical DiY skills I’m pretty lacking, so actually I watched Tracy’s father do it – although I did hand him all the right tools at precisely the right time when needed.
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Learning to cast is a necessity if you want to become a fly fisher - that’s obvious. How you choose to learn to cast is a personal choice. Some are fine getting on with it by themselves, some use YouTube, some use the internet, some read books (I think I know all 6 of them :-) and some choose to get instruction for a friend, a club or a qualified instructor (and some have friends that are qualified instructors). I clearly recommend the latter, because maybe the hardest part of learning and getting better, is seeing one’s own mistakes. A qualified instructor will expose the subtleties that cause problems quickly and will have methods to both practice them away and maybe even correct them in a few minutes.
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You know what pimp my ride means, google translator knows also. Pimp my landing net is something what google translator don’t know, well it knows but meaning is not even close what I would like to have. Anyway that is headline. I have been looking landing net which would float from ring. It would be perfect to have fish there while getting camera, measure etc ready.
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I've been checking a few new-to-me shore locations around Tokyo bay over the last few weeks. Some of them are right in the city, like down by the Olympic village. Others are thankfully a bit out of the way. It's been fun, even if it has meant fewer fish than I might usually expect. This is the kind of situation where I don't mind blanking though. Each visit to a mark helps to build a picture of the area and what it's like at different tides. Of course fish are welcome, but I'm OK with some slow sessions if it means I can manage some more consistent success in future.
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I was planning a possible UK trip for Xmas but today, while renewing my visa and Malaysian work permit, I discovered that there are no blank pages left in my passport for a full page visa! Slight chaos, but nothing out of the ordinary. However if I can’t renew my long term visitor pass, then I can’t get back into Malaysia with the current travel entry restrictions. So this means I’ll be having another Xmas in Malaysia while I organise a new passport. Still the good news is that it will be another Snakehead Christmas and I’ll be around for hosting trips.
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The adults with babies season starts soon. In fact there are two times in the year when this happens most, although it’s possible to find them at all times of the year.
This past month and for the next 6 to 8 is the Wet Season. It can really pour. The lake rises 10 metres or more though this period. And as the water level starts to rise this sees a big spawning time for the snakehead. The eggs hatch after about 24 hours and both parents look after and rear their young.
For some reason it also happens again at the end of the Wet Season and mid March and for another 6 weeks is serous fishing for babies again.
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This afternoon my family and I made the three hour drive down to what I now consider my "spiritual home" of Indianola, Tx. For the past 4 years, we have mad it a tradition to spend the week of Thanksgiving somewhere on the coast. It now looks like Indianola will be host to this tradition for the foreseeable future.
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Tracy and I are just back from a couple of days fishing on the river Dee. Unlike a couple of weeks ago, the water level and clarity was perfect for both days, the fishing was still tough however. We decided to rent a cottage pretty much on the bank of the river as a birthday treat for Tracy, plus we wanted to try a restaurant in the area without having to drive home and back to get ready after the fishing (the meal was excellent).
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For reservoir- and still water fishing in the UK, there’s hardly a more famous fly than Shipman’s Buzzer. And it’s so easy and fast to tie that most fly tiers can fill a box in a few hours. It’s multi purpose and can be fished in several ways. Everyone needs one in their boxes - several, in fact.
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I am Satu Palosaari and my fly fishing story started in the summer of 2008 when I met Mika. We had been chatting with messages and calling for about a couple of weeks before the first meeting. He was living in another place 250 kilometers away, but had already been fishing in Kuusamo before. For our first date, he came to Kuusamo for a couple of days to fish and promised to take me along and teach me fly fishing as well.
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After a blackout on the train caused an unwelcome surprise break from everything, I'm starting to get back to some kind of normalcy. I even went out fishing on Monday night, which annoyed/worried my wife but made me feel better about a lot of things.
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The leader is probably the most important piece of tackle after the fly line, and yet it is an often-overlooked necessity. I do a lot of Stillwater fly fishing, as well as salmon, sea trout, brown trout and grayling, and it quite frankly fascinates me. You can cast a 9’ tapered leader with some wool on the end with just your hands, try that with a piece of level mono and let me know what happens. Why do you think top distance and accuracy competition casters spend so much time and effort with their leader formula?
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Yes, it’s middle of November, which means that Christmas is just around the corner and if you want something long in your stocking, then now is a very good time to order. A fully customised HT can be built from scratch and delivered anywhere in the world in time for Xmas. Also we have a selection of standard sexy builds ready, that can be shipped at a moment’s notice.
Our rod tubes are 79cm (31inches). (Those require some big socks).
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Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium.
---Wikipedia
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Kev’s visit to Wales to stay with Tracy and myself and fish the River Dee turned out to be a bit of a disaster. The river was in perfect order pretty much up to the point when his plane touched down, however by the time he’d driven to our house the river had started rising due to the non-stop rain we’d had that day. This rain continued throughout the night and a check of the on-line gauge in the morning indicated that it wasn’t even worthwhile driving to the river to check it out – the height had pretty much doubled in 24 hours.
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I’ve often mentioned how much I enjoy the old tradition of sharing ideas, flies and materials with likeminded people around the world. Sharing ideas has never been easier than now, A smart phone and in internet connection and I can share an idea from Denmark with Paul in Malaysia in seconds. It’s 2.30pm when writing this (yes yes, late as usual, I know) and I was just chatting to Paul before. With the huge time difference I can’t really figure out when Paul sleeps, but the other day it seems he was sleeping well into the day because it was raining.
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I haven’t been able to fish for over month now. When you are not fishing, it is quite difficult to think about your techniques and so on. Past week we had wolf hunting again and I have been building extension to our winter fence. It has been busy week but last night when picking up my daughter from distance, I had time to think some things about my grayling fishing and how I might need to change it.
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Bit of a late FP — I knew I had to cover today for Martyn but I went fishing, of course, and have only just got back :)) Yesterday I awoke at 7am to get roving but it was raining. 8am same thing. 9, 10, 11 and 12 — all raining. I don’t want to give you the idea that I’m a fair-weather fisherman, because I’m not, but here it’s really difficult to find Snakehead babies in the rain, so I slept on instead.
I ended up getting out the hammock at 1am, after more than anyone’s fair share of sleeping. And then I couldn’t sleep a bloody wink last night!!!
7am this morning I was still awake, and so I went fishing. Not I would say in peak condition. Now you know I’m building up to an excuse, don’t you!! Found four sets of babies found, but my shots let me down. I had one adult chase twice — and refuse both times — and a free-riser eat, but I forgot that I’m going through a “no striking phase” in my technique and I struck and so missed the bloody thing.
Anyway tomorrow is another day.
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A short 4-hour fishing session last weekend proved to be most enjoyable, with 4 fish to the net. I haven’t been for a long time (over a month!) which has mostly been down to work commitments as well as a special project (more on this later), so it was long overdue.
Having looked at the catch returns, it was evident that the lakes were not fishing very well, which was puzzling, as fellow anglers mentioned that the fish were healthy and feeding on natural aquatic life quite happily.
Now, the weather consisted of bright sunlight, blue skies and a relatively warm temperature and quite windy. This set off a decent buzzer hatch, so i took out my new(ish) HT4 with a Scientific Anglers mastery trout #4 floater, and tied on a team of three buzzers/nymphs. A tapered leader was used first to ensure clean turnover, and the nymphs were spaced 3’ 3’ and 5’.
Top dropper; Blakeston’s black buzzer #12
Middle dropper; black and white buzzer #12
Point; Bloodworm (red buzzer) #12
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I’m sure we’ve all learned about the Angle of Refraction and Snell’s Circle as school children and that we think about it every time we go fishing. Of course waves and ripples change things, both looking in and out of the water. From underneath, waves can appear as horizontal bands of internal reflection followed by elongated windows looking out, and turbulence is a mosaic of light patterns.
This morning’s session I went looking for Snakehead babies. I found three sets…
One set was very big babies which is always challenging, especially so this time because they were motoring along in windy open water conditions. Second set my thruster decided that the battery was too low to keep up and I had to use the outboard. Fish spooked. Third set were just behaving strange and appeared to be already spooked.
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This particular Front Page brought back a lot of great memories. Since I had to make a last minute run out of town and didn't have time to write a current Front Page, I am re-running this one from March of 2019. Seems appropriate as the MonArk Jon boat will soon see the storied Mission River.
New Front Page coming next Monday!
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I’ve done all the woodworking that I want to do for now, although I do have ten doors still to make, a bathroom to look sexy and upstairs “star lounge” to do something with. However everything is on hold this week (apart from maybe one door) while I do what I like to do most, which is catch a lot of fish! The weather and conditions are perfect for Snakehead fishing on the lake and so that’s what I’m going to do all week. I should have a guest or two coming this month as well. Not the International visitors who still can’t get in yet… but hopefully soon!
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It wasn’t long after I wrote the first FP on my still water go-to on the Furled Damsel and the Arden Damsel, Matt Klara wrote an email, and then things took off. We wrote back and forth on my design and a design of Matt’s and I ended up asking him if he would write an FP. Many of you will remember Matt, he used to be a regular FP-writer on Sexyloops and now he’s back for another round. I think Matt’s Slow Sink Damsel is a fantastic looking fly and ai need to tie some and incorporate some foam to make a Slow Sink Furled Damsel.
Over to Matt!
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It has been hectic 3 weeks. It has been 3 weeks from last FP. Two weeks ago, I had to ask Paul to cover me when we had wolf hunting starting suddenly and last week reindeers started to roam south, Paul covered me again. To be honest weather has not been on our side lately. First we got winter and I had to cancel last fishing trip because lakes got ice cover. Then warm came and snow what we allready had almost 30 cm started to go away. It turned to slush and things where looking shitty.
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The other day I shared a photo of a well chewed billfish tube that I had tied for Juan Wei to use on the Rompin sails. It's nothing particularly special but I had given it a core of body tubing to keep the feathers from collapsing against the tube, much like the fatboy mullet which uses EZ body to give the wing fibers shape and volume. The result is a fly that is almost as wide as my hand and will stay that size in the water. The idea being that the fly would be much easier to both see and feel/hear because of its significantly larger profile yet still be quick on the delivery as there isn't much real bulk in the fly. I'm sure other people have done this, but it's the first I've seen it on a billfish fly.
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Where I really get to work finishing fitting out the Battleship :))) I don’t know about you, but when I have something that I should be doing, but it’s not fly fishing, then it seems to take an extraordinarily long time! The irony is that I actually enjoy working with wood and building stuff. I’m not very good at it, but it’s solid if you know what I mean! It also looks like something Tarzan might have built, if he was a fly fisherman.
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I had a very interesting 4 days in Sungai Tiang learning about trail building (“Sungai” in Malay means “River”). We really need an access track for guest fly fishers, who will start coming here for the Mahseer, from around the beginning of Feb onwards. It was quite fascinating to learn about what is required in building trails and how water flow needs to be considered at all times!! (Especially here in a rainforest!!). There are in fact 5 Essentials to Trail building! Of course there are :)) Funny thing is, now, whenever I look at any trail, I’m going to assess it to see if it was designed and constructed properly. “What design caused the erosion?” “How can it be fixed?” And so on…
It was also great to catch up with my friends, Hadi, Khairol, Ray and Roy amongst others. We have a very busy time coming up, preparing for the grand opening, which is just around the corner really, straight after the Wet Season when it stops raining completely here. This is such a good project, protecting the river through fly fishing and giving the Aslis a great (and fun!) business to operate themselves. I’m under no illusions, it’s going to take time and a lot of work but it’s worthwhile. This and all the other projects in the National Park are long term ones, but what’s important right now is that future guests, both local and international, start thinking about their trip here! The pristine, prime months to be here, are Feb, March and April. It’s then that the river is gin clear. Mid-March onwards is also one of the best times to be out on the lake. So I can well imagine a few of my guests doing both. :))
It was also enjoyable to meet Yong and Lawrence who gave the trail-building course. Yong is an excellent teacher and it was inspiring to learn from him. I’ve learned a few tricks than I’ll apply to my own fishing lessons.
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Failure is an inescapable part of life and a critically important part of any successful life.
---Tal Ben Shahar
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