Daily Cast Archive

Last week the weather was perfect and many fish were in the best mood. So I of course didn't stop fishing all week long!

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Yesterday was a good day; two parcels that I’ve been waiting for expectantly, both arrived. The first was a huge box sent over by my mother. Very thoughtfully posting over things that are unavailable in Malaysia and certainly the part where I am. Coffee beans, liquorice, English mustard and olives for example. Also, somewhat mysteriously for late June, not one but two Christmas puddings. There was also a mobile signal booster I had purchased, from what I had assumed by their website to be a UK company, but which later transpired to be based in Hong Kong. Had I known that I would have had it simply shipped to me directly. Also, because my mum is also completely bonkers, a pair of garden firefly lights for the Battleship.

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Over the last several weeks, I have written several short retrospectives about some of the folks I had the privilege of interviewing for RodMaker Magazine. In this week's Front Page I am going to share an observation about business ownership that I find a bit troubling.

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Hopefully when this is posted, James and I will be on the river fishing for grayling and trout. We don’t get much chance in the week as we both are still working full-time albeit from home under the current situation. Next weekend however we will be in Somerset for the first BFCC Meeting there, at Mells recreational ground near Frome. One of the members is local to this area and often holds casting instruction in the Mells fields, so proposed holding a meeting there. Whether we get the chance to fish in the area will be weather dependant so we’ll have to wait and see.

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Gunnar Johnsson is the grand father of the Swedish soft hackle tradition, and consequently also the man behind many patterns. This one is also one of his. It was my Swedish friend, Håkan Karsnäser, who showed me the pattern.

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One of the jobs of being a good husband is to help edit my wife’s Masters papers for English. Her English is pretty damned good, particularly considering she speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and Malay first. But occasionally the flow of words isn’t that of a native speaker. So that’s where I come in. Yesterday I became an expert in Malaysian Business Law. A few months ago it was Marketing, and next month it’s Accountancy – Ok they are not all going to be interesting. Mika was up all last night marking reindeers. “Night” at this time of year takes on a whole new meaning in the Arctic Circle. So it’s a quick one from me covering for him.

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My second vaccine date was confirmed last week, I'll feel a bit better about traveling once I've had it. I still won't be able to leave Japan. Well I will, but it's unlikely I'd get back in. So instead of an international trip, I'm heading to Okinawa for a week of DIY flats fishing.

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For many anglers summer means to fish early or late in the day. For me it means to fish both and then sleep some hours during midday and at night!

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Here in Malaysia we are still in lockdown. This means no outdoor exercise like running or cycling on your own. But you are allowed out to go to the supermarket, the hardware shop and work in the factories that are allowed to remain open (virtually all shops are shut). Factories of course is where the virus is mostly spread. It would be quite impossible to get Covid doing a solo activity on your own! Factories and Construction account for 60% of cases. Running, cycling and fly fishing I suspect zero. In fact I don’t know of a single cluster that has come from one person doing anything on their own in the middle of nowhere. My only contact with people is my weekly food shopping. To be honest it has always been like that – even before Covid!

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In honor of Father's day, I decided to re-run a piece from 2019. Hope all of you dads have a great Father's day, and a great week!

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The fishing on the Dee has been a bit of a mixed bag this week. Given all the travel restrictions in place at the moment preventing people travelling abroad on holiday it’s perhaps to be expected that some beats are busier than usual. Tracy and I were therefore pleasantly surprised to arrive at the river mid-morning to find that we had one of the more popular areas to ourselves, even more so as it was the weekend and the weather was lovely. From the car parking area there is the choice of going upstream or down, we decided we’d go up before lunch and then down afterwards.

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When you sit down to tie a batch of flies, you need somewhere to put them after the first coat of varnish (or super glue, if you are so inclined). I've placed them in a piece of foam, stuck them in my tool holder, hackle pliers, clothed hangers etc. for years. And all of these work fine, but I wanted something more convenient, where I could place the fly and get on with the next easier.

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Next basic stop during fishing and rafting is also real hotspot. It is quite easy to wade even when high water, nice spots and one awesome side stream. The side stream is only good in high water but what a run. There is two spots about side of 1 square meters together but you should never underestimate this small things.

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I've just been mixing up a batch of fuller's earth. I much prefer making my own degreaser to using the commercially produced stuff. I always make a few tubs at a time, 1 for each bag so I always have it handy and don't need to worry about forgetting to pack it.

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Summer has fully arrived in Germany: Fly fishing almost 24/7 during the past 2 weeks!

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I was reading Andy's page yesterday about his interview with Tom Dorsey, and went to read the article on Sexyloops but couldn't find it! Andy thinks we didn't run it all those years ago. So - something I haven't done in a while - I've just HTMLed it! It's always interesting for me to read different thoughts on rod design...

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Moving along in the flashback to the profiles I did for RodMaker Magazine, we now come to Tom Dorsey of Thomas & Thomas.

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Just quickly covering for James and Tracy today! Something that came up this week is something that bothers me greatly. And I think it has to do respect or lack of respect for fish, life and maybe even ourselves. Partly it’s ignorance for sure. Let me give you a list of things that I don’t like to see, and I’m sure you’ll have seen all of these too…

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When I go traveling, longer trips, sometimes to places where I’ve ever been and I isn’t sure what to expect, I always spend a great deal of time putting together a travel kit with a selection of materials with which I can imitate most insects. When you get such a kit fine tuned, it really can get quite small and compact. And of course it should cause one to reflect over that rather well assorted taxidermist shop at home.

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It was great three days with these guys. They learned fast and wanted to improve their skills. Four of them were total beginners with fly fishing and some haven’t fished never before at all. I have notice that those who have never fished before are easier to teach than those who have some experience about spinning, that will different story. It is all about casting techniques. This will be story about Esko, name not changed, it is his nickname. ( I hope that name doesn’t mean anything stupid in other language, if so let me know).

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On Monday, I went to a river I'd never been to before. A steep, fast little mountain river, full of pocket water and small plunge pools a population of sea run and resident yamame and a population of rainbows that's a mix between stocked and wild fish.

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My fishing is once again imaginary, and I don’t mean that I’m fishing Imaginary Saltwater, no instead I am wondering when – or even if – life will ever become “normal” again. One and a half years of “movement control orders” and lockdowns and the virus is now worse than ever. New infections in Malaysia are surging and more per capita than even India. No end in sight over here at least! Bernd is fighting with a Tick today and is visiting a doctor to get some treatment. I hope he is good next week. Those things can be pretty rough. We have a lot of them in Hungary and they are surprisingly dangerous for a little creature.

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When you read this is most probably, I am covering for one of our writers which he that cannot make it. Before I start, let me introduce myself for those who don’t know me. I am Ashly from Malaysia, living together with Paul and I am his wife! I am going to talk about Sexyloops in general in my own opinion and how you can support us. Sexyloops was born because of Paul’s passion. Starting with his website, forum and flyfishing rod. And little that we know time passes by, Sexyloops is 23 years old now. In another word, it was born before Facebook and Instagram! So what is it all about?

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In last week's front page about Dick Kantner, I referenced toward the end his recommendation that I contact Press Powell of Powell Fly Rods. Dick and Press were good friends, so it was an easy sell to get Press to participate. What was unexpected was that the interview I did with Press became a very important event in my life in more ways than one.

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Last weekend’s BFCC meeting went well with lots of happy casters attending. Things were helped by the fantastic weather, hot enough to dispense with the fleeces and cast in a T-shirt, plus a bit of wind to make the competition casters smile. Mark, Mike H and Mike M provided instruction all day and they had plenty of satisfied customers judging by the comments received during the day and on Facebook etc. On the competition side of things it was a fairly relaxed affair with only 5 or 6 casters wanting to compete, perhaps this was for the best given the year’s gap. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good competition, there was some great casts measured and it was easy to see who had been practising during lock-down.

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We are in another 2 weeks of hard lockdown here in Malaysia and this last week I had planned to fit out the back of the Battleship. I want to install cupboards, shelves and so on, with recycled hardwood and bamboo. I’ve been meaning to do this for 12 months.

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I had great plan for this week and as usual it didn’t go like that. So I had to skip test fishing session with friend. Instead I was picking up guests and doing some shopping with them. No complains it was great to be back in ”business” after winter. Besides I do love to guide guests who are staying longer, we can get to know little better and it easier to guide and give tips. (and I can give tough love)

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I was planning to head up into the mountains in search of a mayfly hatch this week, but due to a sketchy forecast I decided to stay local instead of travelling for 2 hours plus. It was nice as I was able to have a bit of a lie in before walking down the river for a crack at some of the local carp.

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Summer finally has arrived and many fish are in their best feeding mood. I have been fishing every day.

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It’s been a tough year of fishing on the lake for me. It’s party because some of the more stringent lockdowns have occurred during prime fishing seasons. But I think the bigger picture is that when we are not in lockdown I’m still not on the fish. Why? Because to be consistently successful here, I need to be constantly on the water. Normally at this time of year I have about 30 spots, of different populations of Snakehead and in any session, morning or evening, I can hit 3-5 of them. I don’t have 30 spots right now; I’ve been running past spots and not finding fish and I have one Gourami spot, which is a new one to me. And we have just begun yet another lockdown – COVID-19 is at an all time high right now in Malaysia. It gives me a chance to do some work on the boat.

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