Daily Cast Archive

A guy asked me to tie him some pike flies last week. In the end he baulked at the price (not because he couldn't afford it either), but rather than saying no tried to engage me in discussion about how much a fly should cost. I didn't really engage, I never do, but it isn't an unusual occurence, I thought it might be worth writing about. I mean what is a fly worth?

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Here is another blast; a great friend and highly inspirational flycasting coach, Carlos Azpilicueta from Northern Spain. For many years Carlos brought us flycasting games, presentation cast and articles in a weekly format, both in Spanish and English. He also translated much of the earliest flycasting articles on Sexyloops into Spanish.

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For about four months now I’ve been working hard on my swimming technique. At first I had to get over my fear of open water swimming and swimming into a set of Snakehead babies (that hasn’t happened yet so I still don’t know if they will be defensive and attack or flee as a set) or indeed into a snake. I do look for snakes while sighting but since I still manage to swim into floating sticks then hopefully the enormous king cobra that I missed spotting will avoid me. Yep, and then of course there are lake monsters looking up at my silhouette that every angler imagines catching…

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Texas is famous for a lot of things...two of them being the blazing summer heat, and the wind. Unfortunately for those of us with a fly fishing addiction, this summer so far has been a COMPLETE BUST.

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This weekend we’re in Italy at the SIM Fly Festival in Castel Di Sangro. It’s our first trip to Italy and we’re loving the country and people, though it would be better if it wasn’t 300C. We’re not used to this sort of heat in Wales, so this is really testing our endurance. Today we did several casting demos with various outfits, including a 5# Sexyloops hot torpedo. They have kindly provided a casting platform so there is less potential to tick, however the grass is weedy so our pick-ups are sometimes tricky. On one cast today with the ST27, I managed to snag strongly enough to snap the leader!

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Putting weight on flies is somewhat of a religious subject. If you do, how you do it, where you put it, how much, how little, which type. I prefer letting the line bring the fly to its intended depth - no question. That leaves my with flies I can fish however I want, shallow, deep or in the middle.

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I have recently read some fishing blogs. Some of them seems to have lot of words with nothing to say. Some others seems to be not much words with lot of content. For me writing these FPs are learning experience, I have to go thru my casting, fishing, guiding, teaching etc. Are FPs making any sense, I don't know always even myself.

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I recently got myself a new fish finder for the float tube. After a bit of research I plumped for the Deeper Pro+ 2 and after a couple of trips I'm pretty impressed. It's not perfect, definitely having a couple of drawbacks, but it's probably as good an option as you'll get for a float tube .I should probably say at the start that I have no connection to Deeper, and paid full price my unit.

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I’ve been asked the question a few times if the Stillwater book, that I wrote back in ‘96, was updated, would have more information now? That’s always an interesting question. Of course I would write it differently today; I was 25 back then and had a different view of the world.

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I was chatting with one of my Sexyloops friends and multiple HT owner from Texas recently, who was telling me how difficult it was to have two hobbies, one being fly fishing and the other being bouldering. I had to look up to “bouldering” – and it sounds like fun! Basically it’s climbing over boulders for sport.

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“Minimalism is not a lack of something. It’s simply the perfect amount of something.” ― Nicholas Burroughs

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James and I are preparing to go to Italy this week to attend the SIM Fly Festival covering the World Fly Fishing Day in Castel Di Sangro, Province of L'Aquila, in Abruzzo, Central Italy. It’s a weekend fishing show where we have been invited to do a casting demo – covering tenkara… not really we’re doing a distance casting demo!

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The week before last, in Norway, where I began speculating about the line-management-issue, I was also thinking a little about wading. Wading is something you need to get used to, no where you do it. I clearly remember the feeling of the water pressure the first I waded thigh-deep. The. There’s the issue of avoiding slipping and falling.

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This all got started in Malaysia during our trip in May. I didn't realize this on that time, this all become more clear back in home and when starting season here. If you think that this is about Paul, you will be disappointed. This is any of us. First I have to say, I probably got small orgasm when landing snakehead. And I got new ones when teaching casting back home. Little things make a difference. My approach for fishing, casting and teaching has changed, is it good... well time will show. In this short period it is looking good. I have had great start for season, I had groups and even fishing has been difficult, guiding has been great. But let's go to subject.

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The weather was good this week, so chuck and I got out on the float tubes. It was the June moon, so even though we've not seen the normal June temperatures, we were still expecting a good bit of action from the bass and panfish. We weren't disappointed.

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Recently I’ve been reading some coaching books only for the reason that I found myself being asked questions by instructors that I couldn’t answer using the same language. Actually I read one book, not many :) “The Language of Coaching” by Nick Winkelman and a few academic papers. Arguably Nick’s book covers two areas one being internal vs external cues, internal being something like “move you arm this way”, external being something like “imagine you are wielding a meat cleaver”. External is also divided into close external (see previous example) and long external eg “imagine you are throwing the line over the horizon”. The other area covered is analogies and wording them. I’ve often used my students to discover new analogies or find them for themselves, I think they are more lasting and more personal this way. Throwing a potato off the rod tip has long been a personal favourite of mine. “Dunking a basketball” “pushing a button” has come from others.

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The Malaysian borders are now fully open to International travellers who are fully vaccinated and without quarantine. There are now no Covid testing requirements before/after arrival. So here are our 2022 prices and availability slots.

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Well, I finally bit the bullet and ordered an HT # 8 fly blank. It's been sitting in my shop for a couple of months now waiting to be built. Recently though I've myself with a bit of free time on my hands, so work began on the HT8 build this weekend.

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James and I are just back from the latest BFCC Meeting at Ashford in the Water in Derbyshire. We had sunny windy conditions that should have been perfect for the competition events, however the wind couldn’t decide which direction it wanted to go. So there were many times when one of the competitors could be seen just standing and waiting for the wind to swing back to a favourable direction during their timed session. Unfortunately for some, they only had a head wind for their full time so had to do the best they could. Saying this, we had a great time discussing the typical British weather... isn’t that one of the nation’s favourite past-time… lol.

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Management No matter for which fish and with which tackle you’re fishing, managing the fly line is necessary. How it’s done and how much line that needs handling differs a lot. Learning to manage the fly line can save a lot of aggravation. It can be very frustrating having the the line tangle in the grass or weeds, just as you’re making the first cast to a rising trout.

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You have heard that I made lot of questions to Paul before our trip. And some I didn't make until arriving Malaysia and I was uncertain how to do something. Some of the question were around fishing but most not, lot of them were also made by Satu. So I decided to gather some of those here. And they have absolutely no order.

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Rainy season is in full swing here now, rivers are full and the fronts keep rolling in so I've been tying and practising more than fishing this week. I've been trying to get proficient at skipping docks with my baitcaster, as well as dialing in the #12 for off-shore and just in case I head to Okinawa this summer. It's also one of the best times to get a largemouth if the weather lets us get out.

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There are a number of active threads on the board discussing the how to choose the best rod for fly casting, in particular if the aim is distance. These discussions include posts about the amount of bend, the shape of the bend, the material that the rod is made of, the line and probably what colour it is (ok, I made that last one up). I’m therefore going to let slip the secret about how I do it and the vast majority of distance casting competitors I’ve spoken to. I’m sure they won’t be pleased that I’m spilling the beans on such a platform, but it has to be done and if I get ostracised from the distance casting community as a result then so be it. So here goes; we cast a load of rods and measure to see which we cast furthest with, we then use that rod.

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Waring Texas sits about 50 miles north of San Antonio, right at the southern edge of the Texas Hill Country. To be honest, there isn't much here. There is a small volunteer fire department, a small post office, and maybe 25 full-time residents. It's a great place to live, not just because it's a small, quiet town that's only a few hundred yards from the banks of the Guadalupe River, but also because of its "colorful" residents. High at the top of that list is Mike "M.E." Montgomery.

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I’m fishing a different part of Malaysia currently, for Kelah (Mahseer) and Jungle Perch if we can find them. I’m writing this on Friday, highly organised and ahead of time. I’ve just tied a few flies, both literally and figuratively in the dark. I’m not too sure what flies to tie but I doubt it matters all that much and anyway I have my full travel kit with me.

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There are so many aspects of fly fishing as a whole that’s attractive to most, who fly fish. Of course, I know eager fly fishers, who never tied a fly in their life. I know fly tiers, who never wetted a line. Personally I enjoy everything about it. Casting, fishing, tying, perfecting and there’s hardly a corner I haven’t sat in, at least for a while.

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I just finished writing my FP about shot I didn't take. I have been now and then during the writing scanned water also. Mostly I have left that part to Paul. I'm still pissed off but not so bad anymore. It is victory or die. We have just entered to bay where I have been few days ago, didn't see anything on that time. Atmosphere is still cold, no normal chatting, no jokes, no questions made. I see one rise on left but I ignore that one. Paul has just seen set of babies and I saw one free rise on same direction.

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John fell in the river this week. 4 times. Luckily it was warm and he wasn't hurt, but gear and a shoe were lost and no fish were caught. The whole debacle ended up being funny, but it could have been much, much worse.

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Second last fishing morning, we agreed with Paul we go fishing together in the morning session. Afternoon he would take Ashly back to Gerik. Me and Satu will have afternoon session together. In the morning Satu woke up before me as usual and she made coffee and breakfast. We did our morning things and then I start to wonder if I would go alone. Paul was still sleeping like a baby.

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