Daily Cast Archive

I reviewed Bestards Canyoning boots earlier in the year as the best fly fishing boots I’ve used by a long way. I’ve had them now for three years and have not treated them kindly! Anyway I mentioned that I didn’t use studs, instead choosing to dance over the rocks however after a couple of crossings where I almost went swimming in some dodgy places, I ordered up some screw-in studs.

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The Chinese think it’s Year of the Tiger but they are wrong. I knew at the beginning of the year that I was going to have to start replacing my outboard motors. The Honda 4-Stroke 15 was definitely operating beyond its lifespan. I’ve been running it for 8 years and the chaps before me had had it for 10 I believe and they bought it secondhand! Of course I ran it far more in my 8 than in their 10. Finally in March this year it gave up and spat oil everywhere. I took it to my mechanic friend Tay (everyone needs a mechanic friend in life) and he told me to get rid of it and buy a new Yamaha 15, they’re only about 5.5K MYR and so I did. I ran it in just before Dirk arrived and it’s not only nice but important to have the guest’s boat running trouble-free.

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Peripheral vision---the ability to see things outside of your direct line of sight.

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Tracy wrote her reflections on the World Fly Casting championships last week, so I thought I would add my comments this week. The first thing I must mention is what a beautiful country Norway is, the countryside views on the three hour drive from Olso airport to Gaustablikk made the painfully cramped conditions in the back of the car worth it. What was noticeable, coming from the dirty streets of the UK, was the almost total lack of litter, even in areas that ‘collect’ rubbish such as urban motorway verges. This suggests to me that the Norwegians love their countryside and wouldn’t contemplate sullying it with the detritus of modern life. I also suspect this is a learned behaviour where litter louts are admonished by society in general, a far cry from the UK where (some) parents not only allow their children to litter, they actually encourage this behaviour by doing it themselves. (Having just come back from Norway I’m perhaps more sensitive to the state of the picnic areas by our local river).

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How much extra gear to bring with you? It depends if course on the situation. On my recent trip to Norway, I chose to bring a 14’ and 15’ rod and a backup for both. Weight and storage wasn’t an issue and I could borrow one of the spares from a friend. Two reels - both sturdy, sp less likely to break down. I’ll no go into lines, leaders and flies.

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Two weeks ago Satu got Covid. I did what any loving husband would do. When she was sitting on couch, I sat on chair otherside of living room, I came home so late that she had eat dinners, so I ate alone. And of course we slept in different rooms, just like all married couples will do.

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It's been an mixed week. I've been doing a good bit of fishing and tying. Some of the fishing was unexpectedly good, some was disappointing and the tying was a bit rushed

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Well, 140’ with a #5 seemed like an impossible goal, but having had a break from casting for a week, I realised that i needed to fine tune my technique even more. A good test for this is to go back to a much softer rod to see if any faults show up, and they did. As we know, technique is incredibly important, and this wins over brute force 100% of the time. It’s never about applying more ‘power’.

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I was reading a book that Mark (Stoatstail) put me on to called “How we learn to move”. Which was a very interesting book. One of the arguments is that a skilled blacksmith was shown making a wide variety of movements when striking with a hammer. Potentially throwing an anvil in the idea that we should be teaching repetition. Furthermore, repeating exactly the same movement again and again can cause injury. No two tennis shots are every the same and so on. It’s actually an excellent read, and I would recommend it.

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I like to re-run this one about once a year, simply because it's one of Paul's favorites.

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Four years waiting, but worth it. The World Champs in Norway was fantastic. Thank you to everyone who organised the event, the location was beautiful and accommodation amazing. It was wonderful to watch all the brilliant casters in all the events. My travel to Norway was a little stressful and tiring – we were up at 4am to catch a flight, had to spend hours in security at Manchester and eventually landed in Oslo, hoping that all our luggage also arrived. We’d hired a car to drive to Gaustablikk with fellow UK casters and spent some time playing ‘tetris’ as we tried to get all the rod tubes and luggage and us in the car. As I was the smallest person, I took the middle seat crammed in between James and the luggage. A few hours later, we arrived and I was thankful to be able to stretch my back and take in the gorgeous views of the hotel and its surroundings.

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The Norwegian salmon season is coming to a close, so I’ll round things off in this blog, covering a few tips and tricks on how to fool the sometimes very difficult, late summer salmon. The river holds more salmon now. It’s usually a good mix between the now old salmon that entered the river early in the season and the late runners, which are usually the so-called grilse. Grilse are small, male atlantic salmon, still bright silver, but smaller. There are different opinions when a grilse can be called a salmon - some say over 5kg. I say three, because then I catch more salmon.

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We had our first summer typhoon last weekend which was great cause it brought some much needed rain. More interestingly though it signals the start of the summer mulberry fishing around here.

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It was wonderful to cast with the BFCC at the game fair, and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it over the 3 days. There was a steady stream of punters that wanted to have a go, and a couple of them were very good. One chap hit 32m with the club #5 outfit, which was exceptional considering the conditions, 100’ with a #5 is very uncommon. The first day was incredibly hot, and I eventually had to venture into the centre of the game fair to find some drinking water after exhausting the supply that I brought. I prepared my casting outfits a few days before the event, (new leaders, cleaning lines and applying line slick, putting grip tape on the rod handles etc) which took few hours, but it made a difference. So, what did I bring?

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Taking the shit can be a nerve racking experience. Which is of course one reason why it’s so exciting. Here when I’m guiding, very many times I see anglers not performing to their highest level at precisely the time when they need to do so. In other sports this is called “choking”, which is pretty harsh. I’d rather call it something like “over zealous”. Sorry that should be “taking the shot”, not “taking the shit” which is only nerve racking when you suspect tigers are around. Back to the story… (bloody iPhone)

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"Is there a cure among us, from this processed sanity. I weaken with each voice that sings. Now, in this world of purchase, I'm going to buy back memories.... to awaken some old qualities" ---From the Track 'Run" by Collective Soul

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James and Tracy are competing at the World Championships in Norway and will send in their report soon. I’ve had patchy Internet and so haven’t been able to follow the Championships closely – but from what I’ve seen I think Bernt has done well!! – and so I look forward to reading the full report soon. I’m driving down the lake in a squall. It always amazes me how quickly these lakes blow up from mirror calm to white caps. Basically quicker than the time it took me to write my first sentence!! And it’s something I always have to take into consideration when mooring the battleship to a stump, quite often the stumps break free. Ok… now I’m surfing the waves!

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Opportunities to fish with me here in Malaysia for the rest of this year, means that I’m available for approx one week this month and I have another free week at the beginning of September. The lake is fishing well at the moment. I’m also booking October/November/December which are three prime months. I have bookings but also available time. Please do get in touch if you are interested. All Covid travel restrictions have been lifted for the fully vaccinated coming to Malaysia.

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I got message from someone and he said that he would like to talk with me. I asked if he is around Kuusamo and answer was that he can be. I said that I'm home so yes we can talk. Next day he arrived to our farm, after driving 500 km. I would say that is long distance to come and talk with someone.

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I've always been a big fan of worm flies, both in fresh and salt water. I really like them for carp in a lot of situations, most rivers have annelids of some variety in them and I've found over the years that even in waters where the carp are largely predatory, they find it hard to pass up a worm.

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I have two retired friends completely immersed in two different volunteer organizations as leaders. Both want to make a difference, and they are. One seems to get a lot of satisfaction out of it and loves navigating the politics. Perhaps it’s because he thoroughly believes in the cause which, admittedly, is a good one. Perhaps he loves being “in the know” while making a difference. Or perhaps it provides him a sense of purpose in his retirement. I don’t know his mind, but whatever the underlying reasons, he seems to love spending up to 40 hours a week at it and is thriving.

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I really enjoyed last month and not just because it’s good to be working again but also because the company was fantastic. I started off training George and Declan from Tasmania how to find and make shots at Snakehead (we had had a Zoom session prior to their visit). They each caught a fish with me on their respective first days which certainly helped and made me feel good! And then Richard returned for an 8 day stay and he too did well on the boat with me, also catching fish on his first full day and more afterwards.

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Vicarious---living in a way that is experienced in the imagination through the actions of another person. ---Merriam Webster Disctionary

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Last weekend was a busy time for us running casting competitions at the Ragley Game Fair, plus lots of drinking and socialising. I’m sure the rest of the Game Fair was good too, though James and I didn’t really get the chance to have a look around it. We concentrated on our little spot next to the lake where we had pontoons to cast off and a grassy area to run an accuracy competition. We camped right next to this area, which was perfect as we could cast all day and secure all the gear easily each night. We had all the typical British weather, glorious blazing hot sunshine with little breeze, to strong winds in to our right shoulders (making casting difficult), to heavy downpours.

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I find it important to match tackle properly. There’s nothing brilliant about that - everybody does and has since forever. None the less, I’m going to share some thoughts, knowing that there are priorities than trump others and I know from my fishing friends that there are many different opinions. Finally, there are some aesthetic choices that with some fly fishers even trumps other choices and priorities. I’ve never gone quite that far. These thoughts are entirely my own and in absolutely no way dogma - there are plenty of others with other ideas just as valid, quite possibly even more valid.

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You take it on your hand. Thumb is on upper side, it feels kind of soft. You squeeze harder, no that is too hard and it doesn't feel so good anymore. So you take firm and gentle grip around it. Yes, that feels soooo good now.

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I'm no longer trapped in my leper colony of one and have been back at the river. Luckily I've been working from home so it's been possible to spend the afternoons stalking carp on the river near my home and catch up on work once the light goes

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In the furtherance of the sport of fly casting, can we agree to disagree? A prime example of stalemate and polarization is the U.S. Congress. Extremists on the far reaches of both parties fail to admit the faults of their own ideals and fail to recognize the potential benefits of the other’s. The result? Nothing gets done.

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I’m just out from filming the final episode of the TV series, this last one being filmed in Sungai Tiang for Copper Mahseer. Despite some rain discolouring the water the first day, we managed some good fishing and hopefully an excellent TV episode! It’s always fun fishing for Tengas with the Orang Asli guides and I had a couple on the Bow and Arrow Cast.

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The secret to catching a Tarpon on a fly is to get the the fly into the fishes area of awareness without him knowing how it got there. And, when he sees it, it has to be leaving. ---Rob Fordyce

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