Our crazy weather patterns have been continuing since last week. In the 7 days since I wrote my last FP we've had 3 twenty degree temperature swings! Not only that, the forecast for my day off had changed pretty drastically from Thursday to Sunday. Given the previous week's fishing, I decided to stay home and make sure I had my flies ready for the maruta run. As much as I would have liked to get out, I'm glad I put the time aside for tying, as I saw the first reports of the runs yesterday. A bit further south and west, so they might be turning up here by the end of the week.
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The open day of the season passed without fanfare, by the end of the first week fishing was written off for the foreseeable. The rains that seemed to slide in and settle in March, now seemed content to slum it and stick around for April. Occasionally, some optimistic soul would stop by the little bridge to stare down but catch sight of a cold cappuccino running high between two slices of muddy bankside, its smooth surface being broken by giant plinks of droplets, tumbling off the leafs from the developing canopy high above, leaving little circles of ripples to travel down under the bridge out of view. The very idea of a patch of blue in the endless mirky sky, felt like faded memory of a once wonderful dream, just pure fantasy.
By the end of April a few days respite was actually granted by the rain gods, and mischievous rumors of some golden vision called sunshine were being touted around, the Grannom hatch was passed unnoticed , but the water levels, like the color, were dropping out of the brook and hopes were rising for the fishermen. Then the rains returned and settled in. Evidently now it was raining all over the world and would never stop, and so I started hatching a plan.
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I’ve been slowly upgrading my Malaysian truck, with the plan to car-top the Rocket C to Thailand (as we used to do back in the day, with Squeaker), as well as to explore off-road tracks around Malaysia, looking for Mahseer. The owner of Red Springs 4x4 had an interesting idea of offering off-road fly fishing trips. True, he was trying to sell me a roof-top tend at the time as well as a 2 inch vehicle lift with bigger tyres… but it’s an interesting idea!!
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Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, exhilarate the spirit, and restore the tone of languid nature.
-William Cowper
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The photo of the day is actually a screen grab of the river Dee height gauge for the last week. Personally, I'd only consider wading in this river when the gauge reads 0.75m or below, and even at that level certain crossing points are out and there's treacherous areas pretty much on all beats (actually I should say more treacherous – the Dee has some challenging wading even when it's at its summer low). So you can see that once again Tracy and I haven't been fishing in the last week as at no point did it drop below my 'worth risking it' threshold. The weather hasn't even been that great for casting either, although I did have a fairly lengthy practice session today.
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It’s late February already, we’ve had some really nice days with low winds, 7-8 degrees C and a very spring-like feel to them. And things are heating fast, literally as well and figuratively speaking. As usual I’m late for the best winter fishing in the salt. My “home waters”, still a good hour’s drive away, have been delivering big, overwintering sea trout almost daily these last few weeks. And soon salmon season opens in Denmark. With that, also brown trout and grayling fishing. And pike fishing. And soon the rag worms are hatching in the salt, sometimes providing frenzy fishing for a week or so.
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As you have might read we have had pretty cold winter so far. I had change to use local horse hall for casting few times, but it has problem which I didn't really think about until last Sunday.
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Spring seems to be arriving here, which has meant the weather has been all over the place. Sunny, cloudy, rain, sleet, temps ranging from High teens and even low twenties Celcius dropping to around freezing the next day. It's made for some challenging fishing and disappointments.
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Across a muddy field, hundreds of yards from where any public could see it, and completely obscured from even the most adventurous bird watcher’s binoculars; with the only buildings in view, some tall concrete block and corrugated zinc storage units of a large working farm far off on a hill. Was this strip of concrete track that straddled the Brook and at its centre was that Bugger of a Bridge. Not even the shooting parties of Autumn, visiting the pheasant clucking coppice, or the red jacketed horsemen and packs of baying hounds in winter would notice it as they snuffled past, recessed down in the channel as it was. Just the passing farmer on his tractor or his wife walking the dogs; and the occasional fishermen who made it this far upstream by turning the final bend in the Groynes beat, glimpsed it eventually, after hearing its growing roar as they waded upstream to this last fishable pool. If ever a project called out for simplicity, just pure form and function it was this, there was little need to over-egg this particular pudding.
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As many of you will know my Sexyloops master craftsman rod builder has been Lee; a bearded pirate, living in Hastings. It was never a full-time job for Lee, and he actually has a full time job! A few days ago he informed me that he just doesn’t have the time to build anymore and I fully understand this. Life is partly about what we do for a living — but it’s also very much about how we live when we are not working. We all need free time. I certainly appear to have this work/life/fishing balance thing… well anyway…
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"Those who say there are no stupid questions have never worked in technical support"
---Unknown
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Well another week of high, milky-coffee coloured rivers has meant that Tracy and I didn't get out fishing yet again. Desperation is starting to set in so this weekend we booked another trip to the Bahamas for some saltwater fishing. At least we're guaranteed to get out fishing there, although the weather (as per our trip in November) can be a bit wild at times. Actually we have a friend who is out there right now and he's said, and I quote, “it's windy as f***”. Now Tracy and I always travel with the assumption that it's going to be blowing a gale, and we train our casting for combating the wind before we go. As such, the distance practice that has not long started is going to make way for accuracy training on our windy days with a particular emphasis on backhand shots and drilled tight loops, both front and back.
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Fly fishing is I suppose a strange pastime, hobby or - for some - a life style. With so many different approaches, species to fish for and more or less people doing it there are plenty of areas where disagreements might come to dominate the bonfire after a day’s fishing. When is a grilse no longer a grilse, but a salmon? Some say a salmon is over 5kg. Can you use shooting heads for trout fishing? Does the fly matter? Which insect were the trout feeding on earlier today? Is nymph fishing even fly fishing? And then of course - that thing we do not mention to preserve peace. Read on at your own peril. Arbitrary opinions may occur.
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Sunday we had day off. After feeding reindeers I did casting practise, 15 minutes and hands were freezing cold and line as cable. It was -18 celsius with breeze.
I went warm up and did another training with videos. Temp was just dropping. I was pretty happy even both of the sessions were short like 15 minutes. You just can't do longer ones without breaking gears or getting frozen.
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The cold has persisted here in Japan, and there were public holidays while I was off so I didn't go fishing, I never do. An odd missed Monday is a small price to pay for the angler-free rivers I usually get thanks to my nonstandard weekend. So I had a bit of time at the vice and dug the crampons out and knocked off another couple of mountains.
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An excerpt from “The Confessional of a Dry Fly Expert” by Prof.Smedley ‘Rolly’ Wallop:-
My eager anticipation is such that the first train of the morning delivers me early to this beautiful valley. I look upon the pristine waters from a distance and decide the best option is disturb nothing and wait. I smoke my pipe and write my journal for a fruitful hour when the first few Iron Blue duns lift of the water and I reason that the morning hatch is upon me! Wasting no time I tie on a Wallops Iron Blue, always a particularly killing pattern of mine, now made murderous with the body improved with a wrap of hair taken from near the Scrotum of a Gallway/Angus Bull and ribbed with the gold thread from a button of a Grenadier Guardsman.
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Well I still haven’t solved my popper hooking woes with Giant Snakehead. It’s a tough time just now on the lake. Afternoons are windy as hell, which makes boat positioning hard work, especially on your own! But more concerning to me is that the last three Snakehead eats have all spat the hook.
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Back in August of 2020, I wrote a piece about a Florida Keys fishing guide turned skiff builder named Harry Spear. Over the course of numerous conversations spanning close to 3 years, I've come to realize that Harry and I have a lot in common that go far beyond our love of fishing.
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Sunday is my recovery day. About a year ago I discovered a very long Zwift ride. For those who don’t know, Zwift is an indoor bike training platform. You can race, you can do workouts on your own, and the part that I really enjoy, is group workouts. In group rides you are “banded” together, with the trainer resistance being set by the training workout program relative to your FTP. Your FTP is what you can hold all-out for an hour. (That’s the short story).
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The Scottish salmon rivers are famous for many things, most notably maybe the Spey for the Spey cast. The Spey cast was also called the Welsh cast and I think that name may even precede the name associated with the cast today. They’re both D-loop casts and know from before 1850. There were a number of different casts known by the time of the late 19th century, where - through numerous publicatins - the techniques and intricacies of salmon fishing became known to a wider audience.
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Last week it was warmer, heavy wind and snowing. Satu did her training in the morning before coming to farm and I did mine before going home. It was kind of chilly because of the wind but otherwise it was okay.
We had plan that this week on Sunday we would have next session with Yoda. I haven't locked that in because we haven't been able to practise this week and forecast for Sunday doesn't look good. We have day off, which is weird.
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Tokyo was hit with a cold snap and an unusual amount of snow this week, and out where I live it was worse. So instead of going down the river and trying to sight fish in a blizzard, I arranged to meet Canadian John and Hawaiian Dave for some drinks and food in Hooters, but the real reason was that Dave and I had got John a fly rod set for some kind of late Christmas/early birthday gift.
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Smedley Wallop, dreaming of the day ahead, blissfully overslept and missed the first train.
This is not meant as a cocky summation of his existence on this “blasted” planet, just a simple statement of fact. However this example of his drive and determination summed up his entire wasted life perfectly.
The other thing that summed him up, was the hatred of anything new.
Not like a new unopened bottle of Hennesy Cognac, or a fresh new cotton drill night shirt with a soft turned collar and buttoned neck just as he liked them. They reminded him of nanny who undressed him nightly until he was 19 years of age, with her thrillingly cold hands..
No it was new boots and Pyjamas and hat style things he couldn’t abide, and these damn epicene women who try to talk about politcs. Them and Split Cane fishing rods, but he was finally coming around to the latter.
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I’m upgrading the Board software today so that I can upgrade the PHP version running Sexyloops. The current Sexyloops Content Management System (CMS) is coming to the end of its useful life, and so I plan a new Sexyloops CMS as well as a new Sexyloops look. This is going to be quite expensive because I’ll need some professional help, so if you are thinking of buying a Sexyloops fly rod or two then now is a very good time!!
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"IT'S ALL RICK HARTMAN'S FAULT"
---Andy Dear
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This week there have been a number of news articles about pollution from roads entering our rivers and water courses. I hadn't previously realised that this pollution was ranked the third most damaging source after agriculture and sewage. The articles predominantly covered England and in particular mentioned the a river near to where we used to live, the River Lambourn, a chalk stream, in Berkshire. The Lambourn's crystal clear water winds through Welford Park, before passing underneath the M4 motorway and at that point it can be clearly seen that the river bed is coated with a brown and murky 'gunk'. Local campaigners have taken samples of this and found high levels of pollutants.
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Salmon fishing is odd - fishing for a fish that has stopped eating, once it enters the rivers where they are among the most coveted species to catch. Kings and queens of the rivers, some say. Personally I don’t find a salmon more attractive to catch than a brown trout, a grayling, a sea trout or a pike. Or maybe I do - at the moment at least, because most of my fishing (certainly the limited amount of travelling for fishing I do) seems to revolve around salmon.
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Sunday we had first zoom lesson from Yoda. We have permission ro use horse hall now and then, basically once a week mostly Saturday or Sunday.
Satu had first her lesson and then I had mine. You could say some basics to both us. It was good reminder and some great tips from Paul. No wonder that feedback about his zoom lessons are overhelming. My issue is that most of the things are saved in my computer, some call them brains. The thing is that it is not on muscles yet.
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With Hawaiian Dave arriving back from Thailand last week after the great seabass session I had with Raslan, I was under pressure to go out in the bay again. Surprisingly when he messaged me on Sunday, there was still a slot available for Monday night. So, despite the good forecast I scrapped my carping plans and we arranged to meet at the dock.
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