A week into one of our saltwater trips is the typical timing of when things start to hurt. We've been taking advantage of the much longer fishing hours available in spring, when compared to autumn, to hit the flats hard. Some days we've left the flat when there was only just enough light to find our way back to the car, leaving with the moon clearly visible in the dusk sky. Actually one day we overshot our get-out point to find the car and because of that lost the light completely, and we ended up trying to find our vehicle by torch light (luckily our walkie-talkies have lights at the bottom of them. Actually this can be a bit annoying at times because the light is programmed to flash when the handset gets wet – this can subsequently drain the battery. This is perhaps the daftest design feature on any piece of equipment I've used – imagine being in an emergency situation where you need to use the radio only to find the battery is dead because it's been pointlessly flashing because it got splashed!). Anyway, we're both suffering from sore feet.
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I’m done making the half DT interchangeable sink line I wrote about a few weeks ago. I haven’t tested it yet and it’ll probably need some tweaking. There are two parameters to be aware of and I’ll bring a little gear so I can make intermediate (as in non-permanent, not the sink rate - there is no intermediate (the sink rate) tips for the line yet). It’s really perfect weather today, but there’s a family Easter lunch, so it’ll have to wait.
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It is over month from last session with Paul. This time Satu joined also. I'm so happy about this casting practise what I have been doing this winter. I have different circumstances than most of you. I have notice anything warmer than -5c/23 is totally okay for me and gears.
Paul mentioned that if it is colder just do 5 minutes at the time. Well that I don't have to think about before next winter. Days are longer than nights now, we have daylight until 7 pm and will get one hour more when we move time on Sunday. So plenty of daylight to practise. Temperatures are also okay in the afternoon, especially if sun is shining it is easily some plus degrees.
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I’m away from the Brook this week on a bit of a hectic trip . Can’t do my usual FP for a few weeks, staying in a variety of places where my time will not be my own I’m afraid, that’s a little strange for me.
I had planned to make space to do it before I left, but of all things; a set of new car tyres for the trip sent my week into disarray.
Coming from a rural area, my local grease monkey took the car in for a service and couldn’t get the right size tyres easily. Hours of expected wait turned into days, as every bit of careful planning was shunted up a few days while my car sat in the garage. And ‘Me Time’ was nibbled into, before being completely consumed.
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I’m not convinced that going to Thailand, where they have some of the world’s deadliest roads, having never ridden a motorcycle, renting one that has been crashed numerous times, donning a swim suit, no helmet, getting stoned and driving on unfamiliar roads, with potholes, loose sand and gravel, usually without insurance, is a particularly sensible idea. But it seems to be very popular amongst European tourists!
5% of all deaths annually in Thailand, are a result of traffic accidents. One in twenty deaths, which is a staggering statistic. In the UK it’s 0.5%. Thailand is certainly not a safe place to learn to drive a moped. And it’s simply insane to do so in a swimsuit and with no helmet.
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The eyes are the jewels of the body.
---Henry David Throeau
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It's always a relief when our green case slides down the chute onto baggage reclaim carousel because it's our green case that contains all the rods (we usually travel with 6 – a #7 each, a #10 each and a spare of each weight) and our reels again 6 to match the rods and spares. The rest of the tackle is spread throughout the other cases and, although it would still be very annoying if they didn't make it to our destination, it wouldn't be as much of a disaster as the green one not turning up.
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I don’t know how many materials on the pegs in the fly tying departments are really made for fly tying. Obviously all the natural materials aren’t, but how many of the synthetics are? Probably a lot less than we think. If one takes a look around, some of the materials are clearly not and often available at much, much lower prices elsewhere. Take a look around the craft stores. Foam for instance can be had by the square mile for the same price as 5 six-by-four inch sheets in the fly shops.
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On Wednesday day and night was equally long, so now day are longer than nights and we are heading to summer. Over 2 months still to go but at least we have daylight a lot. Nights has been cold even -15c/5F, during sunny days afternoon +1c/34F.
I had some casting but to be honest.... I was way too tired after guests at farm. We had German invasion and last group was on Wednesday. Lovely people as always and lot of fun with Germans. Still enough people is enough. I have overdosed by social life, even it is not like friends talking. I have done my blaablaablaa about 200 times after beging of December, just with Germans 120 times after Christmas, best day 5 times.
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This week has been more maruta fishing in Tokyo. Hiromiki joined me on the river one of the days, the first time we've managed to fish together since Okinawa last summer so it was good to catch up and put some potential summer plans together.
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When an evening came along where the water looked even borderline fishable, I’d be down there, but they were rare in that season when I had stuck my neck out and had a point to prove.
After the maddening Max, the precious Mayfly season eluded me, just the odd one or two desolate dancing males would appear at odd times of a brief calm sunny moments throughout the year, to remind me of what I’d missed out on, ( or as I felt at the time; had been robbed from me by that fiend!). Often wondering if a passing female ever found these Mayfly chap’s, or if those girls of early summer had passed them by, and they, like me, had missed the best of the action.
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Ashly and I haven’t been to Thailand for quite some years now. In the past we used to go regularly, often car topping up the boat up and launching off the beach. She is in-between jobs, leaving Belum Rainforest Resort and moving to Marriott’s in Perhentian, where she plans to do her PHD in Business Management. So that sounds like a good excuse for a trip. Curiously vaping is illegal in Thailand, but recreational pot is legal! We are taking the bikes up, and plan to go swimming, running and biking. Where we will go exactly, I have no idea. We will see where the Snakehead Truck takes us. I fully intend to avoid other tourists!!!
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Definition of Big 'un from Wikipedia;
Noun; big 'un (plural big 'un), (informal) A large thing. Example; Blimey, that's a big 'un!
Synonyms; A whopper
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I've been busy finishing the tackle preparations for our upcoming saltwater trip this weekend. Firstly I spooled up two new Celestial fly lines that I've promised Steve (the owner) that we'd try out in a tropics environment. I was seriously let down by the Rio saltwater lines we had last time in that the coating de-bonded from the core along the entire length of the front tapers of 3 different fly lines. I think the root cause of this lies with a fundamental flaw in trying to get plastisol to adhere to a smooth nylon monofilament. I say this having spoken to a number of other flats anglers who have seen exactly the same issue with Rio saltwater lines. Now I know Rio have great customer service and would probably replace these (hugely) expensive lines if I contacted them, however I simply don't want another line made with this construction method. Celestial lines are built on braided cores, as per conventional fly lines, and the stiffness is controlled by the properties of the plastisol coating.
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Sink tip lines are hardly new on the market. I think I first became aware of them 25 years ago - or something. I used my first ones for winter grayling fishing. Today they are obviously hugely popular in many different forms. Mainly as Skagit systems or shooting heads. Skagit systems always with interchangeable tips, sometimes on shooting heads too.
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It is month from last zoom lesson with Paul. Time truly flies. I haven't been casting for one week now. I'm not really happy about that. There were multiple reasons why I had break for one week.
We have been still really busy at farm and I had some dinners to cook etc. Days are getting much longer, so I would have daylight still. It has been more like that I am really tired. Winter has been enormously tough, which is good but now I think my feets and some other muscles want to give up.
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The weather has finally starte to resemble some sort of normality here, well just about, so it was time to get out on the river for a proper bit of maruta fishing. It also meant we gcould get John out in search of his first fish on the fly.
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After a hard day of toil and trouble, I’d typically turn in to the long dirt track to take me to the serenity of those blissful waters, above the Packhorse bridge.
Get out of the car, open the gates; get back in the car; shuffle forward a few yards; get out of the car; close the gates; get back in; drive blunderingly Tortoise style the half mile of heavily pitted mud track under the trees, carefully dodging the biggest dips and disastrous, chassis scraping hollows. This steeplechase of obstacles, impediments and actions, seemed to be placed in front of me as a divine test of patience, to frustrate me from speedily reaching Nirvana in the waders, and engineered I guess, to emphasise the sweetness of that eventual moment. A narrative counterpoint.
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First up… Our lumilines have arrived in the UK. We have 65 of these. Something like 35 are now accounted for, which leaves 30. I do not know when we will have stock of these again, perhaps never. I expect to have them all sold in the next week, so if you want one or more then please email me!!!
They are ~100ft true to weight intermediate DT6s. Intermediate because they glow longer. They are fantastic intermediate lines for trout. But where they really shine (ha!), is for casting training and fun. Glow them up with a UV lamp and you will have hours/months/decades of flycasting entertainment. They hold a bright charge for about 20 minutes, then spool in and out again, under the UV lamp and continue casting.
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There is no greater fan of fly fishing than the worm.
---Patrick McManus
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Since arranging the BFCC 2024 Calendar, we have discussed running a virtual championship with Chris Baty from Australia. During previous years, James and I have often virtually entered the casting comps that Chris runs in Geelong and members of his club have virtually entered the BFCC competitions. So James and Chris have been discussing running a virtual championship between the UK and Australia. We're ready to announce and publicise it, so why not start with this Sexyloops FP.
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That’s over 1000 meters - of backing! Backing!!! For the non-metric - that over 3000 feet of backing. That’s a lot of backing. My left arm hurts and I was almost about to say that I’ll be happy if I never see another foot of backing again, but that is of course not true.
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Last Friday I got new line for HT6. It was ordered from Slovakia by my German friend, delivered to Germany and then brought to Kuusamo. Some things are just more work than others. I was searching that line from Finland but it was out of stock everywhere or not available at all.
I had SA DT 6 line earlier. Last time I trained in horse hall I forgot wires and planks before roof, so I hit wire and line got damaged. It is DT so I could just turn it. Anyway Paul recommended to have SA mastery distance expert for future, so I ordered one.
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It's been a mixed bag on the fishing front here. Hawaiian Dave and I had a late final seabass session on the bay and I've had a mooch around the rivers with some good and some not so good results.
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I don’t remember that season opening, something delayed me from the first day, cold; wind; wet ;or high water. I can’t remember, but it delayed me from the Brook for a week or two, as plain old work and paying the bills also got in the way. Then I heard through the bush telegraph, club gossip ,that the secretary and a few people had got down to the water and had been catching, the season was up and running for them. After a winter of habitat work, preparation and fly tying for this crucial year, I’d missed the starting gun and was still in the blocks.
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It was great to see Tim again. Only a four day trip, but it was long enough for us to explore some of the more remote parts of the lake and consume a couple of crates of cold beer! I have to say, not many shots. Typically we have been getting 3-4 babies/parents shots per day, as well as seeing the occasional Giant Gourami. There is also free-rising activity just beginning. I was also taking some shots too, which was very nice of Tim — and of course is really one of the very best ways to learn.
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Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.
---Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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I have just arranged the BFCC Calendar for 2024, albeit there's a potential for a few more activities. We start the year with an event at our local venue in Dodleston in Cheshire, which has proven excellent for distance casting records; generally there's a good breeze as the ground is quite open. It's on the Wales-England border so is pretty close to where we live and it means we can organise fishing on the Welsh Dee for the instructors and others around the day of the meeting.
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Catch and release is becoming more and more common, in some places mandatory. Strangely enough in a few countries illegal, which to me makes no sense. I seem to lose an awful lot of fish in those places - right before landing them. But this is not an against or for catch and release. Whether or not you practice catch and release regularly, bring home a fish for the table, good practice when handling and releasing fish is imperative. You might catch a protected species or one under the size limit.
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This week weather has been great for practising, well windy but temperatures has been around 0/32. And I haven't been able to cast as much as would like. I have found some weird joy about casting, kind of madness to do it in the middle winter and snow.
Busy week it has been, as Yoda would say, and Germans. I'm quite sure that George Lucas visited Germany before inviting Yoda and how he talks, that's a different story anyway. My understanding about German start to be surprisingly good as long it concerns reindeer or fishing, not that I could speak but understanding some.
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