I’ve been enjoying my Zoom coaching sessions. I have many this week and we are certainly in busy times. That 7am slot (my time) is definitely a favourite. I’m not sure how many more students I can handle. Not very many more that’s for sure. Really enjoyable however and lots of variety with so many students in long term coaching plans. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I’ve reached my student limit. I’ve been thinking about that coming-soon problem for some time now.
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Many of you know that I have had a long standing love affair with the Austin series of fly tapers, formerly manufactured by AllStar Composites. Unfortunately, those tapers were taken off the market when AllStar was purchased by Shakespeare back in 2007. During the 6 years I was an AllStar distributor, I made several very good friends at that factory, one of whom was Sharon Johnson. Just about more than anyone, SHaron Johnsn was responsible for many of the opportunities that came my way during those years.
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Last weekend we travelled home from the Bahamas after having a brilliant fishing trip catching lots of bones, significantly more than we caught during our autumn trip last year. We've been recovering most of the week as after 30 days of wading, our feet were pretty sore, however Saturday (yesterday) we decided to start our casting preparations as the first BFCC event is only 2 weeks away. We also wanted to try the new Celestial Comet-X #5 line and it casts beautifully although I would like to try it in windier conditions.
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At some point most fly fishers will end up owning several fly rod. Some need to have - some nice to have. If you’re exclusively fishing for trout, a 5-wt is all you’d ever need, but if you spend more than a handful of days on a stream, at some point you’ll have the need (or create it) for another rod. Maybe a lighter rod for dries, maybe a heavier one for streamers and sinking lines. And I won’t mention lines again, because that can explode.
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When writing this one we are over Poland, heading our first leg to Istanbul. It has been an insane week and as usual some extra things before leaving from home.
Monday we had last group for this winter season. Ice fishing, we had same group two years ago I think. Great people and good fishermen and women. Last time they were with us I told only thing they need is golden mormyska.
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It's been a quiet week on the fishing front for me, I got out for an afternoon at the local carp after work the other day. Unfortunately, except for that it's been raining and keeping the rivers a bit too full and dirty for sight fishing. The lack of fishing gave me a chance to top up the carp box, which I've really let go in recent months.
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I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here, dear reader, when I say that many nights my parents would go down the pub on holiday and leave us kids to our own resources. This statement wanders into terrible wilfully neglectful parenting territory. Far from it, my parents were not drinkers in normal life beyond the occasional modest half at the weekend. I’d never witnessed them even remotely ‘merry’, and they cared deeply for us!
On our yearly holidays in the Lake District, they would just love to find a pub though with a fine view across a valley or a lake and order 1 pint of bitter and a half of shandy, and sit on them patiently sipping for an hour and often much more, to savour the view; rather than just gain lubrication, and certainly not for any form of inebriation. It was a means to an end, a fine view, a welcome seat, and crucially at last; some peace and quiet from the back seat warzone of four brats, well three brats, and my sweet suffering sister.
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It was 28 years ago to the month that I took my first fly fishing (not just fly casting) instructor exam. It was the Salmon and Trout Association National Instructor Certificate (Trout). There I met Ally Gowans who was doing his at the same time too. I seem to remember us being the only two that passed that weekend, but I might be wrong in that.
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“Footwork is one of the primary prerequisites to becoming a great player.”
--- Mike Krzyzewski
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I’ve been reading a very interesting book that shows the same person’s writing but written with dominant hand, dominant hand with wrist immobilised, non dominant hand, pen gripped with the teeth (Jimi Hendrix) and the pen gripped between the toes…
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That was the question from Paul many, many years ago. I don’t think I replied with anything but an empty stare. “You need it to take the shine off a fresh leader and to make it sink on the first cast!” I then remembered reading about applying “mud” to your leader and I honestly thought it was something done in a pinch - with actual mud from the river bank. I had always thought with small particles of quarts and many other types of rack that it would harm a thin leader. Which I’m sure it will.
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Last weekend was absolutely amazing, great ice fishing for guests and it was really tight competion. It was not about amount but weight, basically it was one fish competion between two gentleman. Some good food and drinks were involved and they booked next year also.
Monday we have one more ice fishing group coming which will be nice day also. This week we have been doing office work and a lot. We have some building projects coming this summer and there are lot paperworks around that. At the same time we make preparations for our trip to Malaysia and getting reindeer back to the wild.
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Things have settled down a bit here and although the bass are all bedding up, the carp spawn seems to be well finished. The spring post-spawn is some of my favourite fishing, once the fish have had a bit of recovery time the urge to regain condition coupled with the warmer weather really makes the carp switch on and start feeding with gusto.
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The Willow Brook fly fishing club, now had a common goal at last, a flow, an accepted momentum, the cogs of it turned in sync and rarely did anyone need to wind up the spring to revive its impetus. A mechanism coordinated with the seasons of the Brook and specifically on the year of those Wild Trout of the stream. Also the toil of the farmers year was accounted, and even the birds in the trees, had their influence on these schedules of the club’s work, its functioning and timing. At the merest whiff of coming autumn, when the fishing season’s end crept into view as the signs appearing inscribed in the worlds around the waters portended. First those verdant boughs of foliage above the Brook looking now tired and shabby, dusty and done; the berries and fruits then ripen and bejewel, and those glorious summer blooms transformed now into browned, crinkled, rattling seed heads, the stalks amongst the soft, long waving grasses along the banksides and the paths. The day lengths shortening and that sun on your face now a gentle welcoming warmth again to be relished and savoured, no longer that fierce squint and sweat inducing zeal of just a few months previous; and our thoughts wander away from pursuit and the preparations begin.
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One of the things I’ve been experimenting with over the past years is ordering the sequence of lessons differently in my long term courses. And I haven’t got a definitive answer if one sequence is better than another. I think that’s partly because if it does make a difference, then it’s not the same for everyone, and possibly that it actually doesn’t matter in the end.
One thing I have been surprised about, is that we hardly ever go forwards one step at a time, but often have to keep making the same or similar step many times. It takes a lot longer to learn fly casting proficiency than I had in the past believed, when I was giving single lessons. This also applies to advanced casters too of course; long term stroke changes often take many months of training. When it doesn’t, and changes appear rapidly, then I’m suspect that the changes aren’t permanent. Fast gains are often fast forgotten!
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Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium.
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Today as I write (Saturday) is the first time Tracy and I have arrived back at our accommodation in daylight for quite some time, as we've been hitting the flats hard often doing 8 hours of wading plus the travelling time. Today was a case of 'bad light stopped play' though. When we set out it was pretty much flat calm, sunny and humid, we had quite a walk to get to our chosen fishing area and a bit of wind is always good to try and stay cool. As it was, we were pretty hot by the time we arrived, I was struggling to keep the sweat out of my eyes and was desperately trying to keep my glasses pristine (usually on days like this I have a 'walking' pair of specs and then change to a fishing pair). However, the prospect of catching finning and tailing bones that were unable to hide their positions due to the glassy surface of the flat made the uncomfortable walk worthwhile. It wasn't too long before we were both seeing fish and had a couple of hook ups, however the weather then changed almost like someone had flicked a switch. In a matter of no more than a minute, the wind went from zero to gale force and stayed there. Strong winds are to be expected in tropical climes, but I don't think I've experienced a change quite like the one today. Our thoughts of spotting fish from miles away disappeared with the appearance of waves and foam. To make matters worse, not long after we also lost the light with the sun being obscured by a thick blanket of cloud that seemed to be in for the day. Tracy and I pottered about for a bit, sat down for a drink and a ginger nut biscuit and checked out an adjacent channel for cudas etc. With little visible chance of an impending improvement in conditions we decided to head back on the long walk to our car. I did jokingly suggest that we'd be removing our wading boots in glorious sunshine and sure enough we were, however it only lasted less than an hour before going cloudy again.
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On the subject of…
Spooling lines - especially backing. Which takes approximately forever. There’s a lot of it and a few weeks ago I actually pulled myself together and took the backing of all my salmon reels. The point was to once and for all know how much there is on each reel. All good and done - after over 1 kilometre of backing.
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Last weekend we had some nice sunny days. I cleaned snow from solar panels finally. We have two group for ice fishing Friday and Saturday. There was lot of preparation to do.
Monday I picked up two big sleigh so we can take group to our lake and back easily with snowmobiles. It was snowing some and weather started to turn warm.
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It's been very busy here and I've not been fishing this week. Luckily it's more or less spawning time for the carp and smallies so I'm not missing much. With what free time I have had, I've been decompressing at the vice.
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There seems to be two ways that our members tackle the Brook, a polarisation has set in. I’m not saying that there are ‘only’ two ways for people to fish it, but for a club of sheep, these seemed to be the ways that it’s developed. ( that sounds cold and dismissive in retrospect , it’s just a recognition of how individuals adapt and react into groups and gatherings, a bleating status quo if you like). And now as we have been encouraging members to fish wild, making half of the stream more popular, it seems ultimately, to have led to the unintentional demise of the other half of the Brook.
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I find it incredibly disconcerting that I get deep fake “Quantum AI” adverts featuring Elon Musk in my Facebook news feed. Surely FB has to take responsibility for this. Instead they are making money from scammers, who are scamming money out of FB users. Just imagine if we did that on Sexyloops. I mean, really??? They allow scammers to advertise deep fake adverts? Unreal. For me that’s as bad as the scammers, maybe even worse, because Facebook lends it credibility. You have to be responsible for who you allow to advertise on your business. And when it’s obviously a scam (and you have to Google around to check, although the same scams can be on Google too) then don’t allow it. Surely it’s easier for them to check than us, and they must know. Apparently however, they have no morals whatsoever, to allow and profit from this thievery. So it needs to be legislated to make them entirely responsible for scamming adverts and also fine the buggers. Absolutely disgraceful. Profits above integrity.
Anyway I won’t post this directly on FB because they’ll probably just block me and then you won’t be able to read it.
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Remember the "to do lists" but don't forget the "to be lists"
---Richard Branson
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I am sitting on a beach relaxing as I write this, as we've been fishing every day for the last 2 weeks and we both needed a break from wading. It's also a very cloudy day so sight fishing would be difficult. We've struggled to find bones for the last few days even at flats that are usually high in numbers, catching only one or two between us. We're wondering if this is as a result of the low coefficient tides or perhaps the large numbers of fly fishers on the island over the Easter weekend. It's possible that these flats have been fished so extensively that the bones have gone to hide somewhere though we're not sure where.
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Easter was relaxing break for us. Well we did few casting sessions and spent lot of time to explore and planning our coming holiday. Flights are finally booked and most of "plans" have been made.
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Recently I keep seeing an awful lot of untested crap masquerading as flies getting promoted, shared or otherwise published online. Some people at least have the decency to say it's experimental, but others don't.
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With the simple task set out; to desperately catch as a club, as many Trout as possible by fair means in one season. Despite for the first time in 50 years, putting no additional stocked fish in, and with those unforgiving river Gods still livid apparently, and punishing us with rain, wind, and high waters for the introduction to our once unsullied and lovely banksides, that devil incarnate, the lying ‘stockie’ basher that was the foul and despicable Max. The target; at least as many Trout as last year and hopefully more.
For what fishing I could salvage, I was staying out to the last available light, desperate for every possible last fish I could squeeze out of its banks. Had I left for home, when the other fishermen packed up after what they called the evening rise, I’d have never witnessed these events.
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This month marks exactly two years ago that my dear friend John "Bubba" Tebbetts passed away. Instead of writing a piece about all the interesting and important things this man did in his life, I thought I'd share a story that will hopefully reflect what a fun guy he was to be around.
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After many years in dynamic testing, Sexyloops is excited to announce a new concept in fly rod ring placement. As the most experienced casters will already know, at the extreme outliers of flycasting sport, it’s common to find flycasters twisting the top three sections of four piece fly rods, out by 60 degrees to eliminate fly line friction against the blank.
Aligned such, the flyline runs along the fly rod rings only, instead of along the complete rod surface. In scientific tests we have found both a noticeable reduction in friction, as well as a significant increase in distance cast.
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