Daily Cast Archive

YOU DON'T PAY ME TO ADVERTISE ---Mike "M.E." Montgomery

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One of the issues I have mentioned before on here , is our upper beats, particularly the Meadows and the Village, we have this catch 22 situation going on. No one visits because allegedly it’s just too hard to negotiate the over grown jungle encroaching over the paths. And the stream is hard to wade for long lengths, so much of the fishing has to be done, and the fish landed, over weedy, and overgrown banksides. To be clear about this, its overgrown with grasses and the odd rose bay willow herb, not an impenetrable jungle of woody stems and strangler vines. If its in dire need of anything, its more likely to be a lawn mower than a machete! Those paths are hard to navigate because they are not visited enough by anglers pushing this ‘jungle’ back, the grasses pressed down or worn away by their frequent foot fall. How it used to be years ago playing hunt the stockfish. With no one regularly entering and leaving the banks to wade, it means no one knows where this can be achieved. And by summer, it’s a long arduous push to move forward through the gentle tangle, the water surface obscured and hidden from view and so, less evidence of rising fish to be seen..

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There’s a saying about which flies to bring for tropical salt water fishing. A Clouser Minnow, a Lefty’s Deceiver and I can’t remember the third. I have a notion that fishing traditional streamers for trout is dwindling, just as the subtle art of the down stream, classic wet fly. I like fishing streamers and when I go off on trout fishing, whether it’s on lakes or in running water, I have some streamers with me.

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Monday morning, my watch wakes me at 7.20 and phone finishes waking at 7.25. I'm not morning person and if I haven't got cup of coffee on front of me, please do not speak. I check temperature and it shows - 4 celsius (24F). It is time start prepare lunch package for guests.   It will be last guiding day for this season for sure. It was originally planned to on Tuesday. Forecast was that Monday morning will be cold and some sun during the day, it should warm to 7 celsius (45F). It will start to rain in the evening and would rain during the night and possibility for some showers during Tuesday, temperatures would be warmer on Tuesday as around 10 celsius (50F). With this information I asked if we would go on Monday, as I knew it will be much better for fishing.

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As mentioned last week, I thought I'd make this one about the shapes of bass bugs. I This is all my opinion, and your mileage may vary. The first thing to say is that it might not matter. You could probably have any shaped bug tied to your leader a lot of the time and if you put it in the right place, it'll get eaten. Probably. But at the same time, I think matching bugs to conditions is a good idea and will probably convert more of the fish that refuse to eat than just fishing same shape all the time. Probably.

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The next BFCC casting day will be a one off shoot-out for the championship trophy, currently held by Bart de Zwaan from the Netherlands. Normally the BFCC championship is contested over the course of the whole year, with the casters top two results in each of the seven casting disciplines counting. As such, with every day attended, casters had the chance to improve their score. Unfortunately, due to the weather, the BFCC hasn't been able to to host a full calendar this year, plus one of the competitions we did have was very poorly attended. As such, if the normal scoring system was adhered to, then I would be in an unassailable position in the championship standings irrespective of the Bentley, Essex result. Therefore, to keep things interesting, whoever wins the last event will also be awarded the championship.

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When I get ill I get ill. I think it’s because for 20 years I never got ill. Going summer to summer, you never get ill. So when it happens nowadays it flattens me. Total PITA because I had planned to go to visit the rod factory in Spain today, catch up with Pablo and Alejandro and meet Juan. But I’m not even recovered now, I fly back to Malaysia this Friday. Knocking myself out even further is probably not a good idea at all, not for me or anyone around me. I have an Ironman in two weeks time and now have an illness as well as jet lag to bounce back from. Plan now is a trip back to UK and Spain in January, because I really need to help organise a few things, particularly if we want to go to 500, 1000 and then 2000 HT rods annually. Which is of course the incredibly cunning plan, m’lud.

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“Go, shorty, it's your birthday." — 50 Cent

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As the fishing season gradually winds down, that habitat work beckons and pesters with more urgency. And, as any changes to the Brook or the club itself often involves planning and preparing for how to slip them through the AGM as smoothly as possible, urgency is now needed. I have learnt over the years to just discuss them with enough people who you know will be on board, iron out any issues that come up, and get the plan fully explained and ready. Then by the AGM you already have enough people savy to it, so if objections arise, as they inevitably do, I am not the lone voice defending it and we are less likely to have to put up with compromise solutions.(or we would have been a fully wild water many years earlier) 

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The Seven “Ps” is a saying I first head from a former German Fallschirm Jäger (one of Germany’s special forces units), which is just typical army-lingo for being prepared. Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. In fly fishing that equates to having the casting down, the gear in order, the flies you’ll need and enough overtime at work to take a few days off. And forget the leaders either.

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Last weekend we had insane rain. It started Friday evening and went thru the whole weekend. During those two days we had about 70 mm rain. Sunday I was herding reindeers with dogs and quad, got totally wet and rest of the day, just warming fireplaces at home.

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This week, since I'm back in Japan with access to a vice, I've been playing around with different bass bugs, both at the bench and on the water. I've also been re-reading Mr. Tapply's excellent book on the subject.

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I had another very tough competition at the recent BFCC event in Jersey. I don't feel that I've cast particularly well in any of the casting competitions I've entered this year. I don't know if this is down to the weather I've been casting in or if it's just simply the case that I'm not casting that well. My practice seems to be going ok, and I'm still seeing plenty of 40m casts with a #5 line on the right day, albeit with my usual failing of not necessarily hitting such distances within the first few casts. At the BFCC event I typically make 7 or 8 casts in my allotted 3 minutes and I rarely get any warm up time due to helping to run things on the day, so hitting my best form after 10 minutes or so isn't much use as far as results go.

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Last week I was listening to a podcast on swimming that I subscribe to, where the coach was saying that just going out and swimming laps will not make you a better swimmer and you need to mix up the speeds and ideally work on drills. Swimming is a very technical sport and reminds me a lot of flycasting, although in flycasting we have many more strokes and intended outcomes.

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History was never one of my strong subjects when I was in school. Come to think of it, I don't know that I ever really had a strong subject in school. Over the last 25 years though, I have developed a keen interest in the history of the Texas Gulf Coast. And, my recent love affair with the Matagorda Bay complex has proven to be every bit as rich from a historical standpoint as many of the other historic coastal towns I have studied.

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This week we had a visit to our stream by Rob Mungovan from the Wild Trout Trust, it was dropped on me with a day’s notice, which when you’re an arty farty self-employed type, it is both easy to deal with and it means other members that you feel duty bound to invite, are going to be unavailable. So I didn’t bother telling anyone, and concentrated on the issues in hand and  not the meandering diatribes from unreliable witnesses to past events. That sounds a bit harsh , I know. But some people do feel duty bound on these occasions to go on and on, making the visit about them, and not the future of the stream.

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I think a washing line in itself is a contradiction in terms, since its function is to dry wet clothes. Where as a fly fishing washing line is in fact more to the point. The idea behind this technique is to fish sunken flies, but to keep them in say the top 6 inches of water. It’s a very interesting technique that I haven’t fished much. Unfortunately we don’t have many places here in DK, where it makes sense to fish the washing line, which is essentially a still water technique for trout.

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Last Friday I went to give flyfishing introduction in local school. They have so called nature class, in which they learn some outdoor activities and skills you need when doing outdoor life. After two hour lesson I jumped to check our racing reindeer as I was informed that he could have some issues.

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I’m back in Japan and struggling with jet-lag while being back at work. I’m planning to catch up with Chuck, Miki and Hawaiian Dave to find out about the Okinawa trip I wasn’t on, and reflecting on the fishing I got done when I was back.

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The last week has been a busy time for James and I as we travelled to Jersey for our BFCC casting meeting with the hope of the opportunity to break some records and get some fishing done too. However the weather has not been kind and on the day of the casting meeting it was predicted to have thundery showers and light winds. The latter did happen resulting in very difficult conditions for the competitions yet good for the tuition; whereas thankfully the rain, thunder and lightning held off until the evening.

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While here in the UK I’ve discovered that we still have a few lumilines that I kept back in reserve. These are 100’ DT Intermediate glow in the dark flylines for night time casting demos, practise, lumiline fights, campfires and just having a lot of fun. They are damned good intermediate fishing lines as well, super slick and originally made for us by Rio. They cost 100USD each including shipping. Once gone they are gone! I don’t plan to take these back to Malaysia with me, and don’t expect to! So drop me a line on paul@sexyloops.com to order yours!

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Last Sunday, Jack and I spent the evening fishing a local spot in Point Comfort, TX, well known for it's local population of large Black Drum. This spot, showed to me by Jeff Ruppert, better know for his YouTube moniker "Slappin Yatchet" is interesting, because it is only about 50 feet from a very well traveled major highway. On the way down to Point Comfort on SUnday afternoon, I sent Jeff a text message indicating we were headed to the causeway beach, to which he replied "are you kidding me, we are too". It turned out t be a great evening with good fellowship, and a few of the local "BIG UGLIES"

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Coming up the bank of the Brook one night on the edge of the long grass and the well-worn sandy foot path I stopped. A creature was ambling towards me. By the size I’m guessing was a young teenage Badger, no longer having to play just outside the set with its siblings, freshly finding its freedom to roam. Its head held high as it bumbled towards where I planned to join the footpath. Not wanting to get in its way..after all it was on the footpath first, I politely waited for it to pass. I’m damn sure it could see me and my smell must have reached its nose, But it carried on and passed a few feet away, its chin up, a spring in its step,and what seemed to be a really satisfied smile on its face; a ‘cat that got the cream’ moment. It caught my eye and simply moved on by, unfazed by my presence, caught up in its own joy. I recognized that feeling it seemed to be going through; “Everything is just dandy and ain’t nothing going to change my world” 

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Since I made the custom interchangeable sink tip line some months ago, which by the way has been performing well since a few adjustments, I’ve had some different lengths of T-line lying around. We went out for mackerel and sea bass a few days ago and when fishing in my float tube on the Danish west coast, I usually fish very fast sinking lines.

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We are saying that all the great ideas born in sauna. That's means that all stupid ideas born there, sitting with friends and talking. My "great" ideas born normally when driving a car. I like driving, especially alone, music loud and just let thoughts run. Then I catch thought and turn that as "great" idea.

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After being in Scotland for the wettest August since records began, early September has actually been quite nice to me. I found some old books while rummaging in my dad's cupboards and picked another few up in second hand bookshops. But more importantly, we've had cool, but stable weather and only a little rain. So Davie and I went out on the loch we grew up fishing. It's not a huge water at a couple of miles long and maybe 3/4 wide, but plenty big enough for a long day's lure or fly fishing.

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Flying back from Malaysia was a long trip this time. And I am in Zombie Land. Tracy and James are away today so it’s another exciting FP from me that I’ll upload before crashing — just in case I sleep in tomorrow! Although I do plan a 20km run and a one hour swim, some flycasting and no doubt other excitement. In Rome airport I was watching a video from my mate Morsie on leaders failing to straighten. I thought it was excellent and I enjoyed it very much. All the details were in there, I would have just reversed the order.

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By the time this FP is live I’ll be back in the UK at short notice. So for everyone who I’m coaching via Zoom, I’ll be on UK time for the next 3 weeks! I think that works out better for almost everyone. Graeme in NZ might be the only challenge to arrange, but I’m sure we will find a way! I’m not going to have very much free time however; I have some family duties, Zoom coaching and an Ironman coming up, back in Malaysia in 5 weeks time. But I do plan for some casting and in particular I have 7 MED5s I want to thoroughly measure and test in the field. I think that will be very interesting. I’ve brought the tape measure, the vernier callipers and the drug dealer scales. I’ve also brought the HT6, HT10 and HT12 along for the ride.

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Years ago I used to enjoy watching extreme sports....surfing, BMX, skateboarding, you name it I watched it. I can vividly recall an interview done with BMX rider Chad Kagy, when he was on one of Tony Hawk's mega extreme sports tours. There was a group of athletes in the back of the tour bus playing action sports oriented video games, while Chad sat up in the front of the bus by himself. When asked why it was that he wasn't in the back playing with the rest of the group he replied " BECUASE I RIDE THE BILE FOR REAL"

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Insects buzzed and clicked in the late summer haze, the sound lapped around me like the waters, sometimes blended and confused with the songbirds ducking and diving in the nearby undergrowth, wittering and chirruping too. As the stream side community nattered its way through a sunny hot afternoon and I waded my way upstream. Not expecting too much from the day, apart from peace, quiet, and respite from that life shared with humans and their ridiculously demanding customs and rules. The kind of day when a blank session is meaningless and irrelevant. Happier just to be part of the streams tale, controlled by the laws of nature only, and with just the chattering of birdsong for company. (and maybe the brief meeting with a Trout or maybe not; who cares?! )

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