Crazy week behind. Last week I had to ask Paul to cover as some urgent reindeer things came up. I was hoping that would be end of stress and poor nights.
How wrong you can be? Saturday I drove reindeer hides to factory so they will process hides and we get them for sale next winter. I noticed that trailer's tyre was not totally full at some point. And at same time car’s engine had malfunctioning. As I had 80 km to Rovaniemi and filling possibility before that, I took the risk.
I had to drove slower as engine didn't give full power but was running otherwise normally, I knew I could be something to fix when just to shut down and restart, yet I didn't want to have risk that it won't start again.
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Pauls FP about using PE braid as tippet sparked a couple of memories in my mind this week. ONe just a one off experience and one of a deadly method I no longer see anywhere.
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Tracy and I have our first fly casting competition of the year this weekend in Guadalajara, Spain. The events being cast are trout accuracy, trout distance and ST27 all to the ICSF rules, plus a local organisers event called 'lake' distance. The rules for this are quite open – rods lengths up to 11 feet with any line so long as it's at least 27m long and no more than a AFFTA #9. I quite like events like this because, hopefully, there will be a number of different approaches taken by those entering.
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The majority of my Zoom casting coaching athletes/students are based in North America. The time difference between Malaysia and North America is 12-16 hrs depending on location. As a consequence of this I have two different working slots depending on time of year.
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Many years ago when I first started fly fishing for Giant Gourami I had enormous problems landing them. This was very frustrating because they are very difficult to fool in the first place. I’ve written about it before and for the first year of targeting them I hooked ten only to lose them all to stumps. Prior to this I had hooked four and landed one (in open water, and a relatively small one).
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It’s my last night of my bonefishing vacay. I’m in Nassau and catching a plane back to Los Angeles in the morning. My lodging, meals, local travel to Acklins Island, and fishing services were arranged by Getaway Tours based in Denmark. A shout out to them and Bane’s Top Choice Bonefish Lodge. They provided a great learning experience. I was the only American in our group. The seven other fishers and the tour leader were from northern Europe. There were five from Denmark, and one each from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. They were capable fishers all and delightful gentlemen. My concern about their reaction to an American in the age of Trump, proved unfounded. We’re all fishing on muddy flats and losing our balance. It stinks.
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I saw a post on Facebook about five reasons why you should learn to cast 90 feet. It was posted with tongue-in-cheek, and the source also seems to be in the same tone. It was posted in the big group about fly casting and becoming better at fly casting. Still some of the usual suspects showed up. The crowd that for some reason loudly must declare that they don’t need to cast far because all their fish is caught within some arbitrary short range. I suspect that all these people would be called Joe Schmuck by Mel Krieger.
But let’s move on to something more fun—let’s take a look at the five reasons..
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I wrote a very damning FP yesterday on some of the recent world developments but I think it’s better to try to escape that nonsense. Even if we are potentially looking down the barrel of a gun from the wrong end.
I’m covering for Mika today, who is chasing reindeers. I head to the UK March 2-14. I will take some Sexyloops hats with me. I haven’t put these in the shop yet because sending them from the jungle is quite challenging. But sending from the UK may be less so. Mind you, the last time I sent lumilines I created a queue that went out into the street. So maybe I’ll ask Ashly to post them.
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Just a quick one from me this week. As surprise visit from my cousin meant no fishing and a sustained campaign against liver health.
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I like to think that I could pick up pretty much any single handed fly outfit and produce nice loops within a cast or two. The outfits I routinely use for fishing and casting tournaments range from a soft #3, that I use for dry fly fishing on rivers, through to the monstrous T38 outfit that I wouldn't dream about fishing with, but I have cast over 200ft (60+m) many times in practice. I should say that I have actually fished with a T38 line – I used it in a very deep 'blue hole' to try and get down to some goliath grouper that I was told might be lurking (this was unfortunately unsuccessful). I've also cast 'broomsticks' i.e. non-bending rods, in fact I distinctly remember when I was first handed one by Mark Surtees – I asked him “what line should I put on it” to which he replied “it doesn't matter, it's not going to bend with any of them”. Anyway with this non-bending rod it's possible to produce gorgeous chisel-shaped loops with the straightest rod-leg that you'll ever see. In contrast to this I've cast a 'Vince special', a rod so soft and slow that I suspect it's still counter-flexing now after the abuse meted out to it one particular weekend. So it's fair to say that my single handed skills are robust enough to cope with pretty much anything, the same cannot be said for my double handed Spey casting.
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There was a good question recently about casting in windy conditions in saltwater. It’s a good question because it accounts for about 2/3rds of my casting students. It would be over 90% if it wasn’t for the competition casters and instructors that are also a large base for me. So it’s a really important student intake. And I don’t think that is surprising, because most people can get to around 70’ without coaching. They can learn to (sort of) double haul through videos. A serviceable/ish roll cast and a few presentation casts. But when it comes to taking a 70’ shot into a headwind that’s when they need coaching.
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There is an interesting discussion on The Board about strip striking for Imaginary Saltwater Fish vs “trout setting” for, well, trout. The reason for this, that I quite often hear, is that trout have “soft mouths” and therefore you should lift the rod to set the hook, whereas imaginary sea monsters have hard toothy bony mouths and lifting the rod strikes with reduced force, so for these fish one needs to set with the line hand generating a straight forceful pull.
I don’t know what you think about this line of reasoning, but I question it.
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David is fishing in the Bahamas this week; I’m looking forward to his fishing report next week! I now have three videos to edit, I’m not quite sure when I’m going to make or have the time to do this. I will try to get one done this week.
Next week I’ve managed to position my Zoom fly casting lessons after dark. Why, you ask? The evening fishing right now is excellent and I can usually find a few fish and get in a few shots. Full days spent fishing would be nice but I just don’t have the time at the moment. As long as I can get a daily 3 or 4 hour fishing window slot then I can stay fairly normal and I won’t be frothing at the mouth.
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Going for maximum distance isn’t practice—that’s testing!
Practice should be practice. Reduce the line length and practice with control.
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We are doomed, we are doomed. I think is phrase from movie or something like that. It does tell everything about how world is running nowadays. Idiocy is apparently a virtue instead of smartness.
Well I don't know what is smartness, yet I know that it is not making same thing again and again and hoping that things changes. Unfortunately some are better to repeating those mistakes than do things differently
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I went out looking for Smallmouth this week. It wasn't good. Conditions weren't great. The river I chose was low and crystal clear, and I was fishing post front in high sun. I should have known better.
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So then, mindful of the growing risks from urban sprawl and the upstream developments; and of Anglian Water’s shambolic potential for catastrophe. I am constantly noodling with cunning plans for making life a little less uncertain in the long term for our spotted friends in the Brook, my mind of late have been especially focused upstream, to the very tops of the very, very, top beat. Wandering upstream to this, there a few patches of gravel around but nothing obvious for any Trout in the few kilometres of mooching up those waters above the sewage works. Something which always eats at me as being decidedly wrong. (both the presence of a sewage works and the lack of gravel, one we need to keep an attentive eye on, the other’s well within our gift to improve, with a bit of grunt, goodwill and creativity).
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I enjoyed watching the rugby this weekend. Even if the BBC took an extraordinary amount of time to make the download of the one-sided Scotland Ireland match available. France should have beaten England of course but it was nice to see an England win finally. Hopefully the momentum continues because it would be great for the sport to have strong northern hemisphere rugby. France and Ireland are of course world class. And I would love to see a Northern Hemisphere side win the World Cup again. It would be great for the game. For that to happen we really need these Six Nations contests to be furiously contested.
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Twenty two months is the amount of time I have remaining in Malaysia. Knowing this has made me appreciate the jungle fishing more. It sounds like a lot of time but in reality it’s not really very much. It’s just one more Wet Season.
The next plan is to sail and fly fish my way around the world and to live aboard for as long as I can. 20 years is the plan. I’ll have to stay pretty fit for this of course and the longer I can remain fit, the longer I can sail and fly fish the salt.
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Rob Gray, in his book “Learning to Optimize Movement” writes how gifted athletes differ from the duffers in many respects, clearly, and consistently, in the direction of their gaze. By intuition, training, experimentation, whatever, the skilled performer is looking at the right thing. He writes:
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Herring is a fish that is generally treated very poorly. It is trawled for in massive scale just to be ground up as fish meal. The meal is then used for feeding fish farms, pig farms and chicken farms. A bit wasteful, especially when the herring is fished so hard that the herring is pushed back so hard that its number declines so much that it has a big impact on other parts of the ecosystem.
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Horror week start to be behind. Tractor came from repair last Friday evening and it was helpful as we got some snowing again. Also reindeer feeding is easier when you have tractor to spread silage.
Saturday I had feeling in my tooth which got worst during Sunday. Painkillers was needed. Monday I had to call dentists as feeling was there and not really help from painkillers.
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It's been absolutely freezing here this week, but we've also had a decent bit of rain too which has got the river in decent shape for the coming weekend. It's also getting to time for the crayfish to start waking up and the early season smallmouth fishing.
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Follow up to Rickard excellent article on elbow injuries….great advice after the event.
I am compelled to write as I am concerned about the injuries that can be caused by poor casting technique, trying too hard, and misapplication of power. Fly fishing is an expensive sport, and so the demographic is mainly older folk who can afford it, but are not at the elite casting level. In our fly casting schools, we ask for several overhead casts, with and without hauling. Usually nice tight forward loops and wide, non energised back loops. Further, the line hand moves in unison with the rod hand…there is no haul…the line hand is going along for the ride. So poor back cast and little or no haul. Many are trout fishermen however and these casts get the job done.
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week I bought an oven online. It runs on the small gas canisters that I already use for cooking on the boat. This is an exciting development in the Battleship beans and potatoes department. And also means I can prepare my annual lasagne, fresh bread and pizza. How times have changed!
Tomorow I’ll be buying oven pans. It is really very exciting. And I’m looking forward to feasts.
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“So long, and thanks for all the fish!”
– Douglas Adams
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I was at the beach Wednesday looking for surf perch or halibut. There was also a possibility of striped bass near the outlet of Ballona creek. I was fishing a checkerboard while walking north and fished a no-name weighted blue and white streamer - sort of a clouser with synthetic bushy wing - on the way back south. A couple of bops on my head reminded me of a video from a couple of years ago by Gunnar Brammer. Gunner is a Canadian streamer fly tier and designer who I think currently lives in Minnesota. While I don’t buy everything he recommends, he’s obviously a knowledgeable and skilled fisher adept at casting big heavy flies. He advocates years of practice (I can get behind that) because, he says, “Alls you want to do is fish for musky because everything else is pointless.”
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Since the last time I wrote about pain in the elbow area I have learned some new things that have helped me progress in the recovery. On the post Paul made on Facebook to share the FP David Thompson commented and shared what he has used to recover from fly casting elbow. That was some good stuff and I have been using it since I read about it and made really good progress with my pain. It has made the recovery progress better than with my own strategies.
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