Focusing in on this small and sometimes, a mere trickle of a stream, that runs into our brook at the very top of our beats. I guess it’s effectively, from the perspective of our Trout, probably the furthest available water upstream for them, unless I attempt an Uber intervention with a bucket and taxis service. For my fishy friends this is it, before a looming impassable dam wall curtails their instinctive drive towards the river’s source.
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I’ve narrowly avoided two head-on collisions this year. Both on account of other people’s incredible stupidity. The first was two cars overtaking on a blind hill a couple of months ago and the second was a car overtaking around a blind bend last week. In both cases cars suddenly appeared immediately in front of me requiring evasive action. If it wasn’t for my super-human fly fishing reaction speeds, I’m quite sure both situations would have been hugely catastrophic. But even so, in both cases, it wasn’t a “that was close” moment but instead “brace for impending impact”. Both times I expected full contact. How it was avoided I do not know. In a parallel universe somewhere everyone is dead.
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When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to have a good-sized pond with fish in it in the front yard. Furthermore, I had two grand fathers that loved to go fishing, and the pond was as good a place as any. The pond had channel catfish, largemouth bass, and bluegill stocked in it upon creation. We would regularly feed the catfish with pellets, and it had become so regular that at one point dad could pet certain ones on the head. I can’t quite remember how old I was when fishing at the pond became a favorite activity. I do know that around 5 or 6 I had a spinning rod and reel that was my primary weapon of choice.
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I returned to my practice after a couple of weeks hiatus while recklessly sampling life in NYC and found myself addressing a persistent irritant - a good looking loop formation with a falling (fallen) fly-leg that at the end of the cast rises upward, rolling over weakly. It seems a little different from the tails derived from a concave tip path in that it doesn’t tie knots, so I call it a ‘lazy tail.’ Typically it goes away when I wait a little longer to begin my forward stroke but not always. I considered filming it but first just opened up my stance so I could watch the backcast. I’m not sure why I hadn’t seen this before but I believe that I have never really grooved my backcast. It has been weak even when applying significant effort.
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I might have caught the seatrout of the season this past week. A big one—for this area.
We have a couple of different seatrout populations in Sweden, and I think it’s a combination of genetics, food availability, and salinity depending on where they live. In the area I fish, I’ve heard that the local population tends to grow a bit faster during their first year than other populations—but they don’t grow as big in the long run. We also have higher salinity in the ocean here, while other parts of the Swedish coast are more brackish. It takes energy for the fish to maintain their salt balance, which can make it harder for them to grow really large. But it can also help you find them—they’ll seek out areas with lower salinity and temperatures that help them conserve energy.
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Hot topic on social media during past week, what fish can smell. There has been few discussion and posts about it. We all know that fish has amazing ability to scent. Salmon and trout can find their home-rivers with scent. That's mind blowing thought, you come from sea and there are several rivers close by... and they find right one.
Discussions were pretty much that when you wade your smell will spook the fish. I don't buy that like that. Yes when you start wading for sure there is different scent going on river. Yet mammals will do the same. Is it scent what will spook fish or something else?
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I've been back out at the barbel this week and it has continued to be good. We're coming up to a week of public holidays that usually marks a break in my fishing and a switch to float tubing. This year I might stick with the barbel a bit longer.
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The last few weeks have been pretty hectic. Just before we flew out to the Bahamas, we entered the UK Fly Casting Championships in Haverigg, Cumbria. As expected, it was a very windy experience, though the mornings were often calmer and we did get some sunshine. The weather turned out to be very helpful as I managed to break the women's ST27 record. I also extended my accuracy record slightly, though I am hoping for slightly calmer conditions on future trips so I can get this record nearer to my British (BFCC) record.
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There have been a few Sexyloops FPs discussing scent over the years and a couple in the past week. For me of course, scenting flies is absolutely not fly fishing. I want fish to eat my flies because they look fantastic, which they do, not because they smell of fish oil. Otherwise we could just tie a tampax to the hook, dip it in pilchard oil and away we go. Of course flies do smell, especially if tied with socks, but does that make a difference?
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In some ways it is difficult for me to just write stories about myself. At some level or another I just get the feeling that I’m self aggrandizing. I’m learning to get over that feeling. One story that really sticks out in my mind is my dad’s favorite story to tell people about my fly fishing ability. This story also tickles my hubris, which makes it a fun one to write about.
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I’m on my way back from NY to LA and am trying to beat the FP publishing deadline on the plane. I’ve got a couple of birthdays to celebrate tomorrow. My bestie, Mauyel, is turning three tomorrow. I think I’ll have to take her down to the river to practice casting next week. She’s ready. Also my tuxedo cat, Binx, will be 17. I'm eagerly anticipating my local fishing over the next three weeks. I’m high on hopium. Maybe the algae will have browned out in the river. Maybe the carp will be thinking about getting fat rather than banging all day. Maybe the grunion will have brought stripers and halibut close to the beach. Maybe.
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Sometime during the beginning of covid-19 I got into some back problems. After sitting down I became an old man. When I stod up I could not stand up straight. I had to walk around a bit with my back bent and slowly working up to standing fully straight. It didn’t happen for any apparent reason. I would guess that it had something to do with suddenly working from home and the change of daily activity it caused and that I went from sitting in a reasonable chair during the day to sitting on a cheap kitchen table chair. The chair felt comfortable thought but it is still a suspect in the problem. I also lost a couple of thousands of steps each day also. I did walk to and from work and that added a number of steps that I think I lost during that time.
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I saw interesting post on Monday. It was about scent, how fish will smell as and so on. I didn't agree at all with original post and have to say that shortly is bull shit... on other hand... I did some notes from my experience and planned to do FP about it.
Well it has to wait one more week as it is Thursday as Paul kindly reminded. My plan was write FP few days ago and then life happened. Basically I was hoping to do FP day or two ago, but my days and evenings has had only one goal. It has been to get devices ready and preparing everything that we can rake reindeers back in the wild.
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This week I took John out again to get him on some maruta. As I mentioned last week I'm not that bothered about them, but they are easy to find, forgiving of a beginner's mistakes and the run creates a target rich environment.
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Some time back I read an article about a study conducted on London taxi drivers by a psychologist. The research paper, published in a respected psychology journal, had an interesting conclusion that had caught the attention of the mainstream media. The author had studied the working hours of the cabbies, the amount of trade they were doing, the weather etc. and come to the conclusion that they were, on average, working very inefficiently. Quite logically the study found that the busiest days for taxi drivers in the city of London was when the weather is lousy, people want to get across town without getting their designer clothes wet etc. By contrast, the slowest days for the drivers takings were the balmy, sunny days when people were happy to take a stroll and be seen out and about. The interesting data on working patterns showed, however, that the taxi drivers worked longer hours on the slow days than they did on the good (rainy) days. I'm sure the actual paper delved deeply into the psychological reasons why the taxi drivers choose to do this (they are mostly self-employed so choose their own hours), however the conclusion was fairly clear cut; by not chasing a certain revenue on the bad days they could cut their working hours with no loss of income. If they put the long hours in on the high turnover days instead of stopping early (probably when they've hit their self selected daily target) they could in fact take the sunny days off completely without hitting their overall bottom line.
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There is quite a waiting list on rod orders at the moment and things are a bit slow. Apologies for this. We are trying to speed things up but we never seem to be able to get ahead of ourselves. For two years now I haven’t been putting builds into the HT Owners Club. Quite frankly there is very little marketing going on. Why? Because I think the waiting list is already too long and marketing is going to make the list longer.
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There are leaps in understanding when someone travels along the fly road. At least there certainly have been for me. Maybe its when you start to really understand the nuances of leader design, emotional moments of trial and error, or just an amazing video on YouTube. Maybe it's when you finally get that one cast ironed out in the grass, and now all of your casts have improved dramatically. Maybe it's when your ideas about fishing or fish behavior get turned upside down by observing a master. Sometimes it’s observing a blue heron wading and stalking fish the way you should. Other times it can just be a very lucky fisherman that is somehow constantly hooking up right down stream, and you haven’t even gotten a denial. When this type of revelation happens for me, it is usually linked to a person. One of these people is the man that taught me to climb trees, John Conits.
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We drove up the Connecticut coast to Narragansett and took the ferry to Block Island yesterday evening and woke up to a blustery day. Jackie and I were invited by my son-in-law’s grandpa, Pete, and his novia Beth, to stay in their upside-down cape cod on the NW corner of the island. They live here year-round with the rest of the hold-over population numbering about 1000. Beth works for the Fire and Rescue Services here. Both of their families were among the original European settlers who arrived in 1661. Jackie had been here once in late summer approximately 10 years ago and stayed in the Barrington Inn which, it turns out, was originally the home that Beth grew up in. It’s a small world, everybody knows everybody else. It’s not an easy place to find work and many of the year-round residents also struggle to find housing in the summer as visitors are willing to pay premium rents. My daughter and her husband just bought a 27’ sloop and will live in it during the high season.
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There are a set of “rules” for seatrout fishing. But combining them is rarely possible—they soon become contradictions. My favourite “rule” is to use a dropper so you can more effectively figure out what the fish are eating that day. A pretty good recommendation. The problem is that another rule often gets dropped in the same sentence: if you find the fish, it doesn’t matter what you present to them—you’ll catch them. That’s true on some days. But then, why use two different flies if it supposedly doesn’t matter?
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Friday... And message from Paul. Do you have things ready. Fuck, totally forgot. This week has been with up and downs. The flu I got over week ago has been taking to bed most of the time.
Tuesday I was feeling better and hoping some casting. Weahterman decided otherwise. Heavy northwind for two days and some snowing now and then, as it was - 7 celsius... no chance for casting.
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I've pretty much recovered from my disappointing trip to Okinawa, and have been out fishing for maruta while they're around.
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And no, I’m not talking about politics. Instead I’m talking about the weather. When I first came to Malaysia the seasons were very defined; the Wet Season would run from the beginning of November through to mid January, then it would immediately turn into the dry season, as if someone had pressed a switch.
From mid Jan through to sometime in April it would not rain a single drop. The jungle would die back and turn tinder dry, there would be numerous small forest fires. The weather would get hot; 36-38C (it’s normally 30-33C) The lake temp could be as much as 34 or 35C at the surface layers. Then the Dry would break, and every third or fourth day we would have a short but violent 1 hour thunderstorm, slowly building into the Wet proper by late October.
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We have had a price increase in rods this week. This is to reflect a few things. One is that the price has always included shipping and we now use international courier. Another is that we have standardised ferrules between rods of the same model, and we can replace sections of latest builds (since May of 2024) straight away, without having the rod returned to us. It’s been quite some years since the last price increase and everyone else has been increasing their prices, including our suppliers.
We will however refund any customs fees resulting from Brexit or Trade Wars up to 20% of the rod’s value. I know that’s a concern for some of you. Me too actually! So basically the price you see is the total price you pay, rod in hand.
I’ve updated the "rods page" in the shop, to reflect this. Currently we have a new website in the wings and you’ll actually be able to order using the shopping cart again! In the meantime please email or WhatsApp me for more information or to place an order. Details are at the end of this page.
Remember every rod comes with a flycasting Zoom meet with me, where we can work on any casting questions you may have. And the first 666 purchases go into a lucky draw to win an all-expenses paid saltwater fly fishing pirate adventure trip, with me, on the Sexyloops “Sixty-Six Six” Yacht. Good luck!!
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When I first heard of Peter Hayes, I was going to be meeting with my mentor Bruce Richards in Ennis, MT for the annual fly festival there. We were excited to hang out, cast in the grass, and spend some time together at the festival. I was also taking the CI exam on the trip. Bruce had mentioned that Peter Hayes was going to be there, and I should plan to meet up with him and cast. This led to some web searching and excitement on my end. At the event Bruce was going to be doing casting demonstrations, and I was going to help him out with the casting competition that was goin to be held. I was planning to also cast with the Boss and hopefully get a chance to meet this mysterious Peter over the few days that I was around.
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Wednesday was Liberation Day. Maybe you noticed. It looks like the toothpaste has been squeezed out of the tube. The collected punditocracy across the political spectrum agrees that this is an irreversible event. Everyone from Paul Krugman to Ben Shapiro is stunned at the clownish calculation and broad reach of Trump's tariffs. They all say we can’t go back. The old order is gone. Roughly five trillion dollars of investment capital was wiped out in two days. Combine that with the unconstitutional and cruel deportations and renditions of migrants (and who knows who else - they won’t say), terrorizing people here, documented and otherwise, shrinking the labor pool. It seems like a recipe for a steep economic decline. Free speech is under assault at our universities and law firms and many quislings are knuckling under. This is bad for business and bad for the culture. But the forces for chaos may be way over their skis.
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I had the whole winter to get a lot of things going—both small things and big things. Small things like making sure I had the correct line on my reels for the opening day of seatrout season. I got totally done with that the night before, or maybe the night before that, and the last night was spent looking over the fly boxes and tying leaders. Then there were the big things, like planning competitions and get-togethers for casters, which could have been done during the winter.
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Last weekend we were in Inari, 400 km north from Kuusamo. There were reindeer race finals and our reindeer did okay, as it made it 16. place. Really slushy conditions and warm. It was nice break after winter.
Thursday before leaving to Inari on Friday we had bbq night with friends. I can tell you that was really next level bbq. We had Manu from Patagonia in charge and I can tell you those guys know how to grill. We had whole reindeer on BBQ.
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I'm back from Okinawa, and even though Tokyo is unseasonably cold, I'm glad to be back. After last weeks FP I only managed half a day's fishing. Before going on the trip I knew I was rolling the dice a bit on the weather so I can't complain too much.
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Ben from Hong Kong was the first fly fisher to visit Sungai Tiang this year. Unfortunately we had some unseasonable weather but don’t let that put you off, because it’s very rare to have rain at this time of year here. I saw many big fish on this trip, despite the conditions, and all the fish seem to have grown in size. Of course the zero kill policy with C&R FF only is going to restore the river to its best potential.
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I had a fun week last week with Ben from
Hong Kong. We had three days Snakehead fishing where Ben landed two adults. Ben also had a few shots at Gourami. After that we headed up Sungai Tiang for the Mahseer. Unfortunately we were extremely unlucky with the weather and evening thunderstorms blew out the river and it didn’t clear until late afternoon the next day and even then not fully. Consequently there was a lot more instructional time than there was successful fishing. Ben had a great time despite the conditions and plans to return.
At this time of year it shouldn’t rain at all. I’m not sure what that’s all about!
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