Daily Cast Archive

I join my partner to a lot of her dog training sessions. Their training is for agility sport. My role here is just being there to help set the course up. Recording the training for analysis. Taking care of the dog between their sessions in competitions. I enjoy this and my interest in dog training is in the everyday stuff, like behaving well and such. And party tricks, that I think is fun training.

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Well, It is still January. January is easily the longest month of year. Shortest are August and July, May is the third one.  That might sound a weird statement as all of them have 31 days. Every day has 24 hours and every hour 60 minutes and so on. Still it is fact.

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This week I thought another old saltwater pattern was in order and I've chosen a deadly one that sometimes doesn't get the love it deserves: The bendback.  Perhaps it's more of a style than a specific pattern, but the advantages of the style - and the problems some have with them - are fairly universal across all the different bendbacks.

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In this FP I'm going to get straight to the point immediately: I believe it's time that competitive fly casters ditch the ICSF and set up an alternative to the World Championships under another banner. I wasn't a big fan of the original decision for fly casting to join the ICSF at the competition in Estonia. Incidentally there was zero talk before the vote, or certainly none that I heard, about whether this was the right direction to go in, so no discussion about the pros and cons amongst the casters gathered, before it was put to a show of hands at the team manager's meeting.

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I had a wonderful week with Marcel from Deutschland. Marcel is a really top bloke and one of my long term fly casting “students”. Marcel first got in touch with me earlier last year and sent a video of his distance casting, and I thought “this chap could be truly tremendous with some coaching”. And it’s true, he can and will be world-class.

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The fly fishing expo season is in full swing. Simultaneously, someone up in Northern Manitoba decided to fire up the MEGA air conditioning unit and blasted us with the frigid fan for the last week. The wind chill had the northern states down into negative double-digit temperatures for a few days. I had the joy of attending a fly fishing show here in Wisconsin over the weekend. I arrived at the show around 7 am, and as I got out of my car the phone said that with the wind chill it felt like -39 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Luckily, I didn’t have to walk far, and I wasn’t carrying much with me. Interesting fun fact about -39 degree feels like temperatures, to me they don’t feel much different than 9 degree feels like temperatures. I’m not exactly sure at what temperature it is, but once things go beyond, “Wow that refreshing,” and into icicle nose hairs, and “My GOD man I need to run to the door,” you enter the Indoor Time. The Indoor Time doesn’t usually last too long up here. We usually get a few weeks of these sorts of temperatures during the winter months.

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Finally, feet on the ground in LA. It was touch and go getting my “Fit to Fly” certification from docs in Cambodia. In the end I enlisted an old friend and her daughter, both excellent physicians, and they, with the open and collegial cooperation of a Cambodian internist, went over all the data and decided the likely problem was due to mechanical trauma resulting in a burst Baker’s cyst. So much for any radical interventions or delays returning home. During the 15 hour leg from Singapore to LA, I performed my stupid little dance movements hourly in a narrow walkway between the two banks of restrooms mid-plane. I landed in fine fettle with almost a bounce in my step, feet relatively slender and beautiful. No clots. Customs was a breeze. Global Entry gets more efficient every time I travel. Almost no holdup at all taking 2 or 3 minutes, tops, waiting in line. Easy peasy - then home.

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In fly casting we stop fly rods. We are not getting away from that, even with a stopless technique. The rod has to stop sometime and we seldom let the ground stop the rod. I’m not a huge fan of the “hard stop”, I think it causes more problems and confusion in most of the cases. The good stuff happens before the hard stop. I have also found another reason why the hard stop is bad and that I have been a bit wrong in a previous FP and missed something important in the FPs about elbow pain.

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I was too tired to write FP on Thursday evening. It has been super busy days and I thought that I write it like normally on Friday morning. I woke up on message that some our staff are sick and on that moment my focus was planning how we do our day at farm. I didn't remember the FP until afternoon as Paul started to ask about it. And on that point I was on close Russian border moving reindeer. I thought I will use speak to text from Keep note, as I'm driving back whixh would save almost 2 hours from writing FP.

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For this week's fly, I thought I'd look at an amazing saltwater classic that is versatile in itself and has spawned many variations; Lefty's Deceiver.

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I've been doing some line testing in the last week for the Lake Distance event that will be cast at my first competition of the year in Guadalajara, Spain. I talked about the rules to this event in a previous front page, luckily one of the organisers of the competition reads Sexyloops and contacted me to say I had them wrong – the minimum line length is 24m not 22m as I wrote. I'm glad I was contacted as there was a very real possibility of me turning up with a 22m shooting head and getting disqualified.

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I’m working hard to sell Belum Fly Fishing to the highest bidder, so that I can live on a yacht and become a pirate. Hopefully I can make this happen before WW3. I need to work fast. So if you’d like to retire into the jungle, possibly with the visa MM2H – Malaysia my second home (hint hint), then please get in touch. I would do it myself, but I’ve already done it! I’ll support your marketing via Sexyloops. This week I have a guest here from Germany; Marcel. No fish in the boat yet but the shots are good. So it should be just a matter of time.

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The weather has finally forced me inside. I did get a few days of good practice outside over the last week, but the weather again is taking a turn toward miserably cold. I’m confident that real men like Mathias would be outside working on max carry on a day like today, but I get cold. Not practicing is not an option for me at the moment. Working on dialing in your cast can be a time-consuming process, and if I want to be competitive in Italy, then I have no time to waste to iron things out. Unfortunately, I don’t live on a houseboat in the jungle, and I don’t have castable weather conditions for about three months out of the year. Where do you go, what do you do, with distance is there anywhere that you can really cast indoors, how much does it cost to cast in the Superdome, If you can figure out a place to cast inside, then is it even valuable for your competition cast?

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Laos is the only place I’ve visited where the yellow hammer and sickle dropped out on a red flag is widely and prominently displayed, often close to rag-tag commercial establishments. Laos is one of only five  one-party CP nations, the others being China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. It clearly has a hybrid economy. The internet is uncensored and the kids are fashion savvy. KPop influence is everywhere. I understand other aspects of life are in transition. 

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As I was preparing for my CI examination Paul was talking about how assessors love teaching gadgets. And wondered what I had for gadgets. Or that I should come up with something clever. Easy to be clever on demand, thank you Paul! I had a piece of pink string that I used for making targets. Not very inventive or original. The upside with this is that it can be used for showing the line while taking the focus away from the tackle for a bit. And it can be nifty to show how hauling really works. He mentioned all of the nice things he had seen before. People folding coffee filters to represent casting arcs and things. So what did I have to offer? The little teaching I had been doing had not been using gadgets and was more rod focused.  But in the end I came up with something.

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Little bit slower week behind at farm. Weather started to change slowly and Thursday and Friday we have only - 10 celsius, yet it always comes with downsides. When weather gets warmer, wind comes harder and normally with snowing. Well that's winter.   Days are getting longer slowly, not that you could really notice the difference when you are here. Last week when we had - 30 celsius outside, temperature in house dropped close to +15 celsius. Luckily we have 3 fireplaces and heating two of those daily we went slowly up and now it's 21 celsius inside.

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This week's fly is the balanced leech, a clever and interesting design that I've really come to like even though I only have limited opportunity to make use of it.

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Few seemed interested in my dits about Los Roques. I guess that with 2 more days to go before my encounter with the pirates, nobody wants to hear the rest. As a change of scene, I recently stumbled across a broadcast from Tim Minchin to graduates at the University of Western Australia in 2013 that I found to be both amusing and inspiring, in that you could apply it to life in general but I decided to spin it across to the fly fishing world.

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The lake level is seven, maybe even eight meters below where expected for this time of year and the Wet Season appears well and truly over. This could lead to some very low water levels later this year. In fact it’s low now. We shall see how that works out. There are Snakehead with babies and Snakehead still spawning however, so that’s good. It also means Sungai Tiang is gin clear. So one option for Feb would be 3-4 days on the lake and 3-4 days on the river. Come March and April I’m looking to mostly base myself up the river to promote Sungai Tiang and give it broad exposure. So if you fancy Mahseer fishing in the Malaysian jungle then get over here as quickly as you can! Email me!!

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I did it… I started a “gofundme” to help fundraise some of the expenses to go to the fly casting World Championships in Italy this August. The entire endeavor of competition fly casting is a humbling experience in many ways. Anyone that has spent much time trying to throw a 5wt fly line 100 feet understands all of the ways that your flaws can show up in a loop not traveling far. If you stand in the grass long enough, and you want to throw the MED as good as anyone, then you will need to overcome a certain about of shame. (maybe like me you struggle with it all the time) Let us not forget accuracy. You must take that same MED and false cast as straight as possible with your chosen loop and figure out, while false casting, how far you need to cast that tiny little fly so that it will land in that hoop right there, and then that one, and then that one, consistently. Now, I fancy myself as a pretty darn straight caster… until you make me perform 100 false casts in a round of accuracy. I would be ecstatic if 85% of my false cast loops did exactly what I wanted them to do, but heaven forbid a delivery cast get out of sync. That would be completely unacceptable. Maybe if I make myself a cat of nine tails out of busted leaders, flies, and rods, and I flog myself repeatedly every time I don’t make straight false casts, I might more clearly focus on my tracking concerns. (somehow, I have figured out how to threaten myself)

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I just spent nine delightful days fishing for snakehead with Paul. The first three he guided, getting me some great shots. Then we struck off separately and each fished on our own for the balance. The lake is low - Paul calls it the “Wet Season That Never Happened” - and babies were not nearly as plentiful as they were when I fished a little over a year ago. My numbers sucked. We don’t have to do stats here. Let’s not. Here’s my report card: 1. Snakehead shot is pretty good. Given a good opportunity they mostly went in.  2. Casting overall has become more efficient.  3. Baby sighting improved vastly over the last week.  4. Boat handling skills improving, and I feel ready but unproven - I was able to create few quality shot opportunities.  5. Fitness required to fish hard is still there. 

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I started to prepare for my trip about one and a half months out. Just when the days had become as short as they get. No sunlight before 9:00 and dark before 16:00. Often a lot of wind, and always cold. And rain. So limited time to train and not so favourable conditions. So I would say that Paul is right when he says that you must start three to four months out. And use the correct gear. I trained with a MED7 and a somewhat correct leader. It would’ve been better to practice with the line I was going to fish with, or at least as similar as possible. And get some good materials for the leader. I would suggest to practice with the leader greased up as Paul suggests, with axel grease. You will use that a lot in the jungle. You want a leader that floats as high as possible.

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This week has been going with same routine, and it's start to be boring. It is kind of nice as week has been little slower as Spanish are gone, which is awesome as weather is something that they couldn't handle so well.   People don't know how to wear clothes and that's it. They will have overalls which will easily keep you okay till - 30 celsius if you wear them right.  People just have to look slim and nice and here we go, you all can't just be as handsome as I am killing it. Sorry folks.

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This week's fly is the shuttlecock, another dry/emerger that's as at home on rivers as it is on still waters. It's by no means new, but it's less of an angler catcher than a lot of newer patterns.

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Tracy and I have our first casting competition of the year in our sights – the CNL open event in Guadalajara, Spain on the 28th of February. We attended this last year and really enjoyed the Spanish hospitality, especially trying the local delicacy – pig's ears. These are delicious, but I suspect not great for your cholesterol levels. Along with trout accuracy, trout distance and ST27 (all to world championship rules), this event has a unique event with local rules – distancia de lago, or lake distance.

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This Wet Season has been particularly non-wet. The lake came up 2 metres in late November but is still 8 metres down and hasn’t risen since then; in fact it’s dropped again slightly. Snakehead have spawned but not yet in the anticipated numbers. Travelling the lake is still challenging with the low water levels and ever-present stumps. It hasn’t rained now for well over a week and it currently doesn’t look like it ever will again! I bet Sungai Tiang is gin clear right now…

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I let the creative nerd out again this week. It’s relatively easy to do with an average temperature of 20 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. If you go ahead and add in the +20 mph winds, then you might start to feel the warmth of my cabin fever. So, what type of adventure did we take with Alice this week you might ask. In simple terms, I spent the time to make up some hookless, fly cast-able, teaser rigs. The bait ball that this one makes has six swimming minnows behind one top water popping distress fish. The swimming minnows are 2-inch Bruiser Blend dubbing minnows tied on a 7mm tail shanks. The distressed fish is just marabou and a foam popper, but I used a shank so that I could tie the rest of the teaser rig off to the popper in the back. Pictures available upon request.

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Snakehead babies. I’m not very good at this. Yesterday Paul found more than ten sets. Paul fished and I went out in the Ronan fishing on my own. (BTW a shout out to Rickard's girlfriend - I wore the new life jacket she ordered - made Jackie happy as well). I saw two sets and also managed to wrap my leader around the thruster prop (trolling motor) requiring skilled intervention.  This morning I spotted two more and even got a legitimate shot putting my fly nicely on the fish’s tail. This will sort itself out over the next few days. It’s step two in the underpants gnome* sequence -  step 1) find babies; step 3) catch fish. I feel confident, but about what?

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After three slow mornings this morning is different. Paul is up before me. He is getting ready to move the boat. I think we are moving before I’m up from the hammock. It is a good feeling to finally see Paul somewhat alive again. He doesn’t look completely well, but he is up and strong enough to drive the boat. He mentions that his vision is a bit off. Apparently not uncommon when you have been in such a state that he has been the last days. We get moving but is soon hindered. There is some problem with the fuel supply to the engine. I don’t think we figured out what was the problem but some blowing in the fuel hose got us going again.

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Happy freaking new year, new year same shit. Only things which are different is numbers in calender. There are also some other things which are different, yet those only you know.   It has been great to read Rickard's adventure in Malaysia, not the part that Paul was sick and he had to worry about Paul. Last FP he wrote about where he was fishing etc. My map file from brain computer opened and I could see where he has been.   Well not excatly as I don't know where Battleship was stationed, yet I had some thoughts where he could been fishing. Fishing in Malaysia is hard and rewarding in it's best.  And it's fun until it is not.

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Happy New Year everyone. Sorry we're a bit late today, the festivities have had an impact. As my first fish of 2026 will likely be a carp, I'll make the first fly a carp fly too. And it's one of the best: Jay Zinmmerman's Backstabber.

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