At home and when we are out on adventures we usually have some kind of first aid kit so we can care for small mishaps that can happen. Some bandaids and wound washing gets you a long way here. We don’t have to run to the emergency room for every little nick and have a decent feeling when we need to seek treatment or not. The same thing can be true for some small aches and tweaks that can happen to our muscles but that doesn’t seem to be so common. Doing a bit of self massage can go a long way to make you feel and move better.
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So they finally made right decision and sent us to Asylum. So now I have language problem, as asylum is kind of safehouse, yet if I understood right from cartoons and movies...Asylum is place where you put worst of worst, most insane and mentally ill people.
As asylum seems to have also softer tone as safehouse or something like that, at least if you check google.
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A little break from the fly of the week today, and a bit of a fishing update. Which is welcome because I was struggling to choose a fly for some reason!
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James and Tracy are away this week. I’m writing this while heading down the lake to the Battleship. It’s quite exciting because there is a high possibility that I will run out of fuel before I get there! There might be some paddling.
I have a Malay lesson tonight and a casting coaching session. I’ve immersed myself into trying to learn this language. I’ve never been very good at languages, so this is a real test.
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20 years ago, while driving across Texas, I met up with Andy Dear for the first time. We had already known each other for some years and Andy had shared his fascinating rod maker interviews which I republished on Sexyloops. I was on the way to meet Wild Bill Gammel and so Andy and I met up for a cast on the side of an interstate highway. This was not that unusual for me, since the US has some very long drives, that often take multiple days. And the best way to stay nimble is to regularly pull over and work on your fly casting. But this was my first time having company! If I remember rightly we cast distance and worked on the double haul. But it was much more about actually meeting each other in person.
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I suppose this entire display would be easier if I just looked to the other end of the couch and told my wife these things face to face rather than pretend, she is my editor, write this to the other reader out there in the world, (Mom, I had fun) and give it to Paul to share online (Looper 4 life). But hey I get a kick out of it, and I hope you did too...
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I was standing on line with my new posse of 8 anglers, waiting to check into our flight to Acklins and observing that I’m older and at least a head shorter than all of these Europeans. All looking athletic and fit. I’m hoping I don’t slow anyone down on this trip. They’re all serious fishers and outdoorsmen. I think I’ve got mostly doctors and lawyers this time. Last year it was teachers and retired cops. Very congenial lot even so. In line I’m hearing discussions in Dutch, German and English about articulated flies for sea trout, winter fishing for pike, tiger fish in Africa, all things accessible from Europe and rarely considered for stateside anglers. It turns out that my roommate for this trip will be a cardiologist from Romania. I think that’s a good thing.
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This weekend I’m away skiing. I’m not a skiing nut but it is okay. And I think I’m an okay skier also. One painful thing is that many of the locations where you go skiing in Sweden is located near good or great fishing locations. From the cabin we are staying now I can see a river. Not the best river but it holds some grayling, trout and salmon. The salmon and trout is stocked as this river isn’t flowing freely.
And that I’ve brought a fly rod with me on each of the skiing trips I’ve made this year reminds me of the fishing nearby even more. This time I’ve gotten some casting in. A little bit of accuracy standing on the balcony. No one did see me so not any smart comments this time.
There are some things that skiing and fly casting have in common. If you look at the tree you will end up in the tree. Look at the ground and you will end up on the ground.
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Days are getting truly longer fast now, daylight starts to be good after 7. 30 am already as sunrise 7.50 am. And it will last close to 5 pm as sunset is 4.45 pm. So daylight is now about 9 hours when during December is what about half that. So now when you start day it is daylight and when get back home it is just about to get dark.
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This week I think it’s time to revisit a true classic of the saltwater genre. The Homer Rhode hackle fly or as it’s commonly known nowadays the Seaducer. It’s an exercise in versatile simplicity that remains, to this day, hard to beat in many situations.
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t's not long before James and I fly to Spain for our first fly casting competition of 2026. Today we've been practising for some of the events – mainly the ST27, which is my favourite event and the 'lake distance' one that is a special comp for the Spanish Meeting. This uses the same rod, but the fly line is a long head tournament line designed for us by our friend Steve from Celestial lines. It makes the ST27 line feel so light even though it's actually a #7. I'm finding there are subtle differences in how to cast the two different lines but using the same rod and my style of cast. With the longer line I need to flop my wrist more as I need a wider arc for a bigger carry and I have to shoot a small amount of line into my false cast. Whereas the the ST27 I pick up, hold the carry and do a hard stop with a little pull-back. Today has been purely a technique day as the wind was mild to nothing, however it was lovely to have a little sun in such cold conditions. There are forecasts of snow as the temperature drops over tonight.
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It’s quite often the case that a well-known and highly respected person will make a statement that then becomes repeated as fact because of who stated it. (Not that that would ever apply to me of course!) Now I have been wrong very many times in my life and on a broad range of subjects. My wife knows this very well, apparently.
Sometimes I get quoted on something that I wrote almost 30 years ago and it is most certainly wrong. I’m sure there are things that I currently write too, that will be discovered as being wrong in the future. By definiton if we were always right then we would have stopped learning. So I have no problems with being corrected. In fact I’m grateful for the correction.
The reason I mention this is because “constant acceleration” during the Casting Stroke is extremely questionable to my mind, and it regularly comes up, particularly when teaching/preparing US fly casting instructors.
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If you have not been following along, then a look at last week's FP would be helpful, and the one before that. Well, I guess reading all previous FPs is required for the highest level of reading entertainment.
I’m back home safe and sound, lounging around watching the Olympics with my wife, the dogs, and the cat. I'm feeling fatigued. My trip started off at 1 AM Tuesday morning and finally came to an end late Saturday night, but it got off to a bumpy start. I had some sort of short-duration bout with a sinus infection that left me sleepless and worn down for Wednesday practice, but I cast well enough. It was good that people were filtering in on Wednesday. I had to put down the rod and say hi every hour or so, and I didn’t wear myself out.
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So I went down to the Long Beach Casting Club yesterday where they hosted the SW Casting Championship. I was alerted to it by Kalyn Hoggard writing last week about his preparations in his regular FP, and was then tasked by Paul to introduce myself to Kalyn, Whitney Gould and Joel Phillips. So I packed my HT8 (for Whitney to try) and drove the overheating carro rojo to Long Beach Friday morning. Henry Mittel, Steve Rajeff, Chris Korich, and Rick Hartman were there competing as well. And others whose names I didn’t know but now will. I was suitably impressed.
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This is what I have been using to remove the gravel from my elbow. And what I have been calling elbow pain probably should have been forearm pain. It includes some learnings I have made a long the way. Now the pitfalls have been removed.
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I'm in situation where I have to check day from Calender. I have no idea when was my last day off, like truly. I would probably say mid December when we visit our friends in Sweden. Similar days, day after day, same stories 3-4 times a day. Shortly busy times.
I have to find new things to amuse myself, which means new "jokes" or you can say fun facts. Others like those and some not so much. Those are not insulting but you do need to be able to laugh to yourself in some cases.
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Something that happened much longer ago than it now feels to me was the Czech nymph bursting onto the UK river scene. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember eagerly tying some up and going down the burn to terrorise some brown trout as I tried to figure out this new short line nymphing technique. Given how things have progressed it's easy to forget just how big a deal these flies and techniques were at the time.
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I’m covering for James today. In the meantime I thought I’d draw your attention to the Sexyloops Board. I know it’s very well read but it’s also great to get involved. We are very welcoming, happy to discuss everything fly fishing and fly casting. It’s not the BS angry world the social media can be. In fact if you are an angry troll then please don’t post!!
In my opinion, and everyone else’s for that matter, it is the very best place to find out about fly casting and teaching. Arguably it’s a very serious angling place too and no fly fishing or fly tying question would be out of place. In fact if you want to learn advanced fly tying techniques such as the “whipfuck” then this is the only place. That was one of my inventions.
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One of the very interesting things I do is teach flycasting at elite and advanced level. Even before that it becomes similarly interesting because almost everyone has the potential in flycasting to become one of the best in the world. And I really do mean that. Of course there are many ways to measure ability, some are subjective but many are quantifyable. One of the easier ones to quantify is World Championships flycasting. And I would say that everyone who has an interest in this, with coaching, would not look out of place at this event.
And that’s quite a statement. In some ways arguably it’s because it’s such a small niche event. If it was an olympic sport then I think the entry level would be higher and perhaps my statement would be less true. The reality in this case, is that not only would almost no one look out of place at the event with coaching, but because the majority of competitors are uncoached, they might actually do rather well!
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I’ve heard before that it is quite difficult to maintain “tournament shape” year-round. This seems reasonable, but I am not exactly sure what tournament shape looks like yet, maybe a tesseract. Even if you are doing your due diligence to keep a reasonably healthy body, you still may get injured if you never take a break. I have only fractured one bone from casting so far, but my body knows that I cast everyday. My elbows wish I would learn a better technique for sure, and unfortunately, I waited until I was in pain before I started to take the proper precautions. I’m working on that. It is also necessary for fly people to do fly fishing from time to time. It’s some sort of biological imperative that hasn’t been deciphered quite yet, but we do know that if a fly person doesn’t get to fully involve themselves with pursuing a specie from time to time, then they get a little squirrely. If you are out there fishing right, then you probably lose a little bit of that elusive, “tournament shape” while you are at it. Also, as I am one to consistently complain about it, the weather can also put a wrench in outdoor casting time, which could take away from casting shape, but maybe not. All told, maybe you can’t be in competition shape year-round, but I’m going to find out.
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There was a huge drop of Epstein Files a week ago causing a hubbub, world-wide. I bring it up here because I think it shines a light on how policy is made that ultimately affects our fishing. Mostly, As it turns out, there is, indeed, a cabal of privileged elites who live in a world of mutual back-scratching - a universe of favor-trading, outside and floating above the rules and norms governing the rest of us. It seems that money, influence, and fame can buy freedom from the normal limits on imagination and civil behavior. Without the constraints of limited resources, desires run wild. No one and nothing checks behaviors. There is no accountability for harms visited on regular folks. It becomes reasonable to expect to buy or network one’s way through life. I’m amazed at the variety of characters who get caught up in this world, often, apparently, people who are well aware, but forget that all of this ease and license is granted by the exploitation and immiseration of others. It’s gross. And maybe inevitable as things are currently set up. I imagine if you inherit, cheat, luck-into, or even earn enough money or influence to enter this world, you quite naturally start to spend and trade your way to a more graceful life and unless possessed of unusual strength of character, will conveniently forget how difficult things are for most people. It’s natural. It’s easy. And in the end many of the people-who-should-know-better turned their most compassionate selves toward Mr. Epstein, apparently in return for past favors, offered sympathy and advice toward his social rehabilitation after his conviction. Nice impulses but corrupt. Fuck ‘em all. They know better and lie about it when exposed.
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In a recent FP I wrote about the role of the triceps for the fly caster and how it is related to pain from fly casting. These discoveries have been the key to understanding the pain I have been having in my elbow with a really big flare up in the summer of 2024. Since then I have been experiencing pain in the area below my right elbow. The pain has been from pretty sever and the arm feeling numb and stiff. To quite good from time to time. But never feeling completely good.
After a whole year had passed I thought it was as good as it was going to get. It felt quite good with some small flare ups from time to time. I thought that was how it was going to be for me and that it might get better sometime if I kept working on the exercises for the forearm. A part of pain management is acceptance. So I had accepted that I would experience pain from time to time and was happy that I was able to cast and keep practicing.
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Shocking news, it is still cold in Finland. Fun part is that southern Finland is colder than our area at the moment. I'm cool with that as in here is around - 16 celsius so it is pretty perfect weather for reindeers to pull sleigh.
And it is not too cold for guests to be outside and have a ride. Casting is still on pause. Mainly as seems to be some surprises coming behind every corner and this winter starts to be more like extinguishing fires than just doing things. They say that good things happens to good people, so I must be really bad one.
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A lot of people don’t like blobs, some will say they’re not flies or that using them is somehow not fly fishing. I don’t have these hang-ups and don’t draw some imaginary and wholly arbitrary boundaries about what is and isn’t a fly. I’d even go as far as to say I like blobs.
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James has got manflu and so I’m filling in for him this week. I enjoyed his FP last week and there is a discussion about this topic on the Board, which I’ll link to below. Personally I find the 500 Euros additional fee for me to compete from a non-ICSF member country at the World Championships to be unbelievably excessive. 10 Euros would have been about right. I can’t think of any way I or anyone else can justify an additional 500 Euros charge and no doubt this is one reason why participating nations have plummeted from 20 in UK, to 9 in Sweden. Participation numbers have halved. This is not the growing and inclusive sport it once was, which is a shame because it had the potential to be great. Anyway, at least it means I’ll avoid the problems of casting against athletes I coach!
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Throughout the Wet Season my physical training was on the back burner. Often it was one long run and one long ride per week. And then usually only every second week because I had fishing guests visiting on alternate weeks. Interestingly I haven’t lost a lot of fitness and partly because I have managed to eat less. So I haven’t put on weight either. But I’m not Ironman fit now, that’s for sure. Much more of this however and I think I would certainly be going backwards.
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Yes, that sounds a lot more complicated than it really is so let me catch you up. Back in October I was afforded the opportunity to see Bruce Richards, aka Bruce, aka Bossman, at the Fly Fest event in Michigan. I believe I wrote about this event at that time. Feel free to dive into the archives and give it a revisit if you like. One of the highlights of the event for me was that Bruce got to cast the Flaming Hot Cheeto rod (maybe the same FP I talk about the event actually). I wasn’t sure if Bruce had thrown the 5wt HT rod, but I knew that the one I had felt right under the weight of the MED. It therefore made it necessary for me to share the in-hand experience of the rod with the man that made the line that goes with it. He loved it. He loved it so much so in fact that he refers to it as my magical rod. After we had been casting for a while Bruce mentions that he has one of the HT 6wt instructor rods, and he now needed to check to see if it was magical as well.
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Yesterday I brought my practice to the river. I ran through the speys on the first big glide and then walked the concrete bank upstream, looking for my usual suspects. Mornings have been cold for a week and no one was stirring in their usual pockets, so I returned to my practice. This was an add-on to a morning session on the grass. I think I understand the double and single spey 90s. Same with snakerolls and even the snap Ts. This little project is starting to look like something a week in. Anchor placement is still haphazard and D-loop formation a little variable but I think I know why. My jump-rolls also are working. Lift-level-sweep and out - the stroke Paul re-taught me at the stern of Battleship one dark night as I cast a glow-line.
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