Martyn White - Thursday, February 12, 2026
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.
Paul Arden - Wednesday, February 11, 2026
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.
Paul Arden - Tuesday, February 10, 2026
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!
Kalyn Hoggard - Monday, February 9, 2026
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.
David Siskind - Sunday, February 8, 2026
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.
Rickard Gustafsson - Saturday, February 7, 2026
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.
Mika Lappalainen - Friday, February 6, 2026
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.
Martyn White - Thursday, February 5, 2026
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.
Paul Arden - Wednesday, February 4, 2026
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!
Paul Arden - Tuesday, February 3, 2026
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.
Kalyn Hoggard - Monday, February 2, 2026
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.
David Siskind - Sunday, February 1, 2026
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.