Paul Arden | Saturday, 13 August 2022
Opportunities to fish with me here in Malaysia for the rest of this year, means that I’m available for approx one week this month and I have another free week at the beginning of September. The lake is fishing well at the moment. I’m also booking October/November/December which are three prime months. I have bookings but also available time. Please do get in touch if you are interested. All Covid travel restrictions have been lifted for the fully vaccinated coming to Malaysia.
I’m hoping to get back to the UK for a flying 2-week visit in the second half of September. Among other things I have a few rod repairs of my own, a triathlon and I look forward to seeing my family again, who I haven’t seen in person for over 2.5 years now!
I’m currently down the lake on my own, getting back to normal again, having hosted guests for the past month and a bit. Enjoying the weather, catching up with Sexyloops and I had a bunch of Zoom casting lessons last week. After this small slot, later next week, I’ll be in KL for two days of voice overs for the TV show. I’m looking forward to seeing these recent episodes and how they turned out – although to be honest I never actually enjoy watching myself on the screen! Still, hopefully the show will be interesting for a wide audience. Judging by my current appearance I think it should be called “Yeti on the fly” :D
This week I shall be releasing Mr G, my giant gourami companion, who has lived we me on the Battleship for about a year and a quarter. I’ve learned a lot about the species by having one in such close proximity. For one thing not only are they intelligent, but they appear to have “moods”, something I never expected. Also Mr G (and now Baby G) have a strong love of cheese!
I also have two Glass-fish in the tank. I’ve had these in the past, but normally they only have quite a short life. These two fish however have lived with me for some 8 months now. I don’t know why these have fared so well but it’s nice to see. They don’t have similar intelligence to the Gourami however, and just behave like normal fish would, oblivious to the outside world.
One of my more recent Snakehead fly developments appears to be on the right track and is getting more and better hook ups. This is a tube version of the Popper with the hook hanging off in a wire loop knot, positioned someway back from the tube. Still work in progress and there are some disadvantages with this fly compared to the normal Vince Loud-Mouth tying, but I do think it’s a move in the right direction.
I’ve been reading a few sports training books recently. Namely Nick Winkelman’s “The language of coaching” and Rob Gray’s “How we learn to move”. Both excellent books. Indeed I’m asking Nick a few questions about coaching and I will talk some more about his work then. If you are teaching flycasting then I can certainly recommend reading both these books – thanks to Mark Surtees for recommending them to me!
One of the interesting things I’ve been looking at is variability in practise. Not being one to just sit around and theorise, these coming weeks all my Zoom students are going to get a surprise lesson on both Snaps and Snakes (in this case aerielised Snap Casts and aerielised Snake Rolls, forming “waypoints”, as I use in the Freestyle Casting video). “Why?” you might well ask! It’s as an experiment to see how much skills development comes from playing with these motions. I’ll let you know!
In a similar vein, over the past two and a half years of Zoom casting lessons, I’ve found that teaching the Stopless/170 cast can have a huge impact on skills development in students. Far more beneficial than simply developing a fast backhand delivery shot or a high-speed into-the-wind forward cast (both of which are important in their own right!); indeed learning the 170 appears to have a wide reaching and positive influence on both Closed Stance Accuracy as well as Open Stance Distance.
I’m not sure why this should be, but I think it’s because the force application is longer and wider and consequently smoother and easier to control. This control element then feeds back into the shorter, more abrupt force applications of the other casting techniques, making those smoother/more fluid. But I actually don’t know why for sure and it could be for a different reason entirely.
What interests me now however, is how developing both spirals and snaps will affect my students’ progress. Arguably this is “differential learning”, although they both have uses in the Spey casting world too of course. It’s just that not many people are aerielising this stuff for kicks. I suspect it might be very effective for skills development but we shall see!
I’m sorry to have missed the World Championships this year. Time, work and money constraints made it impossible for Ashly and I to attend. Two and a half years without guests definitely put us on the back foot! From what I can see on FB however, the venue looks amazing! I hope that everyone has/had a wonderful time and I look forward to reading James and Tracy’s FP about it.
We are starting to organise the “Sexyloops is 25 and Alive” meeting for September 2023. More details to follow.
Have a great week!
Cheers, Paul