David Siskind | Sunday, 2 November 2025
Jackie and I are back in Pacific Grove, CA to go to my dear friend Anne’s second wedding party. We attended the first on the East Coast in August. She is now hosting another on the West Coast for friends and family that couldn’t make the trip. We’re all off to Big Sur this afternoon for cocktails and dancing into the evening at a barn venue by the river. It should be lovely. The shuttle bus leaves in a couple of hours.
I haven’t been on the water in over a week but I’ve enjoyed several useful practices at the park and at home. My local park only works early in the morning. Later in the day it becomes crowded with children and dogs. Darn them. So I tried to figure a way to advance my progress towards casting competence in my apartment driveway and parking lot. Phone, wires, window air conditioners and cars make casting a line longer than 20 feet an impossibility. Also, I don’t like retrieving my fly line over the concrete surfaces - I feel it wears out the coating. So I worked something out.
I attached a bright green pipe cleaner to the top guide of my lesser 4 wt (don’t worry Paul, I save the HT4 for the water and the park), and mounted my reel but did not string my line or leader. I then walked around the driveway and parking area tracing any straight line I could see, phone wires, garage eaves, fence rails, and rooflines with my green adorned rod tip. I realize that what looks like an accurate tracing may arc away from a true SLP but I think it’s pretty close.
I traced these paths at various speeds learning what it takes to keep my traces from wobbling off course. The inertia of the rod induces a bend as I move it - almost as if loaded by the line.
I then added a little line - first 6ft then 10 feet outside the tip. The results for me were interesting for sure. I have taken this to the park a few times combining it with my recent enthusiasm for the triangle drill and walking practice. I believe I’m improving my awareness of where the rod tip is without looking and, not surprisingly, have found that a smooth trace starts from the ground up.
Also went to see two movies that proved uplifting in the Trumpian Age. One Battle after Another borrows its themes and characters from Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland, probably his most accessible work and the only one I got all the way through. It’s mix of cool Ninjas Nuns, revolutionaries, stoners, psychotic fascists entertained me to my core. It has a big name cast and plenty of action. It was long but didn’t feel like it at all. Everyone in the house applauded when it was over.
The other, smaller comedic movie, Good Fortune, also has a strong cast of big names, and explores the miseries of gig work and highlighted the extreme wealth inequality that is fucking everything up.
Go see em.
David Siskind