Paul Arden | Tuesday, 31 December 2024
I’m sleeping on the Battleship roof tonight. Busy fishing with Graeme from New Zealand. He has successfully landed one adult snakehead so far, so that’s good! And we are tightening up his shots daily. Steady improvements and maybe he earns the 5KG Snakehead Shirt!
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I’ve been trying to solve hookup problems and a few guys have since given me some great ideas to try. Rob Ketley has a very interesting system involving soft foam and Velcro which I’m definitely going to try. And Gary Meyer has suggested reversing the design to put the hook at the front of the popper, which I think may very well produce the solution.
But I certainly will try both. Rob’s idea in fact makes this hook position possible too. Lots of ideas to play with again. Thank you chaps!
I will be testing one idea today with Graeme and of course we have a bunch of the old flies to throw if that doesn’t appear to work. There are always unexpected hiccups with different patterns, for one thing after a few casts in dark, I can see that the fly lands heavier than normal and doesn’t bloop as well – but still floats. So this is prototype no1.
Talking of prototypes I’m not perfectly happy with the HT9 prototype I have here and have decided to make some changes in the butt section. I need to make the butt slightly faster/stiffer and/or the section immediately above. It’s different from the HT7, 8 and 10 and I lose accuracy with long snakehead shots. It’s seems to “buckle” slightly under a fast long shot. Many rods do this in my hands and so it’s not what I want.
I do enjoy this side of development and while I really wanted to launch the HT9 in January, it’s not the rod I want to chase Permit with on the Sexyloops 666 Yacht. It’s very close but it can and will be better.
So you chaps chasing me for a 9 please hold your horses! I’m also going to start work on the 11 and revisit the double-butt 12. I want to have the full range for when I take off on our saltfly adventure, which should be two years from now. It might be three years but I’m really aiming for two.
Ashly is getting involved in procurement and fulfilment (she is much better organised than me – everyone is!). This way I can deal with sales, design and customer service. We have about six hundred rods to sell and the new website is going to help move things along. Remember if you buy one of these 666 Hot Torpedos/Tortugas you have a 1 in 666 chance of winning a two-week all expenses paid trip fishing with us. Some Sexyloopers have already bought multiple rods increasing their chances of being lucky!
If you have a professional discount with us and are an instructor, then you will need to purchase two rods for one entry, otherwise I won’t be able to afford a yacht that floats and we will get shipwrecked somewhere – something that may very well happen anyway; hopefully on a desert island with incredible fishing and coconuts.
Ok… I have to be up in 7.5hrs. Time to sleep under the stars with the elephants stomping in the background. Nice!! Have a great week and a very happy New Year to you!
Cheers, Paul