Paul Arden | Tuesday, 20 June 2023
This is a busy week for me. I’m heading to KL for some 1-1 swim coaching (if you want to be good at anything you need coaching - hint hint), a couple of triathlon swim meets, a bike fit and a truck wrap! The truck wrap is something I’ve been planning for a few years and it’s nice to finally get around to making it happen. The original snakehead photo that I had planned to use, wasn’t of high enough quality, and so I had to catch another fine looking fish. That’s all organised now and will take a few days to fit. I’m also putting a go-faster stripe on the bonnet for good measure.
All of that means 3 or 4 days in KL, staying at a hotel. And actually this is a good thing because it means that I will have time to do a few of the things on the never-ending Sexyloops to-do list. I have the Zoom meet with Bruce Richards to edit and post. I have (very important) an upgrade for the Board and archived Board software – backend Sexyloops stuff at which I am not very good at staying on top. And I have the Sungai Tiang website to finish. Hopefully I can find time for that too.
I’ve just given a Zoom lesson this morning. Nice to see Chicago Nick really coming along with his casting. This is around the time when the magic really starts to happen. I think this was our seventh session together. If you take away anything from that, it is the importance of taking a course over many months (it’s actually been over a year since we first started, but winter in Chicago meant we didn’t see each other for about six months!!). Seven hours of training between last session and this session. – that’s also one of the keys!
One of my other students, Mark in Senegal, has just returned from a redfish trip in Texas and brought up the challenges of close range shots. His guide called them “oh shit! shots”. :)) This is when a fish suddenly appears within a rod length or two. Now this is something I train for every day in my casting. It is when you need a Reach Cast. And if you train it by hitting saucers, leaves, blades of grass, then you can get incredibly good at doing it. I can put the fly on a saucer, almost without fail, at any angle around me, from 1/2 rod length out, to a couple of rod lengths out. And importantly - land with a straight line, in either direction, so that I can move the fly both immediately and at an angle away from the fish.
That is definitely one to practise!! It’s one of the shots I dial in when I pick up my rod. With free-rising snakehead it is a key shot. As always, it’s important to look where you want to place the fly and not at the fish!!
Have a great week.
Cheers, Paul