Mika Lappalainen | Friday, 1 March 2024
This week weather has been great for practising, well windy but temperatures has been around 0/32. And I haven't been able to cast as much as would like. I have found some weird joy about casting, kind of madness to do it in the middle winter and snow.
Busy week it has been, as Yoda would say, and Germans. I'm quite sure that George Lucas visited Germany before inviting Yoda and how he talks, that's a different story anyway. My understanding about German start to be surprisingly good as long it concerns reindeer or fishing, not that I could speak but understanding some.
Anyway I have made some short practise this week as I had super long day on Tuesday with ice fishing and cooking by the fire to guests. And as you might guess some problems at farm again... it seems to be theme for this winter. You could see those coming as start of winter was cold without snow and even we had snow it has been really cold winter. So what happens...
Ground get frozen and deeply as there is no snow, as I have to clean some pathways etc... cold keeps going until certain point, it kind of levels and stays.... until weather gets warmer and then frost starts to go deeper.
It happened with water pipes some weeks ago... and this week with sewer. And because some idiots (guests) had put hand papers in toilet, there was blockage which prevented flow and then we had frozen sewer, 2 meters long or 7 feet as you prefer. So at farm no toilet in use, sewage had to put in buckets etc... really back to the old times. That was lot of extra work and stress.
Anyway now things are running again for a while at least. All this might mean some extra money to be spent during summer to avoid these things happening again.
Thursday I had good casting session, one hour. Accuracy starts to be really good, even difficult wind from side I hit nicely on targets. I had problems with backhand delivery. It seems that I can't get right position on my feet. At least that was my first blame, then I blamed wind as it was blowing like turbine, high snow makes funny tricks as it blocks the wind from somewhere and packs it to other spots. As my targets are behind pathway at farm also... I might be in calm spot but line and targets are not.
I started to get frustrated... stupid that and this... you know, like a child. I concentrate "back bell", trajectory, haul... and suprise... despite wind and my feet position I started to hit targets, 60 feet and 70 feet. I felt burst of joy. There are lot practice to be done still that it will come as second nature, my biggest issue is first haul during backhand delivery cast, as it should be done towards my right feet (which seems to be best one to speed line nicely), my cactus man start be okay otherwise. So some joy from small things going right way.
My practice is like training reindeer, stop with good performance and move on. I did 3 stop drill and then launch, on that my problem is that for some reason I don't finish last haul properly. I know that during fishing I finished it, but in the training not. That comes probably because I'm thinkig too much during cast, overthinking you could say.
Anyway I'm happy that I could have that nice session. Weather forecast looks promising for couple of days and Saturday is day off. Hopefully I can have few sessions, Friday my plan is have one. But as it has been theme... when I plan something... something will come up and plans can be thrown in carbage.
Our racing reindeer had his first official race last weekend and I 'm happy about his performance. He won his start, time was not best possible and eventually he was first without points. I have seen his performance thru driver's cam.... he has potential. Coming weekend next race.
Have a nice weekend
Mika from Finland
