Paul Arden | Wednesday, 13 August 2025
On long drives I listen to Podcasts. Peter Attia’s are about right for driving to KL because they are often both interesting and usually around 2.5hrs in duration! Listening to a podcast makes me drive slower. I’m not saying I’m a fast or reckless driver, in fact like most fly fishermen, I believe that incredible driving skills is one of my fortes.
At 3am this morning I listened to his latest podcast on forming habits, on the way to the airport. The drive was extremely fast because the roads were clear of course. Consequently I only got to hear the first three quarters.
And of course while listening to the discussion my thoughts drifted to how this related to flycasting.
I think a little bit of casting every day is a good thing. You don’t always need to go out and do a structured session. Those are the key to actual skills development of course. But just going out and casting is always a good thing. Maybe gong out and fishing is better and long ago I developed the habit of fishing every day that I could, which turned out to be most of them actually.
But there has been times when for whatever reason there has been less fishing and more casting. And then, and indeed everywhere I’ve lived for as long as I can remember, I would keep a rod set up at the front door, or under the truck’s windscreen wipers when I was camping/travelling, or as now, living with me on top of the boat roof, set up and ready to cast at a moment’s notice.
And that’s the key for me. I don’t have to put the rod together. I just need to pick it up and have a throw. I can be therapeutic and relieves stress, not that I have too much that stresses me, and it’s a little habit that I do look forward to.
Here’s Peter Attia’s podcast, which might be helpful in other ways too!
I’m in Sabah for a wedding. Tracy and James are in Scotland.
Cheers, Paul
Today’s POD: Peter Henderson’s fly box for next week. He’s planning on catching A LOT of Snakehead!! And there was me thinking I'd need to tie two flies for Peter's trip. Now I'll just need to tie one :D