Paul Arden | Tuesday, 24 December 2024
I’m excited to meet Graeme from Auckland this Friday. I’ve been coaching Graeme in flycasting for a little over 20 months now. He seems to have caught the distance bug recently and has been throwing the 6WT 120’ this week. Which as many of you will know is a very serious distance cast indeed. There is about 10 more feet to be dangerously competitive in this line weight and it will be interesting to have some in-person distance sessions together to see if we can find it. I remember my first 120’ cast with a six weight. It’s quite the milestone.
Graeme has been down south and fished with Stuntman Ronan a few times and when I told him that the fishing here is really good right now, he shifted things around with work and booked a weeklong visit for Giant Snakehead.
I’m extremely lucky with the fly casters I coach; over a period of time we become really great friends. It’s a wonderful job to have and I know that I’m going to have much more fun fishing through Graeme than I would have chasing these fish on my Tod.
It’s been a great month. A week with David from LA, who I’ve been coaching for about 2 years (and who is now a regular FP contributor – look out Graeme!!) and now, two weeks later: Graeme. Fantastic!!
Hopefully we will find time to have a run somewhere. Graeme is a serious runner (much faster than me in fact) and we have had many discussions over the past 18 months about all things triathlon, running, NZ… you name it! Maybe one afternoon we can run the Dam access road.
Now, following listening to Chris Korich’s podcast, where he raved about the advantages of a soft butt/ stiff tip 5WT rod for competition accuracy, I have had a prototype made. This rod arrived yesterday in Gerik and I go home today for a Christmas with Ashly, a supplies run to stock up the Battleship for the next week, and to collect this exciting new rod.
As I type this on the Battleship I can hear an elephant growling at me! It must be a great rod!
The HT9 is still in final testing stages. I know many of you have been asking about this rod (for some years actually). David was fishing it on his trip and I have a few more tests left before I pull the pin.
I have a video to edit and upload. Whether I manage this today I don’t know. I somehow doubt it. But I will be back into the weekly video groove soon. This one is a fishing video. But I have so many casting drills to film and upload. Exciting times afoot!
Have a fantastic Christmas!!
Cheers, Paul
POD: Ronan’s fly from The Nail PoD series
I think this was the year I wished everyone Merry Fucking Christmas by mistake.