Paul Arden | Tuesday, 5 April 2022
Last week I talked about teaching students and developing the core techniques of Closed Stance Accuracy, Open Stance Distance and 170. Following some discussions about this, I think it’s important to be clear that this is not for teaching beginners!! For beginners I use loop control exercises, mostly first gear casting, a method we on Sexyloops now call the Triangle Method, “Graeme’s Waves”, Minimum Power and some fun games. Most of the time I teach Double Haul in the first lesson too but that depends. It’s certainly a goal.
I would like to talk some more about this and I will in the future. For me the primary goal in this first lesson is that the student can throw narrow loops both forwards and backwards, understands that the loop is what delivers the fly and anything else we can cover is a bonus. There is a hell of a lot to cover in the first lesson if the student wants to go fishing at the end!
https://www.sexyloops.com/flycast/the-triangle-method/
https://www.sexyloops.com/flycast/casting-drill-1st-gear/
And a very old page, this one :)))
https://www.sexyloops.com/flycasting/minimumpower.shtml
There is a lot happening here. Malaysia opened its borders to International travellers last week. My first booking is for an eight day trip at the end of the month. Yay!! This will be my first international guest in over 2 years!! It will be great to catch up with Dirk again and I’m looking forward to this very much.
In the middle of next month Mika the Legend and Satu (I’d better call Satu a Legend too!) are coming to visit for an extended stay. As well as fishing the lake we are hoping that it stops bloody raining and they can head up into Sungai Tiang.
In July I have another returning regular, Richard, who is a big fish specialist and caught an IGFA record Giant Snakehead with me on his last trip (it was a Free-riser!). It was Richard who was my final international guest before lockdowns shut borders and we actually were down the lake when lockdown first happened – but we didn’t know it at the time because we had no Internet!! :D
If you want to visit me then please send me an email on paul@sexyloops.com or mrsexyloops@gmail.com Ashly will be building a small dedicated website for Belum Fly Fishing this or next week. You will need to be fully vaccinated to get into Malaysia, have been tested before and after your arrival and then there is no quarantine!
Masks are mandatory in public places in Malaysia – and everyone wears one. The jungle is safe. There are no mosquitoes. Although we do have tigers and Hantu Tetek.
I will be away in August and September, in Europe first for the World Fly Casting Championships in Norway and then a 70.3 Ironman in England. October, November and December are also prime fishing months out here and I shall be back for these. In fact any time beginning around Mid-March right through to the end of December has great fishing somewhere on the lake.
Lee is building the first production run of the new and very exciting HT5s this week (he started last week) and we shall begin shipping around the end of the week. We are also having an HT5 built in Spain for an EU customer. If you would like to learn more about our latest Sexyloops rod then please check this page…
https://www.sexyloops.com/index.php/webshop/item/562/ht-pro-9-5wt
I’m delighted to finally have these rods heading out. Sorry for the slight delay; I was planning to have all preorders built and shipped before April 1st, and we were on target… until a transport strike happened in Spain!!
This week I’m busy with Zoom Fly Casting students. I enjoy these lessons very much. All my current students have had quite a few lessons with me now and we are really seeing excellent progress with everyone! I could probably handle one to two more students, so if you are interested in a video conferencing fly casting course then have a read of this…
https://www.sexyloops.com/index.php/ps/online-flycasting-coaching
I run 1-1 courses of either 6 or 12 1-hour lessons (£300 and £500 respectively). You will need a stand for your phone, 4G or WiFi Internet connection, a field, lake or a garden to stand in, a Bluetooth headset, some accuracy rings and a tape measure. It’s a lot of fun and everyone’s improvement has been tremendous. 12 lessons takes around 6 months, but you can take as long as you like.
This week I have to catch a Gourami. The production company who are filming me don’t believe I can catch Gourami (due to untimely lockdowns, I only had one last year and only one the year before!). But right now is an excellent time for Gourami and I’ve had many at this time of year in the past. So if I can catch a couple on the GoPro they will believe that it’s possible, join me and we will finish this episode. That will be four out of six completed episodes.
This show airs in August, so it had better stop raining soon, so that the rivers clear and we can go and catch both Red and Copper Mahseer!!
Last, but certainly not least… for years I have talked about the Osage Orange trees on my land in Hungary – and how they will make excellent inserts for the Hot Torpedos. Before Communism in Hungary, the Duke of Latohegy – who was a gambler, womaniser and no doubt a fly fisherman – lost some of his land in a card game. To signify the border he planted a line of Osage Orange trees that he imported from France. I now have these trees.
About ten years ago we did a little thinning and I stored the wood. This wood is seriously hard and a quite beautiful orange colour. Back when Trevor was building rods for Sexyloops he made a couple of Osage Orange spacers. We now have about a dozen Orange Orange spacers coming from Hungary, this time made by my neighbour Istvan and my great friend Peter. Peter is also sending us a handful of Black Walnut spacers to test as well. I think you will love these and I’ll post some photos next week. :)))
Ok must finish preparing the boat (I’ve built a bed in the front cabin) and then I’ll go catch a Gourami. In fact I’ll catch a few just to show that it’s possible :D
Have a fantastic week!
Cheers, Paul
PS today’s POD is the last Gourami I caught. It’s a small one!! Have you noticed that fish often spook at the sight of a human face? I have – but I have also found the cunning solution. See if you can guess what it is.