A very interesting page from Rickard on Saturday about post competition blues. So I had a bit of a chat to the other athletes I work with. One is also in a small state of blues, despite winning a large number of medals and the other is in a post competition event halo… which is what I would choose!!

I did a bit of research and a similar thing can be found with Olympic athletes too. So they are all in very good company!

Details >

There are coffee rings on the tying bench. Two of them, overlapping, which tells you the mug went down twice in the same place and nobody wiped it. That is the state of things. Work has gone up a level this year and the fishing has gone down one, and the only thing I can do about that at eleven at night is tie for it.

So I have been tying smelt.

Details >

Tracy and I have just arrived home after a long weekend in Jersey, where the BFCC held a casting day on Saturday. The weather was as good as could be expected for mid-September – predominantly sunny with a temperature of 20 or 21 degrees C, with just the odd, short rain shower. We arrived on Friday morning and had some time to kill before we got access to our AirBnB, so we did a bit of a tour of the north of the island, always on the look out for anglers. We ended up in the cafe at St. Catherine's breakwater for a much needed coffee having had to get up at 2am in order to get to the airport for our early flight.

Details >

Last week's fly inspired me to do a few more simple bonefish and flats patterns. So I'll be doing a little run of flies on the theme, all of them will be easy ties but they'll also be fish catchers. This week I'm going with the Turd.

Details >

Friday morning, wake up, have brekafast, prepare picnic lunch and partly dinner. Now I don't have to worry about cooking after fishing day so much. Camping place owner came to say that one cabin is free from now as people signed out earlier. She basically insists that I move there.
 
So I would have cabin for two nights, sounds good as Saturday evening we would have heavy rain. After preparation we took off with Gunnar. We are planning to fish Tjulån and he will show some new spots to me. We start with sight fishing, we spotted nice grayling and it was rising also. We don't have success. There is heavy wind and it is easily killing everything.

Details >

Southern storms drove big swells up the SoCal coast. They washed away a lot of sand on the West facing beaches. Waves broke over the jetties and big rogues did some damage. There was some impressive erosion. And worse, the latest heat wave drove me off the river - so hot and humid here - very rare. We’ve had weeks of 90 degree plus heat, some warm rain, and no relief overnight. It never cools down. It’s awful. Was 103 degrees (40 C)  last week.  So it’s been park practice on the grass or nothing. I practiced in the morning at first light and still worked up a sweat. My recent emphasis on extending carry and tuning hauling movements seems to be bearing fruit. I have Walter Mitty-ish day-dreams of joining Gould, Rajeff etal. on the competitive circuit as a 76 year old rookie and being carried off on the Team’s shoulders in triumph (BTW congrats to all). I might get there in another 5 or 6 years, maybe 10. I’ll shoot for that. So I practice mindfully. I hope I can still afford the entrance fees. 

Details >