| Monday: | Kalyn Hoggard |
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| Tuesday: | Paul Arden |
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| Wednesday: | Paul Arden |
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| Thursday: | Martyn White |
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| Friday: | Mika Lappalainen |
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| Saturday: | Rickard Gustafsson |
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| Sunday: | David Siskind |
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An instructor from one instructor to another instructor, and then to me.
Monday, 2 February 2026
Yes, that sounds a lot more complicated than it really is so let me catch you up. Back in October I was afforded the opportunity to see Bruce Richards, aka Bruce, aka Bossman, at the Fly Fest event in Michigan. I believe I wrote about this event at that time. Feel free to dive into the archives and give it a revisit if you like. One of the highlights of the event for me was that Bruce got to cast the Flaming Hot Cheeto rod (maybe the same FP I talk about the event actually). I wasn’t sure if Bruce had thrown the 5wt HT rod, but I knew that the one I had felt right under the weight of the MED. It therefore made it necessary for me to share the in-hand experience of the rod with the man that made the line that goes with it. He loved it. He loved it so much so in fact that he refers to it as my magical rod. After we had been casting for a while Bruce mentions that he has one of the HT 6wt instructor rods, and he now needed to check to see if it was magical as well.
Goals
Tuesday, 3 February 2026
Throughout the Wet Season my physical training was on the back burner. Often it was one long run and one long ride per week. And then usually only every second week because I had fishing guests visiting on alternate weeks. Interestingly I haven’t lost a lot of fitness and partly because I have managed to eat less. So I haven’t put on weight either. But I’m not Ironman fit now, that’s for sure. Much more of this however and I think I would certainly be going backwards.
Value for money
Wednesday, 4 February 2026
James has got manflu and so I’m filling in for him this week. I enjoyed his FP last week and there is a discussion about this topic on the Board, which I’ll link to below. Personally I find the 500 Euros additional fee for me to compete from a non-ICSF member country at the World Championships to be unbelievably excessive. 10 Euros would have been about right. I can’t think of any way I or anyone else can justify an additional 500 Euros charge and no doubt this is one reason why participating nations have plummeted from 20 in UK, to 9 in Sweden. Participation numbers have halved. This is not the growing and inclusive sport it once was, which is a shame because it had the potential to be great. Anyway, at least it means I’ll avoid the problems of casting against athletes I coach!
In Praise of Trash
Thursday, 5 February 2026
A lot of people don’t like blobs, some will say they’re not flies or that using them is somehow not fly fishing. I don’t have these hang-ups and don’t draw some imaginary and wholly arbitrary boundaries about what is and isn’t a fly. I’d even go as far as to say I like blobs.
You haven't have
Friday, 6 February 2026
Shocking news, it is still cold in Finland. Fun part is that southern Finland is colder than our area at the moment. I'm cool with that as in here is around - 16 celsius so it is pretty perfect weather for reindeers to pull sleigh.
And it is not too cold for guests to be outside and have a ride. Casting is still on pause. Mainly as seems to be some surprises coming behind every corner and this winter starts to be more like extinguishing fires than just doing things. They say that good things happens to good people, so I must be really bad one.
Pain, it is complex
Saturday, 7 February 2026
In a recent FP I wrote about the role of the triceps for the fly caster and how it is related to pain from fly casting. These discoveries have been the key to understanding the pain I have been having in my elbow with a really big flare up in the summer of 2024. Since then I have been experiencing pain in the area below my right elbow. The pain has been from pretty sever and the arm feeling numb and stiff. To quite good from time to time. But never feeling completely good.
After a whole year had passed I thought it was as good as it was going to get. It felt quite good with some small flare ups from time to time. I thought that was how it was going to be for me and that it might get better sometime if I kept working on the exercises for the forearm. A part of pain management is acceptance. So I had accepted that I would experience pain from time to time and was happy that I was able to cast and keep practicing.
All that Glitters
Sunday, 8 February 2026
There was a huge drop of Epstein Files a week ago causing a hubbub, world-wide. I bring it up here because I think it shines a light on how policy is made that ultimately affects our fishing. Mostly, As it turns out, there is, indeed, a cabal of privileged elites who live in a world of mutual back-scratching - a universe of favor-trading, outside and floating above the rules and norms governing the rest of us. It seems that money, influence, and fame can buy freedom from the normal limits on imagination and civil behavior. Without the constraints of limited resources, desires run wild. No one and nothing checks behaviors. There is no accountability for harms visited on regular folks. It becomes reasonable to expect to buy or network one’s way through life. I’m amazed at the variety of characters who get caught up in this world, often, apparently, people who are well aware, but forget that all of this ease and license is granted by the exploitation and immiseration of others. It’s gross. And maybe inevitable as things are currently set up. I imagine if you inherit, cheat, luck-into, or even earn enough money or influence to enter this world, you quite naturally start to spend and trade your way to a more graceful life and unless possessed of unusual strength of character, will conveniently forget how difficult things are for most people. It’s natural. It’s easy. And in the end many of the people-who-should-know-better turned their most compassionate selves toward Mr. Epstein, apparently in return for past favors, offered sympathy and advice toward his social rehabilitation after his conviction. Nice impulses but corrupt. Fuck ‘em all. They know better and lie about it when exposed.
