As many of you will know I’ve been busy over the past years helping the Orang Asli (the local jungle inhabitants) learn about fly fishing so that they can guide anglers on their local C&R river. One of my friends, Bonhamy, has spent considerable time developing a website for them, and over the next two days I plan to help him get this website complete and live.
We are still in the Wet Season at the moment, but very soon the rains will stop and shortly after this River Tiang will be open and perfect for fishing. I hope that some of you will visit. It’s a truly wonderful experience. Mahseer behave in some ways quite similarly to trout; they eat dry flies, sometimes nymphs and small streamers, exist in runs and under shady banks, sometimes they sit out in the open and take up all sorts of positions where you would commonly find trout.
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It's been quite sometime since I last linked to any of Andy Mill's interviews. Probably my favorite episode of the Mill House...or at least in my top 5 is the interview Andy did with famed big game angler Tom Evans, and his guide Al Dopirak. Recently Andy did a solo interview with Capt. Dopirak by himself, which is a fascinating and entertaining look into the mind of one of the original Homosassa big game guides. I have provided links to both interviews in the main body of the text. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
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Actually not from LA. I left for NY on Monday morning with some localized fires burning in Altadena and Pacific Palisades. The Santa Ana winds picked up during my flight and strengthened to 100-year force Monday nightand Tuesday. “It is hard for people who have not lived in Los Angeles to realize how radically the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination. The city burning is Los Angeles's deepest image of itself.” - Joan Didion. Places that NEVER burned were gone in a flash. Usually the fires destroy exurban developments built on the foothills and slopes of the steep brushy mountains while the flats are relatively untouched. Not this week. I had assured my housemates that they were far enough from the flames to remain safe but by Tuesday afternoon the Sunset fire popped up and within an hour had climbed to the ridge of the Santa Monicas two miles north of my apartment. By nightfall the flames were forced downhill through Runyon Canyon, racing to the bottom. Later the wind died allowing firefighters to stop the advance. My roomies did not get the order to evacuate. Other friends lost homes.
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A fly that doesn’t look like much but is a popular fly for coastal fishing after seatrout on the Swedish west coast. It looks like a woolly bugger that has been robbed. In all it simplicity it has some interesting features.
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It is still cold out here, temperatures are around - 18c/0F. It is not just about cold, but now it is with breeze, moist wind which makes your hands freezing cold in few minutes. We still have some reindeer out and my time after guests at farm goes driving them back home or catching them.
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Just a quick one from me today. I got out yesterday for my first fish of the year. Just some carp on my local river, I didn't want to travel far as we've had pretty changeable weather and I wasn't sure how good conditions would end up being.
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I had an early morning Zoom casting session today with one of my favourite athletes (ok they are all equally favourite!). “Athlete” is usually a bit tongue in cheek when describing flycasters, but in this case it’s not, because she competes at the highest level. I do enjoy working with high level casters and in many ways it’s actually easier than teaching beginners via Zoom. If it wasn’t for a constraints-led approach I don’t think I could actually teach beginners via Zoom in the first place. It would certainly be very challenging. And with advanced casters it just makes more sense. That’s not to say that we don’t suggest changes to pattern, of course we do, but we do that by creating challenges that allow changes to be explored.
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Blimey, Lasse sent me a video today from a friend (I thought) claiming that I had stolen a drill from him and attributed it to someone else!!! :D
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“Don’t wait until February to start living in January.”
― Anthony T. Hincks
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I reviewed my recent fishing outings and was surprised how little trouting I’ve done, less than 10% of my fishing days. As I have more time to fish I find that I have less inclination to drive when there is local fishing available. Trout are 2-6 hours away from LA. Currently I’m fishing a Redington Predator 9’for 5-wt more than anything else -- for carp in the river and in the surf for corbina, perch, halibut and other species. It’s my go-to rod. I use it 90% of the time. It does the job but I don’t LOVE casting it. I feel the same way about my TFO Clouser 9’ for 7-wt. I’ve used it for bonefish and as a backup/guest rod for local fishing. I have a Cortland 10.5’ 4-wt nymph rod I use but find it a little long for travel so mostly use it for drivable distances. I’ve been packing a Reddington Crux 9’ for 4’ wt for my annual trouting in NY and Pennsylvania.
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The highlight of the year we now have left behind was the flycasting world championship. Getting there, being there and competing was a great experience with a lot of emotions.
I competed for the first time at end of May, I entered my second competition just two weeks after that one. A few days after attending the second competition I get an email from the captain of the Swedish flycasting team. “Please call me”. I got offered a spot in the Swedish team. That felt pretty damn great! I was super happy, Paul was pretty happy about it too. I’m actually not sure about which of us that was the most excited about it. That was June 11 and World Championships would be in a little more than two months, we had some work to do.
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People make lot of promises during this time of the year. I will go to gym, I will do that and that. All new years promises has been made with good intention. It is quite rare that people will stick on those promises.
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Happy New Year everyone. I only fished one day over the holidays due to a virus that curbed all the usual festive excesses- except for cheese, obviously. So, since I've nothing new or interesting to report, I thought I'd write about another excellent fly: the hedgehog.
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Happy new year to you all. I've decided not to make any casting new year's resolutions this time, mainly because I never seem to achieve them – for example, my 200ft cast with the T38 has been stubbornly isolated to the practice field and nowhere to be seen at a BFCC competition day. That said, I did resolve to improve my competition accuracy a year ago and ultimately (after some not so good attempts) I did break TC's BFCC record. I shall keep up the practice this year in the hope of pushing the record higher.
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