Happy New Year to all of you loyal readers of the Sexyloops front pages. I enjoy reading the frontpages, which always are very diverse. Casting, fly tying, fishing, jungle craft, irrelevant ramblings, thoughts, inspiration and much, much more. I look forward to another year of a weekly, semi-panic-state-of-mind, when Paul either Friday evening or Saturday morning reminds that it’s that time of the week. Today he wrote 20 minutes ago, so I blame him for being late today. It’s incredible that I can still forget after two decades of doing this. I'll take another handful of years, I think.
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I heard that social media is full of summaries from year 2022. "Influencers" tells how they have had really tough times and difficult life, and yet their pages are full of photos from beaches and beautiful sunsets and laughter. That's how world is running nowadays. I just had talk with Satu, we both agreed that this has been most difficult year ever. Luckily we have Malaysia.
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We've had some great crisp sunny weather here since Christmas, excellent sight fishing conditions all round. So Hawaiian Dave and I decided to go to the Tamagawa on Boxing Day. It's a fairly challenging river, but has a good head of big carp and has historically been pretty reliable in terms of at least getting shots.
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I listened to a thoughtful podcast today wherein the author of “Atomic Habits”, James Clear, was interviewed. I’ve not read the book, but after listening to him, I will. Clear’s book is the result of synthesizing the studies and writings of researchers who study the behavioral, psychological, and physiological nature of habits, how they are formed and broken. I found it fascinating because so much hinges on doing small things that combine into something bigger. One big take away for me is motivation: Why do we want to form new habits and break old ones. Of course, I was thinking in terms of motivating students (and myself) to develop good casting-practice habits.
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I’m rather busy at the moment. I thought I would run every day here in England (and Hungary) and I will but it’s very difficult in the cold weather! And I thought warm weather was difficult…
I have Zoom lessons again this week. I shall be wearing three coats for these! I’m pretty full at the moment, with 11 students on 12 session courses with me. I do max 12 students at any point. The good news however is that two are nearing the end (unless they rebook of course) and so I will have more places available in the New Year. The cost is 700USD for 12 one-hour sessions and normally take around 6 months to complete. I have a maximum number of 24 students per year.
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On display today....The Yellow Grizzly With Orange.
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Fishing with Paul Arden is like playing tennis with Raffa Nadal or golf with Tiger Woods.. Paul is exceptional. He is driven, dedicated and among the most elite fly casters and fly fishermen in the world. He is an exceptional teacher. His unique ability appeals to me and I am privileged that he gives me the time and patience...but he takes no prisoners.
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Yes, Merry Christmas - you knew it was coming, both the high season and the greeting. Once again it befalls on me to write the Christmas frontpage. First of all, I hope all of you who have the holidays off find time to do a little fishing, if the weather allows it. If not, then some fly tying, some reading or maybe some tackle maintenance.
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Last week I heard some good news. Dam from Kuusinki river has been bought. Project which started over a year ago has come to end.
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My Christmas holidays have partially started already, so I've only had a couple of days of work this week, which has meant plenty of time for fishing around all the usual year end business.
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Not that I can really afford to buy a new rod or that Steve wouldn’t have a fit if I did, but I can think about it. The rod I’m most interested in, at this point, is the Scott Centric, but I’ve yet to run it through any paces. I find it interesting that I’ve come across such different internet reviews regarding its action. One review was by a reputable Norwegian caster. He tested the Radian, Centric and Sage Ignitor three side by side. He concluded that the Centric lay between the Scott Radian and the Ignitor, meaning faster than the Radian but slower than the ignitor. Another review, by a reputable caster in the States, referred to the Radian as “Ultra Fast,” which I believe is horse feathers having cast it from 2014 till it was stolen in August, and having both TCX and Method rods. That review said the Centric was a bit slower than the Radian. Well, is it faster than the Radian or slower? It is a matter of opinion based upon what one is used to casting, the line and amount being carried, the casts used for testing, and one’s casting skill. My conclusion? Rod reviews really are not really worth a whole lot except to give you an idea of whether a rod is worth trying.
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As is customary, I will start this FP with a ‘physics alert’ – this one is for casters with an interest in the technical aspects of chucking fly lines, if that’s not you then I’d skip straight over to the board!
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In this week's "A Fly On The Wall" Series, we'll take a look at The Ice Blue & Purple Grizzly
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Of all the things that matter in life, if you don’t keep your health it means nothing. That might be easy when you are 20 or 30, but to be fit when you are older takes work. If you want to go fly fishing, live outdoors, climb trees, leap across rivers and bound up waterfalls, then you need to be active every day. We train our casting to go fishing, we need to train our bodies too.
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I don't think it's a surprise for any one who's been reading my frontpages (thanks to all 4 of you :-) that I'm a big admirer of Oliver Edwards. In the flyfishing realm, he is as close as I get to a real idol. I’ve enjoyed his articles, primarily in Flyfishing and Flytying for close to 30 years, I think and since I have his signature several times in my 1st edition of his book, I had to buy a working copy.
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I thought we had an FP somewhere on emergency in-the-field repairs for flyrods but I can’t seem to find it. I don’t have pictures so you’ll have to imagine this part.
When I was spending 6 months/year in NZ much of that was backcountry. I would carry two rods that had interchangeable sections. (We can offer that with HTs by the way, and it’s easy if you order both together!). I also carried spare tips (we can do that too!). Why? Because in NZ you fall in often, get washed down rivers, climb in and out of gorges, bush-bash and generally have a lot of adventurous fun.
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Recently a few folk asked me why I choose certain hooks over the ones listed in pattern books for my carp flies, so I thought I'd do a page here with the answer too.
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I was going to write about fly lines and how difficult it can be for the financially-restricted to test them, but yesterday’s airing of a story about grizzlies grabbed my heart and attention.
Forty-seven grizzly bears died in the vicinity of Glacier National Park this last year. Thirty were killed due to interactions with livestock or humans, but many appeared to have suffered from a brain disease similar to prion disease. That is horrendously sad.
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I’m heading to England just before Christmas for a month. That’s a whole month with potentially very little fishing (although I’ll fish for pike of course!). It’s longer than initially planned but return flights to the jungle before Jan 20th were listed at astronomical prices! I do have a lot of work to do and want to catch up with my family there; so it’s no bad thing. I have to build two websites and develop a Master Flycasting course that kicks the arse of the previous one here on Sexyloops. And it will; that was filmed and organised 12 years ago. That’s a long time in this world. Two major differences have happened in this time for me; one is teaching very difficult fly casting while guiding and the other is organising lesson plans for training over 6 month periods. Both of these have changed how I approach my content. And indeed the coaching and learning movement books I’ve been reading and applying, have also been tremendously insightful. What I really want to do is make thorough use of drills and training exercises.
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This week we'll look at one of the more unique patterns in Bubba's repertoire, "The Tan Grizzly Cree With Peach"
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Before Tracy and I head out on a saltwater flats fishing trip I tend to re-read one of the bonefishing books I have in the run up to the departure date. This isn’t really to learn anything new (I’ve read the books many times), it’s more about building excitement in anticipation of the trip and to motivate me to do some fly tying if I need to do so. This time I chose to read ‘Fly Fishing for Bonefish’ by Chico Fernandez.
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I think I’ve written about it before, but all of a sudden golden pheasant has become approximately as hard to get as panda fur. They used to cost jus a few pounds/dollars/kroners. Golden pheasant is a common materials in probably hundreds of patterns, even some Danish saltwater flies, like Omoe-Boersten and Autumn Fly. As as I’ve been told, it’s a result of an import ban (maybe export ban - not sure) on Chinese birds, because of the bird flu.
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There has been enough snowing so we got trails in shape. It has been busy week with guests mostly from Spain. All of them have been amazed about snow and winter. They love it even they have problems with coldness.
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Winter has finally arrived, there's snow and ice in the mountains and as I look at the weather, I'm a bit less bitter about the lack of boat availability.
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I’d been so hypervigilant since COVID hit the world, always wearing a KN-95 mask in public, not eating out, and not attending any gatherings. Being fully vaccinated and with four boosters, I finally let my guard down and attended a Trout Unlimited meeting with some 30 unmasked people. I didn’t want to wear a mask since I’d be meeting new people and letting them know I want to offer some free women’s casting clinics. Four days after the meeting, I felt confident that I’d not gotten COVID, we had lunch with some friends in a restaurant. We also had a couple of service people out to the house, and I went to the dentist. Somewhere in there, I got COVID. So much for letting down my guard. Steve got it from me about a week afterward. Now he’s on the mend and I’m relapsing. What a waste of life.
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This week I’m fishing with Tim Kempton from Australia. Tim is a good friend, who I first met ten years ago over here at the first Malaysian fly fishing gathering. We fished together on that trip and he took the nice Snakehead photo I’m posting today. (Haven’t changed a bit).
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This week we'll start a new sub category of flies in Dr. Tebbetts personal inventory of patterns, "The Grizzlys".
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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a bonefish that fought way above its weight, the Usain Bolt of the species than ran an extraordinary amount of backing. I also mentioned that something happened to my reel during the last few metres of this run that meant I had to manually strip some backing off the reel to avoid over-tensioning the line and possibly breaking the tippet. At the time I thought that perhaps a loop of line had slipped on the spool and was preventing the outgoing line coming off smoothly. I also thought that I’d find this loop when I got home and stripped the reel – actually I was quite looking forward to measuring how much backing was used. However, my immediate concern was in recovering the line, so the issue was quickly buried on my reel as I whisked it at speed to keep in touch with the fish that was now coming back at me. Two days later something occurred that made me rethink what had happened though.
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It’s winter and for many in the northern hemisphere that means it’s time for something else than fly fishing. Further north that me in Denmark, it’s so cold that you definitely can’t fly fish and that another matter. But here in Denmark, that rarely happens and if it does, only for shorter periods of time. That means that we can fly fish year round, unless species are protected for spawning etc. sea trout in the salt and pike and perch fishing is loss I left. But many choose to stay home as they don’t like the cold, particularly in combination with rain, sleet or snow.
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Still not snowing, first groups are coming this morning and winter season is really taking off on Sunday. Ice fishing trip was just distance dream.
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At last I have managed to get enough materials together to start on the classic salmon flies again. I started with an "easy" one, the Kelson version of the Durham Ranger (POD).
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