Daily Cast Archive

“It is a little disappointing to see that your legs are not as strong. But I like the idea of growing old, and the thought of approaching death is not particularly daunting to me.” – Francis Ford Coppola

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This weekend James and I are running fly casting competitions at the Ragley Game Fair. It's been a few days of drinking and casting with friends, however we have had a few issues. The first night everyone got hammered so Friday morning was a little chaotic, as James and others were a bit worse for wear. Then our car died on Friday and we had to call the AA – that was fun trying to explain our location in a field by a lake in the middle of nowhere! On Saturday afternoon our marquee blew over, inverted and landed on one of other members marquee and car! Hopefully it didn't do too much damage to them however out marquee will have to be scrapped. It was amusing initially when I saw all the team suddenly run off down the field to our camp site to 'rescue' the marquees whereas I had to stay put to guard the casting gear. So I'm hoping Sunday will be disaster-free.

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I was passing around a dad-joke to Paul and our former FP-writer, Matt Klara. I’ll spare you the joke, but it was the question: “What do you call salmon fishing?” Matt had a good reply - almost as good as my dad-joke reply. He called it casting practice. It sometimes feels that way. Salmon really can be the fish of a thousand casts. That made me think about about August salmon and a compromise I sometimes make.

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Sunday, driving from Tornio, Finland to Kraddsele, Sweden, 430 km. Late start, party on Saturday was great and included some beer. I'm driving, rain and bad driving weather all the long, except last 20 km when some sunshine. Weather has been rainy some days up on the mountains and water level has risen a lot. Forecast promises less rain during the week.

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I had an interesting discussion recently about carp flies, the popular patterns and what makes a good one. Being something relatively new, there's been a bit of a flurry over recent years with some good developments and some not so good.

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I’m covering for the Jungle Dude today. As usual he writes: “Hey - can you cover for me today, my head’s not working!”. And he usually does so about half an hour past dead line. He’s a bit under the weather from a long run, so I’ll be talking about stocked fisheries. They are common in most parts of the World, I think. They are also frowned upon by many, more on some parts of the World than others. Not by me - I think they are beneficial for many reasons. There are big differences in the quality of the fisheries, of course. There are some I’d never bother visit, others that I really enjoy

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This is an interesting topic, that I thought I would delve into and give you my opinions. Firstly, while like me, you probably think of me as being a young stud, who’s just coming into his prime, the truth is that I have actually been around the block a few times, and have been fly fishing for over 40 years. And let me tell you, 40 years ago the fly line market was very different from today. Basically we had the AFTM table which actually meant something and flylines were either DTs or quite simple WFs with 30-40ft heads.

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“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” Mark Twain

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I'm writing this as we are traveling back from a very wet BFCC meeting. The turnout wasn't great, but a hard core BFCC members turned up and although most of us got drenched, we had a pretty good day. The venue was easy to find and was very close to the river Avon. We started with the distance casting events with the aim to get through before the heavy rain started, but sadly it started much earlier than expected and didn't stop. There were only a few of us who entered the comps and we decided to not bother setting up or running the accuracy event.

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As most of you might know it’s been our plan to take Sexyloops to “an ocean near you” and consequently it’s long been my focus on a Sexyloops yacht. Short of piracy, or building a Kon-Tiki raft, the obvious plan was to build a better fly rod. And so ten years ago, we started doing just this. As a result of the development of my on-line flycasting coaching via Zoom and Snakehead guiding trips here in the Malaysian Jungle, the Hot Torpedo side of things is now a standalone business that I don’t have to dip into. Finally! And so what this means is that we can start saving for the next adventure.

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This week has been reindeer herding. One short moment fishing at our lake, some rises no catch. It has been also rainy weather, I have spent more or less 200 km per in the car, just to herd reindeer. Yesterday we picked up our new family member, (mama) Killa, she is Lapponia herder, reindeer herding dog. Her grandfather is our first Lapponian herder Koda. Killa arrived exactly one year after his grandfather passed away. Funnynworld. Mamma Killa is goddess of Moon in Inca culture.

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Well, there's no weird temporal shift going on here and I'm still Thursday this week. There's not been much happening. The rain seems to be over and it's got hot, really hot- 38-41 degrees so far this week with humidity in the 80s!  

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Coming towards the end of Declan and my stay with Paul, we headed up towards the top end of the lake, getting ready to make the trip back home. We still had a week or so left. Declan and I had a bit of a dry spell with the fish, unable to land anything in the boat for a week. Things had to turn around soon!!

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Todays FP is tomorrow and tomorrow’s FP today. So if you are planning for something on Wednesday, then today it is. And everything that should be happening today, will of course occur tomorrow. Thursday is still looking good at this time. The reason for us entering this universal time shift, is because I drove yesterday for a swim coaching lesson in Kuala Lumpur. A ten hour lightning fast drive (5 hrs each way) for a one hour lesson. It was worth it, but I was also left thinking that 11 hrs of Zoom lessons might be a more effective use of my time! I like driving but that’s wasn’t really the objective yesterday.

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I used to play 36 holes a day when I was playing in tournaments. The first 18 I would play on the practice tee in my head. I would hit every shot I needed to play (when I was on the course) until I could really hit it right. Then I'd get called on the tee and I'd play my other 18 on the course. I did it every day, and I got up early to do it. ---Ben Hogan

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James and Tracy are away this weekend and this will be a quick one from me. I’m just dashing up the lake, full steam, weekends are getting pretty serious occasions for training at the moment. On Saturdays I have my ridiculously long indoor Zwift rides. And today I’m planning a 20Km Zone 2 run. Tonight or tomorrow morning early, I head down to KL for some swim coaching. 12 weeks to Ironman. Nothing I have ever done in life has ever been quite as focussing as IM. Ok… Giant Gourami – that’s approximately the same level of focus and dedication. Talking of which I pinged one last week on termites. Barstool.

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There are a lot of things you can do to improve your fishing - and not least your fishing comfort on a long day out. One of them is of course the proper gear. The right rod for the day, the right line(s) for the day, good waders (they tend to stay water tight for longer). The right flies, the right leaders and leader material and the right reel for the day. Writing this out, I think it’s obvious to most readers why fly fishing can look daunting to get into. Don’t buy all this at once. Get started with some general tackle (ask someone experienced) and slowly add on.

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So I am running late as usually. The whole week has been a mess. This morning I had to jump almost straight from bed to rescue reindeer and move the others. And all of that end up catching one from forest and searching reindeer killed by death (bear). Sunday was a great day. We went fishing with Thomas. Spot was something that Satu wanted to fish and it is nice spot with decent fishing. No hatching but we all fished with dries and surface.

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Well, the tripletail trip wasn't what I was hoping for. In fact, no tripletail fishing took place. We arrived and there was barely a breath of wind and the forecast was for similar the next day with only a slight increase on the third, but by the time we'd got to our hotel the breese was picking up and the next morning when we met the guide it was already too windy to go offshore.

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Southwest Montana has been trout fishing mecca for many years, but that is changing. The normal number of fish per used to be 1,800 to 2,000, according to Guy Alsentzer, executive director of the Upper Missouri Waterkeeper. Now is it is 400 to 500. This week, the Montana FWP (Fish, Wildlife & Parks) started studies to look into the reasons for the decline. It is a multi-factorial problem: Over fishing, insecticides used on crops in the surrounding farmlands (including those sprayed on seeds like nicotinamides that only wash off and do nothing for the plant), nutrient pollution, more intense heat, lower snow packs, and “understudied diseases.” Alsentzer said, “The big notable issue this year is the idea that we have no recruitment of what are call young of the year. Which is to say the spawning class of the young fish. If we don’t have population recruitment, it means we’re going to have a crashing population number.”

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I managed to escape down the lake for a short trip. If Elon Musk would hurry up and get his Starlink program up and running over here, then I could fish down the lake AND give lessons. But at the moment it’s either fish up the lake and give lessons, or down the lake and not give lessons. And if I do go down the lake and not give lessons, when I come back up the lake, then I’m giving lessons all the time and not fishing! :D

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About 9 weeks ago I fractured my right ankle coming down stairs of my shop. Thankfully it didn't require any surgery, and is just about fully healed. The experience did however remind me of a childhood angling adventure that as Flip Pallot would say is "burned forever into the pages of my memory banks"

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Tracy and I have had a busy couple of weeks, firstly with a BFCC meeting in Cheshire and then a trip to Scone Palace in Perthshire for the Scottish Game Fair, with some fishing added on the trip up. Things don’t really get any less busy in the coming weeks either with a BFCC meeting arranged for the 22nd of July near Bath in the south-west and then the English Game Fair weekend later in the month at Ragley Hall in the midlands on the 28th-30th (although we have to arrive a day early in order to get set-up).

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I’m not entirely sure that “paying it forward” is the right term, so I’ll stick to “passing it on”. Do you pass on fly fishing to others? I remember many years ago (20 years ago, in fact), Paul and I were at the British Fly Fair together. We slept in a tent at the fair grounds - a completely useless and out-of-context fact. At one point we were standing inside, I had just finished a casting demo and Paul had met one of his old friends. There we were, chatting away and Paul and his friend, whose name I don’t remember, were talking about old times. You know, when everything was better. Paul’s friend remarked: “Hey, Paul - do you remember when we were the young lads in this game?” Looking around at the guests I couldn’t help but say: “Hey guys - you still are!” They say its’s hard to get youngsters interested in fishing, because video games, internet and computers are more appealing to them. I think to an extent that’s true, but one thing I *know* to be true is that fishing is just as appealing to youngsters now as it’s always been. The challenge lies in getting them out there. But it’s so important that we do so. They are the ones that will be taking care of the rivers when we’re old enough to realise that we’re no longer the young lads in the game.

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I have been fishing with the same cap for years. I had that for one tv-shooting as the brand was a sponsor. Since then I have been fishing with the same cap, except late autumn when I have a warmer one. Last year Satu pointed out that it has a smell, it has never been washed. It is my fishing cap, I can't take the risk that something will happen for fishing if the cap is washed or changed.

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Disappointingly rainy season seemes to be having a last hurrah here, just around my days off too it's been glorious when I've had to work. I'm not exceptionally put out though, much as I wanted to fish I haven't been very good at getting ready for next week's trip to Hamamatsu for tripletail.

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Explore, learn, grow, become. That is what SL members are on about. Well, most anyway. Some leaders of the casting organization of which I’m a part are toying with the idea of mandatory continuing education to maintain casting certification. While it will be an administrative PITA (pain in the arse), it might be a good idea. It would elevate the status of certification, encourage continuous learning and a higher level of professionalism. Not everyone who obtains a certification keeps up with their casting or coaching/teaching methods. That’s like a dentist who obtained certification in 1970 who hasn’t updated his/her knowledge or equipment since. Would you have respect for that dentist? I’ve also seen people use the opportunity to be mentored to improve their own casting skills for cheap or free and then never instruct or mentor others. Instead, they used the acquired initials to market themselves. I would hope that requiring continuing education might help solve these problems. There will be many administrative issues to resolve if mandatory CE moves forward, such as what qualifies as CE, how to verify attendance/participation, how to deal with those who lapse, or even how to deal with those who are unable to teach anymore for medical reasons. There’d be many issues, but it only takes a little investigation into how it’s done elsewhere to come up with solutions.

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So that’s good news. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of one, so instead here is a photo of me. I’m thinking of growing a beard. And I have found two new gourami territories – they change annually, I’ve discovered – and there are a few snakehead babies around and some free-risers too. So that’s all very exciting. I have lessons booked for the next few days but I’m going to try to keep a few days completely clear this week for fishing. Full days of fishing and not just a few hours here and there.

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The really good fishermen I know are NOT patient fishermen. From the VHS video, Bass Fishing Top To Bottom with Rick Clunn, 1982.

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James and Tracy are at the Scottish Game Fair with the BFCC and apparently they are in an Internet black hole. So I’m back!! Yesterday was my long in-boat bike ride. Once a week I have a long Zone 2 endurance indoor bike ride. Yesterday was a relatively “short” 4 1/4 hrs. The bike fit has certainly made things less painful, but four hours on an indoor bike, in what, for all purposes, is a floating sauna, is always draining. I couldn’t imagine running a marathon afterwards. In fact I don’t think I can imagine riding 180km on an indoor bike.

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It’s been a busy week of coaching for me and next week looks very busy too. That will teach me to go to KL for 5 days!! Big improvement today for one of my students. Today was a 170 day! Always a good one. A lot of FPs from me at the moment and I’m running out of stuff to write :))) And I have to go swimming now and a long bike ride shortly after. So I’ll send you to the Board!

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