Last weekend was the Blenheim Game Fair where the BFCC ran the fly casting competitions over the three days in lovely sunny weather. The entry was the biggest we have experienced to date at an English Fair and we were kept very busy all day, every day. We did manage to socialise in the evenings, though as the weekend progressed the bedtimes got earlier as we were all so exhausted. There were some good aspects to the weekend location as the public certainly found us, in droves, however the space we had was extremely limited so there were several situations where people were actually hit with the backcast – thankfully it was only a bit of fluff! Access to the pontoons was also a little treacherous and muddy so we had to keep a close watch on everyone.
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The move to building rods in Spain has certainly been a complicated road! You may have noticed the distinct lack of marketing in these past months, half year really, and that’s because I really don’t want a waiting list of 150 upset customers. Fortunately we are getting very close now to catching up. We have been delivering rods of course. For anyone who has experienced a particularly long wait then I am giving two Zoom Casting sessions to get to know each other, instead of the usual one. And of course, you might be lucky and win the two week fishing holiday with me on a desert island!
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"I'm an old guy...and I have great memories of the old days. And so maybe my propensity to use old stuff and use old language and such like, has to do with the wonderful memories I have of the old times".
---Flip Pallot
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Tracy and James are at the Gamefair and Chris has just messaged me that they can’t get the Front Page out.
I’m putting my body through some hard training workloads at the moment. The Malaysian Ironman is not very far away now, October 12th. Close enough that I even know the date now!! The reason I do the Ironman is so that I do the training. I’m definitely better prepared this year, so it will be interesting to see how it goes.
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It’s that time of year when new species enter our Scandinavian waters. Not new as in never seen before, but seasonal species. I’m talking about mackerel and sea bass. Both have actually been here for a while, but especially mackerel are really present in numbers now. Both happily take flies in the middle of the day, so if one’s not partial to messing around in a river or on a stony shore, these two species are worth paying attention to.
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On Tuesday I had guiding on our lake. It was warm day, +25 celsius and sunny. I had doubts about fishing and especially how it would be. Water has been warming up quite fast and it makes fish lazy. My hope was to find some active fish from surface.
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Just a quick one from me this week. It's boiling in Japan, a few places were over 40 Celsius this week, luckily we only had 38 here with 90% humidity so Chuck an I took advantage of the clement weather to do a bit of carping.
Chuck came down to my local as it's teeming with fish and an ideal place to get someone started in carping. Chuck has caught the odd one before but more but chance than design. SO we met and headed up the river spotting fish on the way. Actually I didn't fish much, being more interested in getting Chuck onto a fish, I might have made four shots all day, but that was fine.
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The pump arrived by the way, in time. It was dropped off at the chairman’s house, there was no meet up on the banks which was a bit disappointing really, time couldn’t be found. We had six volunteers and the ex-secretary on hand. Armed with iron bars and heavy forks and rakes, and my list of sites to visit.
Previously we had used a Land Rover to move it along the banks, but I decided against driving on the wild grasses and set aside land, unless really needed. We heaved it up over the farm gates and carried it down the track into position, it was an easy 4 man lift, two would have managed. Then the many yards of tubing and the stainless steel hollow lance were shifted up into position.
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That’s right, Tuesday is the first day of the week for me. It’s a bit difficult juggling everything at the moment. There are the Hot Tortugas being built, and keeping on top of that. The new website being developed. All my Zoom students to keep up with, many who appear to be fishing at the moment. There is my own fishing of course; I spent an hour trying to get a decent position/shot at some adults last night and got three resulting follows but no eat (sometimes that happens). And then the big thing right now is the Malaysian Ironman coming up in October.
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Back in August of 2019, I wrote a Front Page about "Fishing Trucks". Almost 5 years has passed sine that FP ran, but this last week, I added a new "fishing truck" to a long list of vehicles that have over the years made it possible for me to explore and expand my angling horizons.
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The Scottish game fair left me a physical wreck upon it's completion. It was busy with casters as predicted in my FP a few weeks back – particularly on the Sunday when I don't think I sat down once after the first competitor arrived, with it being a constant stream of entrants for the daily and championship events thereafter. After three days camping, in very cold overnight conditions, plus being on my feet pretty much all day, every day, my back decided to resign from duties sometime on Sunday afternoon. This was coupled with an unfortunate incident with a donut which somehow caused a massive blood blister to form in my mouth, when popped this resulted in me spitting out blood for well over an hour, in fact I was still tasting it on the very long drive home (which was also agony given the state of my back). Once home, the pain from my back coupled with an intense 'faceache' from the raw blister site, meant I was doubling up on pain killers. So much so that once I started trying to reduce the dosage I suffered from headaches due to the withdrawal. Whilst I was sat in a codeine induced haze I didn't feel like going fishing or even doing any casting practice.
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It happens when you travel that fishing is extremely difficult, that the salmon aren’t running, that the rivers are high to too hot, that torrential rain keeps you off the water, that wind makes a cast impossible. What do you do then? It’s very different from person to person and trust me, I’ve seen people react in both the best and the worst possible ways.
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It’s very exciting; tomorrow the HT9 prototype will be delivered. It’s taken rather a long time to get to me. The first time it was shipped, the courier took it to Germany. How or why they did this I have absolutely no idea.
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Things are totally fucked up. That could be headline for this and same time it could be whole FP almost. Fishery industry is totally fucked up and wrong. That could be the whole FP. Then I could say do your own research. Does this make sense, probably not so I open little bit.
Few weeks ago I watched documentary about fishing industry in Europe, mostly about Baltic sea. I have been following news and rules more or less about 10 years now. It is not effecting my fishing straight but as Finland has part and we have salmon riverd which runs to Bothnia bay which is part of Baltic sea... so I have interest mostly because how we handle things.
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After my FP of two weeks ago I spent a bit of time thinking about how I’d build a pike fly box if I was starting out now. My current box(es) are a bit of a mish mash of colours and styles of fly that have come from years of tying and different trips. And I thought my musings might be of interest or even helpfue.l to someon
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“I know the Willow brook, I’ve visited it and surveyed it. I’ve never come across you Chris but I can tell you this, from all the other waters in ‘my’ region. Your Trout will be breeding from December through to January and maybe even into February. There’s no rush, I’ll bring you the pump later in the year when we have used it on other projects. And giving it to you is not that simple anyway, I can’t just let you lose with it. Firstly I need to demonstrate how you can use it and make sure you know what your doing, and then I’ll have to select for you a few sites where you can then try and clear the gravel this year. I don’t have the time at present and you’re not getting it without supervision!”
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This week’s Masterclass is a two-parter. Part one is for beginners explaining that they need to learn to control line shoot in addition to the first video. The second part is something which I consider high Intermediate or even Advanced Level. I rarely teach it until later on in my Zoom courses. At this level it’s more about sharing ideas anyway, but recently I’ve found myself teaching it more and more, for competition casting and saltwater shots, as well as the Snakehead Shots where it is essential.
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Many times in my Front Pages here on Sexyloops, I have referenced my enduring friendship with Jesse Alonzo. Jesse and I first met in 1994 where we were co-workers at a local financial institution. Over the years, we have fished together, deer hunted together, and shared more than a few glasses of good whiskey together.
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Another highly exciting FP from me today. I’m in the middle of moving the boat, following a bee invasion. I’ve mentioned this before but bees love socks. If you don’t want bees in your boat then I would suggest leaving your socks at home. Why bees love socks I can only guess. Normally these invasions only occur in the Dry Season, February and March appear to be their favourite month for socks, so I was quite surprised to experience a fully coordinated invasion today… July I think it is.
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I’m covering unexpectedly for the Viking today. At short notice he got called away to go on a rampage. I was planning on putting up a video this week on rod spine. I need to check a couple of details first however because I don’t want to say something that is only true in my mind and not in reality! So that will be next week. In fact I now plan three videos for next week, and one will be quite technical. So that’s something exciting to look forward to.
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Last week was long days as we were building new fence around field. Field has been renewed this summer and grass is just 2 inches or so.. and we have 100 reindeer around. If reindeer hit that 2,5 hectare field... byebye. And as having long days last Friday came suddenly.. And I had appointment with doctor, important one as my driving licence was getting old in one week. When you have driving license for truck, it means that when you turn 50yrs you need doctor's check that you are able to drive. And then it will 5 more years. With regular license you can drive without check until 60 yrs.
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With temperatures rising to the high 30s this week it looks like we're getting to the end of a rather weird and over-long rainy season. More stable conditions should be ahead of us for the rest of the summer. Monday saw us getting some of those conditions, 38 degrees and wind of 1-2 m/s forecast after several similar days. So we decide on a night session in on the tubes.
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On a stunningly beautiful day of late summer with Spring long passed by. It’s mid-morning by the Willow brook banks, here, under a sky that’s as one that stretches out over Marge and Lisa, Bart and Homer, broken occasionally with the fluffy white clouds over Springfield. A Matt Groening image, a blue Simpson’s sky here in Fotheringhay, with barely a breath of air.
But modern cultural references are like that for me, it’s never a Constable sky; a Turner sky; a Canaletto sky.
Threatening, over dramatic and dark; that’s a Spielberg sky.And on that day in question, my favorite of all, a Simpson’s sky. And with that recognition a jangling funny little theme tune plays in my head, it’s smile inducing.
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All Sexyloops fly rod orders should be complete this week. Wow. I know; it’s been a while. We do have something exciting however and we have worked out how to build rods so that accidental breakages can be replaced without having the rod, or ferrules, retuned to us at the EU factory. It costs more money to do this, because it takes more time. It’s very exciting and one headache removed. Unfortunately this will only apply to new orders with the special X serial numbers and not our previous rods, which we will still have to have retuned (apart from the rod tips of course, which always fit).
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Jack and I spent the day yesterday chasing Redfish with Captain Freddy Lynch. In spite of the fact that we were angling in the approaching shadow of Hurricane Beryl, the fish were plentiful in the Laguna Madre.
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This weekend James and I have been casting at the Scottish Game Fair in Scone Palace near Perth. We are running the fly casting competitions there and as usual James and the other volunteers and instructors have been casting lots of different outfits around hosting the public. As I write this, James and Chris (Avery) are both casting, one on the grass with a single handed rod and the other on the pontoon with a double handed outfit. There are other casters taking it in turns too and some have been practising on the accuracy event. There quite a bit of alcohol involved too.
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The Norwegian salmon rivers are closed. Not that it directly affects my own fishing as such, I’ve been to Scotland and Norway already, si I’ve really no holiday left from work to spend on fishing vacations. If the rivers in Norway open again later, who knows, I might be able to sneak in a long weekend at the end of August. We’ll see. It’s summer - a good fishing one, actually, Temperatures are moderate and there’s plenty of rain. Much to the regret of my family, I enjoy rain - as long as it’s not torrential. It helps keep the temperatures in the rivers down, even though it also makes them rise to unfishable levels.
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I’m way way down the lake looking for freerisers. Unfortunately there is a huge Orang Asli camp where I wanted to fish, so I’ve come to another remote bay; one of my favourites actually. There were snakehead rising here this morning but mostly small. Hopefully I will find some bigger ones this evening, otherwise we’ll move the boat again tomorrow.
It’s been a strange year; a good start with two 6+KG Toman, a decent Gourami a few weeks ago, but the last few months have been very odd indeed, first with very high water temps with Mika was over here, and now temps that are lower than normal…! WTF?!
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Another week of the weather screwing us over here. It's been years since I fished so little. Chuck and I were gearing up to hit the lake around 3am and fish through till lunch on Monday, but by midnight we had 20m/s winds and there was no way we were going to get the tubes out in that! Things are getting a bit frustrating to say the least.
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By July typically, I will have caught and released something like 100 to 200 Trout from the Brook, over half of them will have been scale sampled and measured from nose to the forkof the tail, to gain clues into the growth rates, and offer possible enlightenment on the strange and mysterious tales of the Trout population. This focuses my attention somewhat on the age dynamics, noting anomalies, while creating a series of, What’s; Why’s; and How’s? To exercise those little grey cells. Questioning possible bottlenecks in the system that may be dealt with in future years with the addition of some blood, sweat and, trees, or parts of them at least.
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This week’s video is following up on the original masterclass video of the Pickup and Laydown from back in the past. I wasn’t very impressed with it to be honest. There are some interesting things in there perhaps for working on this cast but I don’t go down this line with beginners nowadays and certainly not in the first lesson! Anyway I explain that in today’s video and why. After this I add a better PUALD drill.
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“I simply don't go to the flats or into the mangrove world without one or both of these.”
---Chico Fernandez
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