Mika Lappalainen | Friday, 27 March 2026
Heat wave is still on here. On daytime around +5 celsius and nights barely 0 celsius. It has been some rain also. Only good thing is a wind, it has been slowing down snow to melt. We had last charter flight groups on Monday. Friday we still have one group for reindeer sleigh ride.
Our trails are still surprisingly on good even great shape. Hard work and knowledge when and what to do seems to pay off sometimes. We still have about 50-60 cm good ice, yet it might be gone too early. End of next month we have this group coming again on their ice fishing event. Fingers crossed.
You often hear said that fish don't care if your casting is not good. That's not totally true as you can easily destroy spot with poor casting. They also say that fish will be final judge if your fly is good or not. And that is totally true.
And on that case it doesn't matter if your fly is tied as perfect imitation or not. Is it beautiful and everyone is like wow, what nicely tied fly. Those things are mostly for people. Of course it does help that it has some basics right, proportions, shape and colour. Yet if not, it won't make it a bad fly and you won't catch a fish.
I haven't been tying for long time, might be even few years sice last session. I got some excellent flies which are working great, nice looking, tied to last etc. TZ has done great flies and is still doing. And I do have lot of flies to use and always getting some more from there and there.
Two years ago I got to know M-fly. I think it is Stefan's variation (invention). It is not truly something extremely new, it just have different approach for mayfly imitation. It is really good fly. It is not ugly when someone who can tie, do it. My first versions are little different. I think, my M-fly varitions are exactly what M stands for.
Well fish will be judge if those are good or not. I have set up tying table and have been sitting two evenings there now. I notice that I don't have hooks for dries and missing some materials so I ordered those as we don't have flytying material anymore in our local shop.
I noticed also that it is difficult to stop tying when you start, time disappears, just like when fishing. And it all seems to come back slowly, last ones start to look like flies. I'm really enjoying tying also and hopefully can start casting really soon as I want to be ready when season starts.
I have one material which I still have little. I need to get more of that one, yet won't get from shops. It requires my own actions on coming evenings, after clocks are moved... Some schedules goes with light.
It will be interesting to see what final judges will say about those flies. I'm looking forward to that judgement day. I do have some weeks to tie and improve my technique, not only tying but also casting.
Have a nice weekend and go fishing
Mika