Paul Arden | Tuesday, 28 March 2023
This week part two of my conversation with Bernt Johansson. Part 2 is even better than part 1, I think, and so I hope you enjoy it.
I’m certainly really rather busy with my online flycasting coaching at the moment. I’m actually in danger of this becoming a full time occupation. Which is going to be an interesting decision and is certainly keeping me on my toes right now. A real highlight for me last week, was Willy the “Finfluencer”, :) who I hadn’t seen for almost four weeks, who came back seriously improved. Twenty hours of training since the previous coaching session! It certainly showed and it’s things like that that really make me happy.
Willy had really put the work in and it was a very impressive jump up the flycasting skills ladder. Interesting coincidence by the way: Willy took up fly fishing after reading Stu Tripney’s book, Jungle Blues! If you haven’t read Stu’s book then I can certainly recommend it. It’s basically an enjoyable fishing romp following Stu’s adventures over here, fishing with me in the Malaysian jungle. Which reminds me, I must order his other works!
Anyway, this morning I got a wonderful WhatsApp and Instagram message from Willy, that he has just thrown his first 100’ 5WT distance cast :)))) Outstanding!!
Most of my, let’s call them “flycasting athletes”, :)) like Will, are based in the United States, which, with the current daylight hours and our respective time zones, means that I’m now busy at 6.30 am most mornings. I’m not sure I can take on too many more Americans until the days get longer! But other time zones are really quite easy for me to operate, especially that afternoon slot when it's too hot to fish. So I could probably coach one or two more “athletes”, which should certainly keep me surprisingly busy for the next six months or so!!
Talking of afternoon slots, I had an exciting Zoom meeting yesterday with “Cyclone” Alun. Apparently, Alun experienced not one, but three cyclones on his recent trip to NZ and of course this meant that I had a massive afternoon thunderstorm of my own joining me on the lake. And because of the almost continuous thunder (and accompanying lightning strikes around the boat), the Zoom recording is almost none of Alun casting and virtually all of me wearing my tin hat!!
Anyway it’s all good fun. I’m busy helping Ashly finalise her MBA thesis, which has to be handed in next week - yay!!! I’m hoping to have that cleared in the next few days so that I’m free to fish fish fish. This is a great time of year on the lake and I think it’s going to be fintastic (Willy!).
Have a great week!
Cheers, Paul