Time Pressure

The most important thing is the casting practice. I do practice regularly anyway, but I change things up before a trip, to focus on what I expect to be doing. I might have written about this before, but for flats trips I continue with my usual drills for distance and quick shots, but I change up my accuracy practice quite a lot. On these DIY trips where I'll be exclusively wade fishing I'm unlikely to make a shot of more than about 60 feet, because that's about as far as I can realistically see a fish. I'm also going to need to cast in various directions and maybe make a backhand delivery all in a limited time frame. So rather than standing blasting out a full line in the same position, I get some little cones and scatter them around a 100ft square. I then walk through the square at a slightly-faster-than-fishing pace and try to present to every cone of a certain colour as I go. I keep my shots from about 20-70ft and limit myself to 1 false cast. When I get to the other end of the square, I turn around and walk back, targeting all the cones of a different colour. I'm not trying to hit the cones, I like to "lead" them like they are fish, I pick the direction before I start each pass. i.e. on the first pass all the cones are swimming left to right, on the next they're swimming right to left. That way I can't cheat myself on a bad shot. I do this until I've done each colour a couple of times and I always walk a different direction through the area. This is an excellent way to practise the type of shots needed for a DIY flats trip. It forces you to change direction, cast with, into and across the wind at a range of distances. I'd like to squeeze in a couple more sessions at this than I think I'll have time for but even 2 or 3 is better than nothing. The other thing that I like to refresh is Paul's snakehead shot, although you're not going to make it in the same way without a popper, if you need a quick second shot or your fly is for some reason already in the water it's a fantastic tool for the job.

Aside from that it's all the usual, checking reels cleaning lines etc. This isn't that time consuming so it's easy to fit in. The main issue is tying, my crabs are good to go probably, but I'm definitely short of biggish shrimpy things. I'm not sure how many big scruffy squimps I can get in the box before I go, but if the fishing is good, I'll need a few because the yellowspots and brassies love them. Not to mention they won't survive an encounter with a trigger whether I catch the fish or not. Last trip I ran out and I'd not like that to happen again. So aside from work, it's picking up dumbbell eyes and getting behind the vice.