Fishless In Billericky

Ah well, there you go. Big disappointment, I’m so disappointed I just may have to go fishing again to get over it. God, I hate wind. I have fished in all weathers and made the best of it but wind just does my head in. I don’t mean a gentle breeze I mean a force five or six straight in your face that creates the sort of waves you would be better taking up surfing in. The sort of wind that creates waves that try to knock you over. The sort of wind that finds every little chink in your armour, and whistles through it with glee. And to make it worse it was (apparently) a classic, ‘you should have been here yesterday, they were queueing up to take anything you threw at them, there was hardly a ripple’, etc, etc. Yeah, yeah, now fuck off while I try and get this bloody line out more than twenty feet!. To cap it off  Hanningfield is so low that you have to walk though a hundred feet of mud to get anywhere near the water in the first place.

 Then , as you fish your way along the bank you have to navigate bait anglers intently watching their quiver tip or other anglers tossing toby’s as far as they can!!. I tell you, Britain is going to Hell in a bucket, what is the world coming to? I couldn’t even legitimately sneer at them, they were catching fish, I wasn’t.

 I even resorted to putting a lure on ( Sweeny Todd), I can’t remember the last time I did that. My final flourish was to launch the Woolly Bugger and I have never done that before either.

 On the plus side, Paul turned up (late, what’s new?) along with Steve (congratulations on passing your AAPGAI Provisional), Daniel (long time no see, great to catch up) and Trev (who has promised to show me how to catch huge Bass from the salt next year, obviously a top bloke).

 It then went back down hill again when we tried to buy a takeaway coffee in the cafe and was told we couldn’t. If we wanted coffee in a styrene cup we would have to go to a vending machine… two miles away!

 Hanningfield owes me a shed load of fish and I mean to get them. Pass me the maggots.

Taking A Chill Pill

Well, I feel like writing something… I just don’t know what.

 I am having a chill out day, well deserved after a hard week at work and an even harder weekend before that and as I look out of the window I don’t think I could have picked a better day to have one, it’s blowing a hooey and pissing down, typical autumn weather. I could have been casting at Paul’s  this weekend  and been out in it, so it looks like a wise decision not to go. I am, however, going up to Hanningfield tomorrow to fish with Paul and anyone else who decides to come along. I’m looking forward to that because it is probably the last time I will fish this year. Next year will be something new for me. I intend to fly fish the salt. I have never done it before and I am hoping it reawaken the excitement and enthusiasm for fishing regularly. Of course that will mean buying a few bits and bobs of new tackle, not rods though, I have enough of them to open a shop. I will need a reel that can stand up to salt water so if any of you can recommend a cheap(ish) reel that can handle salt, sand and a bit of a battering ,please let me know. I don’t want a work of art, I want functional.

 It was the last BFCC  meeting of the year last weekend and I was lucky enough to win a couple of events, which makes a pleasant change, check out the news and results section at www.thebfcc.co.uk . I have actually been doing some serious distance practice over the last couple of months and it seems to be paying off. I even hit a new PB of 138′6” a couple of weeks ago, with a five weight. I had thought those days were behind me as I haven’t cast over 130 for at least a couple of years, not with a five weight anyway. It’s nice to know I can still do it if I want to.

 I used to practice several times a week for two or three hours at a time and come in thoroughly knackered. It took a couple of years before it finally dawned on me that I was often throwing my best distances as I got more tired, ie, putting less effort in and concentrating on technique. Now I try to concentrate on making little adjustments here and there and I rarely cast for more than an hour at a time these days, not distance anyway. When I look back I sometimes wonder how I got away with so few injuries. I sometimes had to stop casting for two or three months while tennis elbow, a pulled shoulder muscle or a sore wrist cleared up. I found out the hard way that you should never start again too early after an injury or you are soon back to square one. I don’t get any of that these days, as soon as I feel a twinge I stop. I don’t heal as fast as I used to.

 Ah well, I had better get on with sorting out my gear for tomorrow, who knows, I may even catch something.

Priorities

Perhaps I am in a feisty mood today or maybe I am just feeling a bit cynical. I have had a couple of personal observations that have coincided with one or two conversations recently and I am now of the firm conviction that of the three main components of fly casting (line, rod and technique) the rod is the least important.

 This is not how it appears though, is it? If you read all the hype (and are silly enough to believe it) then the super duper Ex D 200 ultra light weight, high modulus graphite, rolled on the thigh of a beautiful Cuban cigar maker will turn you from a moderate caster into a casting God. Yeah, right.

  I cannot deny that some rods are much nicer to cast than others, but, what suits me may not suit you so you think my choice is a pile of cack, while I am certain your’s is just a waste of good carbon fibre and we try and convince each other of our rods merits. Rods and their actions consumes thousands of pages of magazines and forum debates. Some manufactures rods are so sought after that whenever they bring out a new model their devotees can’t get rid of the old models soon enough so that they can make room for the new model. Can someone explain this to me please.

 Next into the equation are lines. Actually, a decent double taper will fit most river or lake conditions but line manufactures have given us some nice alternatives. But once again there is a lot of hype surrounding some of them. Some, we know, were developed specifically for good casters to maximize their distance. Some were developed to maximize the distance of some not so good casters. Fair enough. I think it’s fair to say that some lines suit some rods better than others, don’t ask me why, it just is. On that basis you are better off  trying to find a line that casts well on your rod than you are trying to find a rod you can cast such and such line with. Cheaper too.

Last into the equation comes technique. The problem here, as I see it, is that it’s the one part you can’t buy. No, it takes a little effort to acquire, and there’s the rub. Human nature being what it is most look for a short cut. They are convinced that the answer lies in the equipment and not with them, or at least they hope it is, God forbid they should have to put a little effort in and actually practice flycasting.

Down The Tube

It’s just occurred to me that I haven’t written anything useful recently. Well you never know, this might not be either.

 Recently on Sexyloops there was a comment that the Five Essentials are really only four, ”The rod tip must track in a straight line” (we call this straight line path btw, or SLP for short) is the objective and all the other ones ( Pause, Power application, No slack and Variable casting angle) are the things that must be done properly to achieve it. I don’t see it like that at all. If you don’t get the rod tip tracking straight in the first place then getting the other’s right won’t save the day, they all have to combine.

 SLP is a confusing concept because it is multi dimensional. We are not just talking about 180 deg back to front we are also talking about creating a horizontal straight line as well, which involves loading the rod appropriately for the amount of line you are casting. To add the confusion horizontal SLP is recognised as an ideal to strive for, in the hope you never quite achieve it, because if you did achieve it the line would just pile into the rod tip. In reality the tip path is always slightly domed and the difference between the top of the dome and rod straight position (RSP), where the line overtakes itself and forms the loop, plus a bit of rod rebound, ie, the bit where the rod tip goes beyond RSP and then comes back again, is the width that the loop will be. Confused? you should be sitting where I am!

 So how do you work out this concept? I try and imagine I am trying to fire a loop down a 24” diameter tube 10′ long, suspended at casting height, without the line touching the sides. Now you can see that if the vertical tracking is out then the fly leg and rod leg won’t be parallel and the fly leg will rub the inside of the tube and if the horizontal SLP is not right you won’t create a loop tight enough to squeeze through the tube.

 OK, I now accept that the Five Essentials do have an order and ”The rod tip must track in a straight line” should be number one on the list but I do not accept that the other four are subordinate to it.

Dagnammit

Oh God, here we go again. I thought I had got distance out of my system, but no, here I am just in from a couple of hours of pure distance work, thats the third time this week. Casting conditions are just about perfect, very slight breeze, pressure dropping and still warm enough to be in shorts and T shirt. To make it interesting I now use three different five weights and lines and have a shootout between them. It has made me revise my opinion on the rods. For instance, I thought the Angel was the fastest of the three but when casting with a long line it bends right through to the butt, you can even feel the cork bending sometimes. The TCR never bends that far, I mean, you can put a very deep bend in it but not to the extent that you feel the cork bend. The Echo UD feels stiffer than both of the others, and heavier, in fact it feels a real brute, but I know it’s pretty well indestructible so I always put the DT on it because I have broken both of the others casting DT’s on them.

 Now, which rod would you think cast the furthest consistently, the big beefy unbreakable Echo which can easily hold up 90′+ of DT. The more subtle but equally powerful TCR or the through action but fast frequency Angel 2TE?

 Surprise, it’s the Angel. With all the rods I was casting mid to high 120’s but the Angel plonked me over 130, twice, one to equal to my old PB and another well over it.

 Now, all I have to do is keep it working for a couple of weeks and the BFCC meeting on the 18th could become quite interesting.

Barrio Outcast

Oh dear, here we go again. I’m out doing distance again.

 I played a very small part in helping Mike Barrio develop a new distance line and I received the final version a couple of days ago. As luck would have it I got home quite early and the weather was perfect to go out and give it a bash. I lined it onto my Angel and went out to see how it cast.

 First impressions are that it a very soft and limp line, which is fine by me, thats how I like my fishing lines. How is stands up to the strain of constant distance we will have to see. I hope it lasts longer than the MED, I used to get through five or six of those a year when I was practicing several hours a week. One of the things that impressed me with the first version Mike sent me was the very positive turnover at all distances, this got lost somewhat in later versions but Mike has got it back in the final one,  the positive turnover is a definite plus in my book. I am not sure of the final configuration but I would guess the rear taper is very long  judging by the loop stability at all distances. My very best effective carry with the MED is 83′ so I was astonished to find I was carrying nearly 93′ of the  Barrio Outcast, and carrying it very effectively.

  I should explain what I mean by effective carry. In distance casting  there is a very fine line between carry that is fully under control and carry that is not under control. A distance backcast has to be under full control for distance casting. One foot too much carry and you lose control and the cast suffers.

 The backcast was into a slight breeze, so even more impressive.

 After a few exploratory casts I started to open up and quickly got to the high one teens, then one twenty and I finally maxed out at 125′. Not bad for a first cast, well bloody good, actually.

 This afternoon I decided to have a head to head with two other rods, a TCR with the MED and the Echo UD with a 90′ DT on it. I didn’t have time to switch lines and rods but the Outcast consistantly outcast both other lines by quite a margin. Distances were down a bit from yesterday, my best was only 121′, but neither of the other lines went past 119′ and were very inconsistent, often not going over 115′. The Outcast turnover was the key, I think. The other lines tended to pile whereas the Outcast turned over cleanly nearly every time.

 The weather looks set fair for the weekend, I intend to mix and match rods and lines and see what happens.

 Mike is hoping to have the line available in a month or so.

The Eyes Have It

Since I have started to try and teach myself left handed fly casting I have been pondering what is the single most important aspect of fly casting that is key to producing the perfect fly cast. For the life of me I cannot say that this or that is the most important because ‘this’ always depends on ‘that’ being right as well.

 I have said for years that a good, dynamic, back cast is the key to a good cast, and so it is, but, what do you have to do to create the perfect back cast? Ooh, let’s see,  perfect pickup or set up from the forward cast (and how do I set that up unless I have made the perfect back cast in the first place?), timing, power application, tracking, correct casting angle for amount of line/power, keeping everything in tension. Cor, look at that, I have just written the Five Essentials, and that’s the crux of the matter. Take one of them away and you have fucked up, to put it bluntly. There is just no way around it, all the elements of the Five Essentials have to be melded together to produce the perfect overhead cast, and most other casts for that matter.

 Before I heard of the Five Essentials my only option was trial and error as a way of trying to sort out (m)any casting problems I had. I fished for twenty five years before I got around to having my first proper lesson. That’s an awful lot of trial and error. If I had bothered to take a few fly casting lesson’s in year one I would have had the tools to work out my problems properly. This is exactly what the Essentials are, they are your tools of the trade.

 Once you have the tools you can set about building your cast. The only other thing you need is eyes. You use those to watch your loops, or your hand, or the rod tip. For Gods sake look at something, don’t just stare vacantly into space as I see a lot of casters do. If you have a problem seeing your back cast open up your stance a bit so that you can glance back without having to contort your neck or twist your body (that can ruin your tracking as you turn forward again).  Learn to read your fly line. Is the loop too open, is it tailing, is the fly leg waving around, are the rod leg and fly leg in plane, are there waves running down the rod leg as the loop moves away from you. Even when the line has hit the ground, or water, you can still read it. Is it straight, has it curved, did it turn over fully or did it land in a heap. All of these things will lead back to one, or more, of the Five Essentials not being performed properly.

 I think I have just answered my own question and created the Sixth Essential.

    Use Your Bloody Eyes.

 Some Essential reading  http://www.sexyloops.com/articles/adjustmentsonthefly.shtml

Or, if you are less picky http://michaelheritage.wordpress.com/2009/02/

The Shootout

I didn’t go to Hungary for the fishing, this time anyway, I went for the casting. Paul had hosted an FFF CCI testing day the previous Tuesday and all the candidates had passed, seven I seem to recall. An amazing strike rate by any standards. Paul only hosted, he did not test. Most of these new instructors, and a lot of others, turned up again at the weekend to take part in a shootout. There were a few demo’s, one of which was mine, then, because a few beginners turned up as well, we had an impromptu instructing session. Mark commented later that wasn’t it amazing how all the caster’s wanted to learn presentation casts. Really? I asked, all mine wanted to learn distance!. I guess that’s what I am best known for so I think Paul and I automatically got the distance freaks while Mark and some of the others got the ones that wanted some finesse. Either way, they were all mad keen to learn as much as they could drag out of us. I certainly learned a few things. I had a lesson in Austrian style casting, very elegant and needs some suptle hand movement to get to work properly, beautiful to watch a master at work. Mine was less than beautiful but I am going to work on it.

 We only used three rods for the shootout because there were twenty, or more, casters and at two minutes each it takes time to get through everyone when you take into account that none of the Hungarians or Croatians had done one before. I was grateful I had done some practice and was casting reasonably well, I even managed to beat Paul on one rod. It’s been a while since that’s happened. There was some pretty impressive casting. One thing did strike me though, all the best (distance) casters there watched their backcast.

 Sunday morning saw some real die-hard distance nuts in the field before I had even got up. When I eventually joined them I strung a tape out and we went into some serious distance work. Boy these guys’ are keen. Even with a language barrier they got it, worked on it and several put out new PB’s and were thoroughly chuffed, as was I. The next time I get into a shootout with any of them I had better be firing on all cylinders or my arse will get whipped.

 So that’s Hungary for you, full of mad fly casters and f****** mosquito’s…and Asp…and rose petal Palinka….beer….wine….unicum…and f****** mosquito’s. Can’t wait for the next time

Itchy and Scratchy

What a weekend. I am back from the first meeting of the Sexyloops Flycasting School in Hungary. What a blast, flycasting, instructing, demonstrating and getting eaten alive by f****** mosquito’s.

 Paul is now based down near the Croation border at Latohegy and has the mighty river Drava running  virtually at the end of his garden. All you need are the wood skills of an Iroquois and the sure footedness of a mountain goat, and the ability to withstand an all out attack by f******  man eating mosquito’s. Of course Paul, Peter and Mark dressed for the occasion, boots, long trousers, long sleeved shirt. I decided that this was manfishing so I was wearing shorts, sandals and short sleeved shirt as I negotiated the hill, woods, stinging nettles and brambles. The f****** mossies were held back in reserve for the main attack later.

 Now, I’m no expert on river’s but the Drava is not the Test. No crystal clear water with the odd rise showing through the trailing ranunculas, no, the mighty Drava is not something I would like to fall into. Dip a toe in the wrong place and you might find yourself getting sucked in and being washed up somewhere in Croatia. We saw evidence that it holds huge Asp, among other things. I say evidence, we never got proof, we were all fishless, but it was exciting, with a few near misses. So exciting in fact that I didn’t notice the first wave of f****** mosquito’s, they soon got my attention though. At one point I didn’t know where my legs started and the f****** mosquito’s began. I am surprised they left me enough blood to have the energy to walk out, fish less, as dusk set in.

 We fly fishers are hard though, we survived to tell the tale.

 More later.

Who am I? What am I?…Where am I?

I’m in a bit of a quandary. I need a bit more involvement with my fly casting certification organisation. I am an FFF certified casting instructor, all well and good. I like their ethos, I have a lot of friends who are FFF, there are online discussion groups and there are lots of resources on their web site. My problem is that, at the moment, they do not have a very big presence in the UK, and, to be honest, in the rest of Europe. They hold regular workshops and an annual conclave, but, they are all in America. I believe this will change as the FFF membership grows in Europe. The trouble is I am not getting any younger and by the time all this comes to pass I may well be in my dotage and ready to be put out to grass.

 As I see it I have three options; wait for the FFF to find it’s feet in Europe; join AAPGIA; work my way through the GAIA system.

 I am not political in any sense of the word but there are some background politics involved with both AAPGIA and GAIA. I don’t really know what they are, I don’t want to. All I want is to do is to be able to teach fly casting without being concerned that one or the other looks on me as being somehow less than they are because I am not a member of their organisation. It’s just ridiculous, it’s not rocket science, the world isn’t going to end tomorrow because I am one or the other, we teach fly casting for Gods sake, not brain surgery.

 I am slightly more inclined towards GAIA at the moment. From what I have seen they have made huge improvements in their certification process. I have seen a qauntum leap in their casting program, which, to be honest was a bit of a joke not so long ago and they appear, from where I stand, to be the ones on the move.

 I have a huge respect for most of the AAPGIA instructors I know and it wouldn’t do me any harm to work my way through their system either.

 Or, I could take my FFF Master’s and use that to help increase the FFF’s profile in Europe. I don’t mean that Mike Heritage becoming a Master would raise the FFF’s profile, I mean that being a Master would allow me to help with certification of CCI’s.

 I hate decisions, but I am going to have to make one soon.