Waving a Stick

Waving a Stick : On the Move

2011-06-12T17:45:00.000+02:00

Pfewwwww.......
After lots of slaving behind the computer I am proud to announce the birth of my own website!
I have been getting more and more requests from people asking me to build a rod for them.
This made me decide to take the plunge, make the next step and start up a small business as a rodbuilder.

and here it is: vanderMeer Flyrod Desgin

I will be making rods on custom order and only use the best materials and components.
If you are looking for a rod that is perfectly suited to a specific purpose, let me know and I will help you make that dream become a reality.

The website isn't a 100% ready but, I want to make it public now anyway.
Having my own website also meant I had to make up my mind about what to do with this Blog.
I decided upon moving the whole thing and make it become an integral part of the website.
The nest few weeks I will be spending some time trying to move the archive on this Blog over to its new residence.
For now click on the link below. It will guide you to the NEW home of this Blog and will also be your first entry to the rest of my website.
http://www.vandermeer-flyroddesign.com/vanderMeer_Flyrod_Design/Blog/Blog.html

For those of you who Follow me on Twitter: just keep following me, I won't change a thing about that. I will still be tweeting for dear life from the same account.

Allright. That's it. Try the link and I hope to see you all there!

Cheers,
Rudy

Cleavage

2011-05-22T10:48:00.002+02:00

I went out for a quick trip with the floattube yesterday afternoon. First time out in the mutated rubber duck by the way.... The sun was shining and there was not a cloud to be seen. When I arrived at the water my initial thoughts about today's fishing were confirmed. No surface activity. I decided to show the fish some cleavage to wet their appetite. Tied on a pink Boobie and fished it static on an intermediate line. The end result: 3 fish caught (around 1 kilo), a few long distance releases and quite a few nibbles...

Don't you just love it?

2011-05-18T00:13:00.001+02:00

I learned a lot this weekend. On saturday I attended the small fair at trout lake "De Ronde Bleek" to show my rods to the world for the first time. I got some nice response on the rods and learned a great deal about what works best for me as a way to promote the ideas I have about the things I make.
Apart from that I met a lot of nice people and I the reception and hospitality of the owners of "De Ronde Bleek" - Jan and his wife- was great. After the fair I fished for an hour or so and hooked but missed a fish on the dry fly. Next morning I also tried my luck for an hour with buzzers and a slow sinking line, before I took the drive over to Germany to fish on the river. Even though I caught no fish I think I will be back to fish De Ronde Bleek for real one of these days.

Back to the river a was also at two weeks ago. I started with checking out a part of the river on which I had never fished before. Apart from spotting some brook trout and scaring the living daylights out of a few carp (yep, spooked them), I didn't find any active fish. Casts under the overhanging branches with various dries didn't work. In fact it worked so bad that I even considered nymphing.
In the end I decided not to and try my luck on another part of the river.

After relocating to another stretch I finally found a few fish which were picking flies of the surface every now and then. On the first stretch I saw a lot of different insects.
Rhodani spinners, Soldier beetles, a few bibio's lots of midges, baetis muticus duns were taking off, sand flies and so on. But over on the second stretch It was just muticus duns and sand flies.
A cast in a small hole between the branches and a downstream drift (upstream was impossible) with an imitation to represent the B. muticus ended in a rise to the fly, a hook-up and.... a straightened hook.
Needless to say, the fish stopped rising.
A bit upstream from this fish I found a shallow pool were I saw some fish moving into position at the tail end and start rising. Small duns were floating on the surface and I saw a couple of fish a bit further up making splashy rises ("aha! sedge hatch !", I thought.)
The fish closer to me were clearly working on the small baetis duns I had also seen.
Because off the shallow water (about 20 cm deep) I got a very good at the way the fish reacted to my offerings. The shallow water also meant that the trouts window of perception was very small which called for some very accurate casting. On the first few drifts my fly started dragging after about 10cm.
With some fancy casts I managed to lengthen that to about a meter which was more than enough to get a drag-free drift over the fish. But low and behold.... nothing happened with the dun. Tried an emerger for the same species, with exactly the same result. A few fish had a look at the fly but rejected it at the last moment. For me an excellent example of the importance of presenting the fly in the right way.
A fly that dragged within the trouts window, was completely ignored.
A fly that didn't drag got a good look, but was rejected; both the dun and the emerger.
After another splashy rise from one of the fish further upstream, I tied on Gary LaFontain's Emergent Sparkle pupa and cast it at one of the fish at the tail of the pool. The fish locked on to the fly as soon as it landed, let it drift over its head and grab it at the very last moment it was in its sight.
The fish was a good 30cm and turned out to be a brook-trout. My first one on this river.
Nice. I caught another two fish in the pool, also on the Emergent sparkle pupa.

In the evening I caught another two fish, both on a small (size 18) baetis spinner. I saw the fish rising gently, sipping up something that was not visible. I gathered it must a spinner. Both fish took on the first drift over their head making the catch a very pleasurable experience.
Like Hannibal from the A-team used to say:"I love it when a plan comes together!"

Small update

2011-05-11T16:28:00.001+02:00

For those who didn't already know it I am in the proces of starting up a small business as a rodbuilder.

vanderMeer Flyrod design

All the official papers have been signed, mr. Taxman already send me a letter to say Hi an tell me how glad they are that I am going to make them some money. A website is in the making and I will be attending my first fair this Saturday at De Ronde Bleek in Sterksel. I will be showing my latest builds and give everyone who's interested a chance to cast the rods, ask questions etc. etc.
More info can be found here

Just had some fun casting an 8 ft. #3 as research for my next rodbuilding project (lets just call it operation creeks&small streams, to keep the theme going).
The rod I tested, is a CTS Affinity MX 8ft 3wt. I build (allmost) al my rods on CTS blanks. In my opinion they make some of the best blanks in the world. After a while making short cast, some presentation stuff and rollcasts I ended up distance-casting....
Completely pointless (that's not what this rod is meant for) but a lot of fun.

Attractors

2011-05-04T00:26:00.000+02:00

I went out to my local troutwater on Saturday and had a realy nice time with Chris and we even caught some fish (five in total, between the two of us). Three of those fish were caught within 10 minutes during what you could call a hatch if it wasn't a big exaggeration of what was going on.

Let's just say that the fish were actively feeding on the surface for half an hour tops.

Chris and I had a little chat about what to do between hatches. We, snobs as we are would rather not dig out the streamerbox so we decided on fishing attractors is much more fun.

So, sunday morning I decided I should stock on attractors and tied up a few classics.

The flies in the picture above are the famous Royal Wulf (bottom left) and Gary LaFontains Double Wing pattern (top right). There's actually a lot to tell about the double wing, which I will do some other time.

Oh yeah, sunday afternoon I went back to the water and tried to attract some of the resident rainbows.

But nothing much happened. A stiff breeze and an upcoming change of the weather (cold) probably put the fish down. In the end one fish devoured my hopper and broke me off.

It's all fishing.

Operation Stillwater - first pics

2011-04-26T10:08:00.000+02:00

After a lot of hard hard work and even more thinking an tinkering: The first few pics!

...a bit about the rod: This rod is a finished prototype for a rod-series specifically suited to fishing on reservoirs. When I started thinking about this rod the general idea was that I wanted to build a rod that is fun to fish. Not an overly stiff broomstick, but a rod that makes you wonder where that big smile on your face just came from!
A nice progressive bend, built with quality components and a classy look were the three key elements.

The rod is build on a blank from the boys and girls at CTS. In my opinion they build the best blanks in the world. I decided upon a length of nine and a half feet.

The extra 6 inches can make a lot of difference when you're fishing whether it's from the bank, the floattube or boat. The rod in the pics is a 6-weight but can also be build on a 5 or 7-weight blank if that's what your looking for.

If you are interested in the rod or have a question, send me an e-mail (wavingastick@gmail.com) or send me a direct message @wavingastick on Twitter.

Spring is here!

2011-04-25T07:49:00.002+02:00

Here's a few pictures from fishing together with a few friends earlier this week.
In the morning the fish were cruising high, but nothing was hatching. We did see some flies floating by which might or might not be alder flies blown onto the water by accident. Even though there is some debate about whether or not these flies are on the trouts menu we gave it a shot anyway. I tied on a pattern that roughly fitted the ballpark and mimicked the struggle of the insect with a small twitch every now and then. As it turned out, this was a very successful tactic. The first two fish I caught made a bow wave in the surface and devoured the flies.
Even though it was a bright and sunny day there was a half hour when I caught the biggest fish of the day on a small black midge emerger during the sparsest of hatches. A 1,5kg fly that decided to tear of my whole flyline and quite a bit of backing. This doesn't happen very often on this water. The fish give you a nice fight, but this fish was very strong. One to remember and hopefully the first of many longlasting memories for the 2011 season.

Who Knows...

2011-04-14T00:01:00.001+02:00

Went out for a quick and unexpected short trip this Sunday.
My brother in law wanted to go out and fish with a flyrod for the very first time in his life.
So on Saturday evening we went out into a field where I gave him a quick rundown on how to cast the flyrod and let him have a crack at the basic overhead cast and the rollcast.

When we were out on the water the next day, I noticed my brother in law having some trouble with the overhead cast and saw him naturally switching to the rollcast.
The whole experience made me think back of my first times out on the water with a flyrod and all the hundreds of tangles I had to untangle before I could finally get the fly where I wanted it to be.
But anyway, it was also clear what a great cast this rollcast really is.
It allows you to think about and there's lots of room to explore the strengths and weakness of your own technique and it very quickly lets you concentrate on the fishing.

I drove home with the reminder how good a practice-move it is to practice this cast. Because you only need to think about the flyline going forward, you can really zoom in and focus one of the many elements of which the cast itsself is made of.

That "breaking it down, zoom in and focus" - thing will be my mantra for the next casting practice sessions.
Give it a go as well, I think you will find many great and not-so-great things there.

And did I catch any fish?
Well, I did actually. The first rainbow on a dry fly for this season. Just over a kilo. Yeah Man :-)

the Five Essentials - part four & five

2011-03-23T21:21:00.002+01:00

Shame on me! It's been almost 3 months since my last entry. But that's all about to change.

There's a new season with lots of things to do and lots of things to see.

Today I will talk about the last essentials. And Heck... I 'll even give you an extra one for free!!

Essential nr. 4: The Casting stroke.

First of all a definition. The casting stroke is the motion in which you apply force to the line in order to generate a loop. This all may sound a bit technical, but to just say that we are talking about a cast isn't a 100% correct. For now, we'll forget this and stick to the subject; the Casting stroke.

The size of the Casting stroke is generally determined by the length  of the line to be cast.

Now, what does this all mean? Quite a lot actually. You constantly need to adjust the length of the casting stroke to the amount of line that is outside of the rodtip.

Remember this: Short line short stroke, long line long stroke.

I remember a drawing of this concept when I was learning the basiscs of the flycast. I will try to explain the mechanics: 60 feet of flyline weighs considerably more than 30 feet.

Asuming that you make a well executed cast, the rod will bend deeper against 60 feet than against the weight of the 30 feet. If you don't adjust the casting stroke, you will deviate from the all important Straight line Path and thus ruin your cast. Not good and no fun at all.

The key to good loop formation is to match the size of the casting  stroke to the amount of bend in the rod This is known as a Variable Casting  Stroke.

Essential nr. 5:
There must be a Pause that may vary in duration at the end

of each back cast and forward cast stop.
After making the cast you need this Pause to let the loop straighten. If you start the cast before the line is full straightened you will lose tension and not load the rod properly and the whole cast goes to bust.

A longer length of line needs a longer pause than a short line etc.

Easy to grasp, but difficult to execute perfectly.

Use these ingredients to make a smooth cast. Take it easy, don't rush it, don't use too much power, let the rod do the work and most of all: Have fun!

The five Essentials - detour: the importance of a good backcast

2010-12-26T22:21:00.007+01:00

A slight detour in the Five Essentials series; a short clip in which Steve Rajjef shows and explains the importance of a good backcast. Pay special attention around 1:00. Notice the Stop and the way the line goes backwards? That's what a good backcast should look like.

More Essentials tomorrow. A bit of talk about the Casting Stroke. For now, let's just watch that clip again...

The Five Essentials - part three "Straight Line Path"

2010-12-25T10:19:00.000+01:00

Efficient loop formation requires the caster to move the rod  in a Straight Line Path to the target.

First of all remember this: The line will follow the path of the rod tip. If the rod tip deviates from a straight line, so will your flyline. There may be circumstances were it is desirable to not cast in a straight line, but that is something I want to talk about later.

For now remember to keep track of what your rod tip does when you make a cast. There are 4 different paths that the rod tip can make when you make a cast. All of these paths result in a different loop shape.

“The first is the nearly STRAIGHT LINE PATH of the rod tip. This path generates a  narrow LOOP and accurate placement of the fly. A narrow loop will show a top and  bottom leg separation of approximately 20 inches. The top and bottom leg of the loop  will also be in the same plane, that is to say that the top leg should always be directly  above the bottom leg for maximum efficiency. Another advantage of the narrow loop  is its ability to penetrate a wind. The smaller and tighter loop has less surface area and  increases resistance to the wind ”

The second path the rod tip can travel is in a CONVEX PATH. The path of the rod tip  in this instance travels in a large upward arc as opposed to a near straight line path. A  convex path of the rod tip opens up, or widens the loop, decreases wind resistance and  compromises accuracy.” 

“The third path the rod tip can travel in is a CONCAVE PATH. The path of the rod tip  in this instance travels in a downward arc. This path will form a closed or TAILING  LOOP and commonly leads to the dreaded wind knot. The tailing loop will severely  compromise full TURNOVER of the loop and accurate placement of the fly.”

Last but not least is the LATERAL PATH of the rod tip. In this instance the path of the  rod tip no longer moves in a single plane but instead swings out to the left or right  from the straight line path to the target plane. Know as the "Swinging Loop," the top  leg "swings out" to the left or right of the bottom leg of the loop. The swinging loop is  a casting fault.” 

When I was in the early stages of learning how to cast a flyline, this essential was a revelation for me. Concentrating on what the rod tip does when you make a cast really gives you a sense of the control over the flyline we all strive for.

Just as a bit of a relief for before all of you go out to practice: The straight line only occurs during a part of your cast. The picture below is an excellent illustration of what to aim for. The picture is part of an article about SLP by Jason Borger and can be found here http://fishfliesandwater.com/casting-mending/slp-straight-line-path-of-the-rod-tip/

The Five Essentials - part two

2010-12-22T23:17:00.001+01:00

In the second of this series of five entries here is the next essential component of a good cast:

Proper acceleration of the fly rod.

In fly casting the function of the rod hand is to accelerate the rod so that it may

load or bend against the resistance of the fly line. The hand accelerates the rod
slowly at first and continues to increase in speed until the rod reaches a position
perpendicular to the target at which point the rod hand accelerates even faster, and
concludes, with a short, ultra fast stop of the hand. The majority of acceleration
takes place near the end of the stroke.

In short: start slooooooowwwwwwwlllllyyyyy and speed up to a sudden and snappy stop.

This STOP is something Tim Raijeff talks about in this video. (the quality of the video itself isn't going to win anybody an Oscar for the best camerawork, but it well worth the watch.)

The Five Essentials

2010-12-14T20:39:00.001+01:00

During my first fishing trip since a long long time this weekend I thought it would be nice to say some things about flycasting on this spot. Instead of writing about it check
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/8073149
for an animation about the first of Bill Gammels "Five Essentials of Flycasting"
During the next few days I will discuss these casting principles and hope you will you find it useful and fun. See you tomorrow.

Not exactly....

2010-12-09T19:32:00.004+01:00

...Because angling’s not really about fishing at all, at least not the bit where the line end and water actually touch. It is about people and places, wonderful insights into nature, both human and wild; it is about cameraderie, rivalries, luck and laughter. It is about spirit and perseverance; it is about learning and it is about life.....
This is what I read on the Blog "Not exactly Fishing". I couldn't agree more. Go and have a look for yourself to see if there's something nice in there for you.

http://bxttlines.wordpress.com/not-exactly-fishing/

The Adventures of Chocolate Diamondback Pussy - Sweet Memories

2010-12-02T23:31:00.003+01:00

This is one of the hundreds of pictures I took home with me from Norway. Sweet memories from all the beauty that surrounded me this summer. With that I am not referring to the good looks of my travel-companion. Or my wading jacket, for that matter.

Welcome to Suburbia

2010-11-16T23:51:00.002+01:00

The last few weeks I have been toying around with the camera in my mobile phone and tried to make some short clips of the fishing I do. Last sunday I went out for an hour or so and fished in some waters where the feeling of being out in the great outdoors is far far away. But.... it's still fishing and it can be a lot of fun to discover what you will encounter in the waters we drive past without a thought day in and day out.

Suburbia from rudy on Vimeo.

Pikefishing in Friesland

2010-10-12T23:42:00.003+02:00

I got a little bit tired of casting these überheavy pikeflies all the time and tied and tried a big big Hollow Fleye suited to the occasion. I had one massive take on the fly and I am confident that it will catch its share of fish this season. It inspired me to make some variations of this fly during the next few weeks. Apart from the grizzle hackle (yeah, just couldn't help myself, had to tie in somezing stripy) it's all bucktail.

Roach

2010-10-12T23:38:00.001+02:00

Roach
Originally uploaded by wavingastick

Here's a not-so-good shot of one of the nice roaches I caught this weekend. I will try to post the pics I make to my Flickr photostream.

The Game

2010-10-12T23:22:00.001+02:00

This weekend I found myself wondering about what it is that I like about flyfishing so much.
It isn't the worlds biggest secret that what I love to do the most with a flyrod in my hand is fishing for brown trout with a dry fly. Unfortunately the reality is that I just cannot do that for the largest part of the year. But is that a reason to toss the rods in the corner during the times in between?
Off course not!

Last Sunday I had a really good time scooting around a new stretch of water and catching the biggest roach/rudd of the year a few hours later. Yesterday I had a fishless pike-trip in Friesland, the part of the Netherlands where I grew up.
As a boy I spend hours, days and weeks on end fishing in the afternoon, coming home late for dinner and fishing again in the evening on the nights I didn't get grounded.
Wondering about the mysteries that lay beneath the surface.
Addicted, that's what I was.
Hooked...

and to this very day.
It's not so much about what fish I'm after.
It's not so much about where to fish.
It's the game.

Hollow Fleyes

2010-09-26T23:04:00.004+02:00

With my trout season being over for this year and after almost recovering from the depression that follows it, I grabbed myself together and dusted of my streamerbox.
Today I want to bring to your attention a few examples of a a family of flies called Hollow Fleyes invented by Bob Popovics.

... apart from having a strange kind of fancy for goats Bob is also a very creative fly tier that has given the world a few pretty cool and very effective flies. A lot of these flies and the concepts behind them can be found in his excellent book "Pop Fleyes". If you don't already own a copy of this book, go get one. And if you already did, get an extra one just in case, because these books have a tendency of disappearing in thin air once you borrow it to somebody else....

So... Bob like goats. A lot! Well... the boy goats to be precise. Bob ties a lot of his flies with bucktail. It's a very versatile material that possesses certain qualities that cannot be imitated by any other material. The Hollow Fleye is no exception. The whole fly is made out of bucktail. At first glance this looks familiar and indeed there is a resemblance to the Deciever but there a few big difference in the way the fly is tied.
To be technically the Hollow Fleye isn't so much a fly, it's a concept that enables the tier to make flies with little material and a big profile. The shape of the fly can be controlled very precise by the tier.
What Bob came up with is very simple to understand and the technique is pretty easy by itself but it will take a few flies before you will be able to really have full control over the outcome.

The name comes from the fact that you are trying to outline just the silhouette of the fly and leaving the inner bit empty; Hollow.... simple.

The basic principle of the technique is to reverse the tying and then pulling back the fibres. I will explain:
After you put the thread onto the hookshank you get a bunch of bucktail which you ty in round the hookshank with the tips of the bucktail pointing forward! After the bucktail is tied in securely you get something to push the bucktail backwards, an old pen will do just fine. After you've pushed back the bucktail you should now have the fibres pointing backwards. With the pen still pushing the fibres you grab the bucktail with your hand and take away the pen, you build a small ramp of thread directly in front of the bucktail. This ramp will push back the bucktail. If you make a small ramp the bucktail will flare widely and if you make it big the bucktail will be almost glued to the hookshank. So, the shape can be controlled completely by the tier depending on the size of the ramp and the threadpresure. Cool or what?

After you finish this step you can put on another bunch of bucktail a bit further on up the hookshank and repeat the procedure. Most if the times I use three of these layers. If you tie of after these steps you will have a functional fly, but it will look even better if you put it under hot running water for a while and let it dry. The fly will now have a very realistic fishy shape which it will hold all by itself.

Once you're familiar with the technique you start adding your own ideas to it which is what I did with the Hollow Fleyes you see in the pictures below. Mine all have eyes and a small epoxy head. Some are weighted with a few beads put in between the layers of bucktail and I also made them with a grizzle hackle tip, which I kind of like. I am sure I will think of a few more variations.

Well there you have it: The Hollow Fleye, give it a try

The long awaited rod review

2010-09-22T00:13:00.003+02:00

So here it is, a rod review of the infamous Diamondback Classic Western.
I heard lots of rumors about the rods and blanks by this brand and I have been scorching the internet trying to find a blank for a while, but never had any success. And then I went to Norway again this summer and got a great tip (thank you, thank you Preben, I ordered a piece of marble to make you a statue....). After trying the latest (and last) incarnation of this rod this summer I knew there was absolutely no way out of this.
I just H*A*D*D*A*H*A*V*E*O*N*E!!!!!

After contacting the factory directly I am now the proud owner of the very last brand new nine foot 5weight Classic Western that was for sale on this planet. Pretty sure about that last bit.
And I am happy, happy very happy with it.
It has been a while since I got a factory build rod, 'cause I like building my own so much.
And because of that, the factory model already is on it's way to being a so called "custom" rod.
First thing I did after I got the rod out of the tube was cutting of the hook-keeper. I hate those things. They get in the way of your index-finger and the thing about attaching a fly to it, well.... I guess I do just fine with the stripping guide on the rod.
After operation hook-keeper I dug out the sandpaper and started sanding down the grip into a shape I like and had some thoughts about maybe replacing the reelseat for something a little lighter.
And then I started casting.
And then I cast some more
and some more
and...

Well.. you can probably guess where this is going right?
Yep, it was already pretty dark when I went home and concluded that this blank is very very good.
If a rod can make you forget what time it is, it must be something special, which is exaclty what it is.
It loads beautifully and does everything you want it to do with ease. And with that I don't just mean trying to cast a hole in the horizon, but all slack-line and curves and funky casts that you need when you're out fishing and being able to make this and this presentation can be the difference between succes and a fruitless night out on the water. Oh yeah, and apart from all of the above its looks are something that has to be seen to be believed. That just about wraps it all up and makes it very easy to conclude that this entry is going nowhere. This is not a rod-review.
It's a lovesong....

The adventures of Chocolate Diamondback Pussy - part three (The waiting game)

2010-08-23T01:46:00.006+02:00

I can still see it very clearly. Me being stuck under the branches of some tree hiding for the rain. Hoping for the weather to clear up before it's half past 10. Watching the river and hoping for a trout to show itself. This, ladies and gentleman, this is called the Waiting Game!

Flyfishing for brown trout with a dryfly actually involves quite a bit of doing nothing. Well, that's not entirely true. Nothing means: not stumpin' around and blind-casting like there's now tomorrow on the riverbank in my way-to-visible wading-jacket. Trout don't give a shit about fashion-statements. Their primary concerns involve a safe place and having some nice food since once it's there.

The entire philosophy behind this kind of fishing is based on the principle that there is no reason to show yourself, or make a cast without a good chance of catching the fish you've set your eyes on.
Staffan imprinted illustrated this with the quote that ".. every trout has a gun..".

Apart from being stealthy there are a few more things you need to know before you're on your way to the status of legendary trout-slayer. I won't bore you with to much technical talk right now, because I want to take out some time to fill the natural desire to impress that is inside every one of us.
I know everybody can think of people that have reached this expert status; far out of reach for the rest of us mortals. But I am here to tell you that it isn't.
During my time on the riverbank I've had quite some time to think it through and I think I've cracked it. So here we go. How to become a legend in a few easy to follow steps.

Step no.1 Always fish alone.
This gives you freedom to go where you want and there's nobody who can tell about you hooking the trees five casts in a row, stepping on a fish or dropping your sunglasses in the river and.... well, the list goes on and on.

Step no.2 Make sure you are always the last one to return back to camp.
This is a very important one. If you want to become a legend you need an audience. If you are the first one to return, you ARE the audience. So stay out for as long as you can and keep them waiting for a while. This also cleverly taps into the doubts that every fisherman has about the right moment to stop. Every last cast is never just one cast is it? Well, if the rest of the camp has been hanging around the fire for an hour or so and you're still not there, they start to wonder why and start doubting if they left to early and if you by any chance know something they don't.

Step no.3 Only talk when you have to.
Once again a very easy one to remember but difficult in real-life. But, as long as you keep your mouth shut it is impossible to f@#k up. If you get questions asked keep your reply purposely vague. Most people already know what they would like to hear, so a vague recollection of the facts as they unfolded will do just fine. The audience will fill in the blanks themselves.

Step no.4 Do not make pictures of the fish you catch.

It is hard to resist the temptation, but remember that pictures don't lie, that's your job. In the end you're better of without a camera but with a good story. It also helps to casually mention that pictures are are not important to you. Remarks like this, if timed right, really help in building your status. Remember that a true legend doesn't need proof of his own greatness.

If you follow these guidelines you will have a statue on village-squares across the globe. Invitations for interviews, photo-sessions and tv-shows will be on you doormat by the dozen and all the girls.... Well.... 'Nuff said.

The adventures of Chocolate Diamondback Pussy - part two (Cooking flylines)

2010-08-18T16:21:00.004+02:00

Cooking flylines..... is it real? Well, to tell you the thruth that's exactly what I thought when I heard about it for the first time. But it is really true. I did it

and I can tell you that it actually makes quite a bit of difference to the feel of the line.

In the weeks before my friend Staffan told me about it making your flyline so much better. Turning it into what you've always wanted it to be.
Now, I like a good joke as much as the next guy, but I was pretty sure that he wasn' t joking around on this one. So, after we got back for the Northern part of Norway (more about that later) four guys stripped their line from the reel while one of the other guys put the kettle on. For those still in doubt here' s the recipe for the infamous "Spaghetti di Rena":

1. Heat some water in a big pan until it is almost boiling.
2. Put in a powder that is used for dying synthetic materials (RIT dye).
3. Put in your flyline for a while and stir it, while checking if you like the color.
4. After a few minutes, when the color looks all right take out the flyline and rinse it with clean water (we used the river for this)
5. The next few minutes you will probably be very busy untangling the flyline. Stop the worries about being had in a big way. You are very close to "enlightenment".
6. After you get out all the tangles you can spool the line back onto the reel and cast with your freshly customized line and life will never be what it was before.......

The positive effects are the complete absence of memory in the line, it feels very smooth while casting, it is as slick as you' ve always wanted your flyline to be. I was stunned! According to the experts the change in properties comes from the hot water AND the chemicals in the dye. So get yourself some RIT
and try it for yourself!

The adventures of Chocolate Diamondback Pussy - part one (down south)

2010-08-17T23:57:00.003+02:00

On a saturday morning a week or five ago I started up the car and drove about 1500km in a northerly direction. Norway was my destination. In the end I spent about five weeks there and met a lot of incredible people, had some good -and some not so good- fishing and learned a lot.
Today I start a series of pics and comments having to do with this trip.

Here' s a few from the first few days I spent in the Southern part of Norway

Unexpected

2010-05-20T23:13:00.002+02:00

As a result of a phone-call with one of my fishingbuddies I ended up fishing this evening after work.
An unexpected but very welcome and pleasurable experience is what it was. The days are really starting to get longer now and it was great to be out and see the light fade into darkness on a regular thursday-evening
around ten o'clock.
We were with three and another friend dropped by and made a few wonderful pictures. Thanks Cees. I put them up here as a little something to sooth the mind until you can go out fishing again for yourself. As you might have seen, I´ve put up a few tweets today and I am planning to do this more often.
You can even follow me on directly on Twitter by pushing the Follow Me button in the Twitterbox on the right.

Out for dinner

2010-05-17T23:59:00.001+02:00

This afternoon I went out to get some dinner at my local stillwater. Well, I promised my girl to bring her a trout so she would have something nice to eat and be very proud at her man being a true rainbow warrior.
Now, making promises like this is dangerous;
a sure bet that you will have a very frustrating day because you know that no matter what excuse you come up with will be good enough to cover for the fact that you failed miserably. Well, most off the times, that's the way the story ends. But not today.
No sir, no. It all turned out rather nicely in the end.
As a matter of fact, I had the entire water to myself. There were some clouds and some sun, there was a nice ripple on the water and there were even fish rising.
Because there were quite a lot of midges coming off and I couldn't see clearly what the fish were taking I started out with a midge. Fish didn't want it. Tried all different kinds of flies and caught my first fish on a small mayfly-emerger. Because this was my dinner-fish I also checked what the fish had been eating. I found some very big damsel-nymphs, a few Bibio's, and loads and loads of very small beetles. But nothing in the fishes stomach showed even the vaguest similarity with my fly. After cleaning the fish a had a drink and something to eat and started theorizing. In the end I decided that all this might an example of a situation in which the importance of presentation is bigger than the fly of choice. Even though my fly didn't look like a small beetle or a Bibio, it sure sounded like one! I caught the fish after estimating where it would come up again after I had seen it rise a few times.
Almost as soon as the fly hit the water, the fish took. My fly had a small foam bubble on its back, which probably hit the water in a way similar to that of the beetles and Bibio's that end up on the water. Unfortunately the fish had ripped apart my fly and this was off course my last one.

After some digging in a few other boxes I found some flies that could be used as a bibio or a beetle and I fished on with those for the rest of the afternoon. I even caught fish on them too! The biggest one was about 1,5 kilo
and, even though I had made a long cast at it, it showed me my backing after its first run. That doesn't happen to me every day. I left the water today with a smile just about as big as the one my girl had when she saw her own personal rainbow warrior coming home with her dinner. Just like he said.
Mission accomplished. Life can be sweet.

A bit about leaders

2010-05-17T10:36:00.001+02:00

After making a new leader for myself I figured it might be a nice idea to tell you a bit about how I go about making my leaders. After fishing with all sorts of knotless tapered leaders I have now been fishing with my own hand-tied concoctions for a few years now. And very happy with it indeed.

Fishing with hand-tied leaders opens lots off possibilities to adjust the different parts of the leaders to perfectly suit your wishes. In doing so you also get a sense of understanding how a leader actually works, which is never a bad thing in my book.
You won't be surprised to hear that I've taken these opportunities to the extreme and I've tried out as many different leader formulas as I could get my hands on. At the moment I am using a slight variation of the well-known Ritz-leader. A bit more about that in a minute, because when using hand-tied leaders you inevitably run into the problem off figuring out your knot of choice to tie the different parts of the leader together.
And before you start bloodknotting vigorously, hold on to your hat because I want to bring to your attention an alternative I have been using for quite while and which has served me well.

The knot in question is known as The Slim beauty. Originally it is meant as a way to connect a (thick) shock-tippet to the class-tippet in heavy duty saltwater flyfishing. At first I started using this knot to do just that when I went pikefishing. Until one day I was tying a dryfly leader with bloodknots.
For some strange reason I kept breaking my leader on the knots and figured I could give the slim-beauty a go. An excellent explanation of how to tie the knot can be found here. Check this first and then read on...

... in the original saltwater-formula the thin part of the leader is doubled up and fed through the figure of eight in the thick part. This is being done because off the big difference in diameter between the two.
When tying a dryfly leader these differences are much smaller. So, when tying my own leaders I've discarded the doubling up off the thin part.

Using this knot has a few advantages. First of all it is very slim and small indeed. It is less bulky then the bloodknot, especially in the butt-section of the leader. This is nice because it slides through the guides easily. I like this because I prefer to fish with a fairly long leader. Secondly because the knot consists of two separate pieces you get a lot off control over how the pieces draw together. If you go and try the knot I would advise you to take your time when drawing the pieces together. This makes all the the difference between and OK and a perfect knot.

Finally back to the leader-make up itself. Like I said earlier I've been using the Ritz 60/20/20 formula again after trying all kinds of other formulas. I confess wholeheartedly that I am a bit of a freak when it comes to gear and the technical stuff. If you meet me somewhere in the near future I might all be very different but I'll let you in on my thougts about leaders at this very moment. Because all of this is very personal I would love to see your comments and ideas about the subject so don't be shy and leave a comment below this entry.
Ok, back to the Ritz again. What I am looking for is a leader that turns over nicely and which i can adapt easily to different circumstances. Like all of us I guess, but anyway. My standard leader is about 4 metres long, including the tippet. This means the butt/section is 2,40metres with 80centimetres off taper and 80cemtimetres of tippet. When making my leaders I only tie the butt and the taper. At the end of the taper i tie the smallest perfectionloop I can make (loop is about 1mm) and when fishing I choose the tippet somewhere between 80-120cm, depending on how well I want it all to straighten.
If I fish with very small flies and very fine tippet I add a 20cm piece of 0.16mm between the perfection loop and the tippet.

That's it. My bit about leaders. Oh, and for those who want to know. I use Maxima Chameleon for the leaders, because it is easy to straighten, holds knots well, and because it brown which I think is pretty funky.
For tippet I use G-line by Gamakatsu (the blue spools), which is very good and -being a typical Dutchman- cheap!

The Good the bad and....

2010-05-14T23:35:00.004+02:00

I see a pattern in the tittles of the last few entries. Purely coincidental all these movie-tittles.
Anyway "Once upon a time in the East - part two" is a bit delayed because off some technical problems with the pics. Instead a few pics from todays outing together with Eddie, the handsome fellow in the green jacket you can see in the pics.
For those of you who didn't already know, the guy with the golf-jacket and the Nine Iron (yes, I even speak a bit of Golf !!!) is, well it's me...

Ok, todays story.
After being told by the staff of the pool that dries had been pretty good. Eddie decided to be bold and fish with a a wet fly instead. He took a fish on his first or second cast...
For me the first fish came after a lot of fly-changing, tippet breaking and dodgy presentations. I heard Eddie telling me he was already beginning to doubt my ability. Well, so did I to be perfectly honest.
After lunch, things improved a bit and we both caught some more. Smallish, black and bushy were the key ingredients in the flies we've had success with today. That's pretty much it for now. Enjoy the pics!

Once upon a time in the East - part one

2010-05-07T17:06:00.004+02:00

While most off the people in the Netherlands were celebrating Liberation Day I was part of a posse of four man heading out to the East in search of the elusive brown trout.
After reaching our destination the expectations of some great fishing went up even more when we had a look at the river. Clear water, nice pools and riffles and the weather wasn't to bad either. Yep, conditions seemed perfect. A little to perfect, like we should have known.....

After two of us rushed onto the river. Me and my fishing partner for the rest of the trip took the calm-and-collected attitude to a new level. We were on a short holiday and we hadn't seen any manic rises, so why hurry right? Right, and then nothing happened. It wasn't that there weren't any bugs on the water. There actually was a very nice hatch of different kinds off bugs, but for some strange reason no trout accepted this dinner invitation.

I had a good look at the entire stretch of the river but in the end all I had was a nice walk and not one fish had shown me it's presence. Now, i don't like to jump into the river unless there's a good reason, but no matter how often you tell yourself that it only takes one good cast to catch a fish, after a few hours of "doing everything right" (read: sit your ass down, be quiet and watch&wait) on the riverbank, the confidence starts crumbling.
My remedy for those moments is to get the burner and a can of soup out of the backpack and have something to eat. And so we did....

Upon returning at the hotel for an early dinner to be back in time for some more fishing in the evening we decided to have a drink in the hotel-bar first. We had a chat with an elderly gentleman who had been fishing the river for over 35 years. He told us how good the fishing had been in the past and how shitty it was right now.
It seems like every stream has got at least one of these fisherman that have seen it all and done it all. What the man told us didn't sound very promising if all of this was true. Which he only knows....

We didn't really get the chance to test this the next day because off some horrible weather. At breakfast the next day we decided to pack up and go to another river, hoping the weather would be a little bit better.
More about that in the next entry. Here's some pics.

A warm welcome

2010-04-18T17:48:00.010+02:00

I went fishing on a river somewhere in Germany....

-Pause-

...ok, ok, hold it. At times at can be very hard to find the right way to start a new entry but I decided to throw all the stylistic stuff aside and give you a quick look into the notes I make when I go fishing...so here we go again:

-quick Rewind and Play-

...somewhere in Germany to start of the season and did this on a river I had not fished before. When I go exploring, I try to leave hopes of great catches at home. If you spend the majority off the day with the line on the reel and your flies in their boxes you can be pretty certain that you will stay far away from double figures and aching muscles. Usually I tend to "just go and see what happens". I will spare you the details about all the watching and walking and let my notes do the talking...

FF Diary
Date: Saturday April 17th

Exploring. Lots off walking. Saw a lot of nice pools and ripples. Wading is allowed from may 1st. Bright blue skies, no wind and warm. Saw spinners (B.Rhodani) above the fast currents near the bridge were we parked around 1700h. Had a quick look in the pool and fast current upstream. Nothing. Back at the bridge apart from the spinners also small gray flies(midgy looking), and small duns in the water Baetis??? (edit: the flies later turned out to be Baetis muticus). Few fish rising in pool directly downstream. Fish still on nymphs. More fish rising in second pool downstream from bridge around 1800h. Caught four trout, and a very nice grayling and a couple of long distance releases. All on dries fish caught/rises to: Spent spinner #16, Iron blue Dun#18(B.Muticus), Homebrew emerger#16/18 experiment(foambubble on the back, worked perfectly, Tie some more!!!), Zero rises to #14 Parachute B.Rhodani. Quit after the grayling around 1945h. Fish still rising!

So there you have it! My notes and here's a picture. Never mind my silly looks. I do this intentionally to make the fish look prettier....

Saturday afternoon Quicky

2010-04-03T19:08:00.003+02:00

Just came back from a Saturday afternoon quicky. I spoke to Robert this morning and asked him to come along to fish for rainbows. An appointment was made and this afternoon we headed out there together.
We both caught fish.
I hooked a nice 3 1/2lbs fish on on my point-fly (some kind of greenish damsely looking kind of thing) and soon after that Robert hooked and caught a nice fish on a small muddler.
After that we had a bit of rain but we saw fish cruising and rising to surface everywhere around us.
We soon found out that the water was covered with empty shucks and small black flies were taking off or still being trapped in the surface.
We both quickly changed our leaders to fish with dries, because this situation called for midge-patterns which i had in my........
oh S@#!!!!! Left them at home, ready to go, because I knew I might just need them. Luckily I did have another dryfly box with me and with a bit of improvisation the two of us were fishing our first hatch of the year!
We both had fish coming up to our flies and off course I cleverly managed to miss most of them (somehow this always happens to me at the beginning of the season, just to bloody eager to catch, guess...) and the one I actually did hook decided that my fly looked much better after it had straightened my hook. AGAIN!!! This happened to me yesterday as well. A different fly but anyway....

But... Robert did catch his first fish on a dryfly this year. You ask if he was happy? I'll let the pics speak for themselves. Funny how good a tiny bit of black dubbing and a hackle can make you feel, doesn't it?

Crazy Rainbows

2010-04-02T22:03:00.001+02:00

I've heard people calling it water-sense, the Flow or being in the Zone.
Well today I was in the Zone. Oh yeah...
And because I was in the Zone, I left half of my polyleaders at home, forgot to eat breakfast, nearly stepped on my rod but made it to the water faster then I've ever been.

The weather? Well, wind blowing from various directions, chilly, clouds, sun and rain, heck it sounds like Ireland and it felt like that too.
I am not going to talk about numbers today, but I can tell you that I've had contact with fish on each and every spot were they should be. The Zone didn't let me down...
Every now and then there's a day like this, a strange phenomenon, a mix between consciously planning a scheme and just feel this confidence that it is going to work for sure. The fishing was great. I got some great takes, a fish that straightened my hook and another one that took off with my dropper. Crazy Rainbows! Cool! May the force be with you!

"So you don't..."

2010-03-28T15:11:00.003+02:00

"..so you don't want my flies and you don't want my leaders 'cause there not up to your high standards...."
"Chris, you sound like a woman..."
"Oh Rudy, that's because I AM a woman!"

Ladies and Gentleman, meet Chris McCully: bearer of big sunglasses, owner of the original Yellow Submarine (don't tell the Beatles!), stillwater-expert, English and most of all, a Woman!

We went out to the lake Baggelhuizen not to far from home to fish for rainbows there.
Normally I never go there in the weekends because it can get quite busy there on Saturday and Sunday. But, since I didn't have a lot of spare-time this weekend I had to squeeze in the fishing between other appointments. And, besides that, I could do with a bit of sleep after the first part of Operation Ide-Interception-2010.
As expected there were quite a lot of people already fishing. Since I prefer to fish from the floattube there's more than enough room left to fish. I like the floattube very much anyway. Somehow just floating there on a nice ripple is very soothing (insert smart remarks about mothers womb etc. here). And... you also have a front-row seat for watching what happens around you and what the other fisherman are doing.

Well today I asked myself what the f@#$ I was doing, and felt a bit lost. Now, when you're confronted with this there's a couple of things you can do. You can off course blame your gear and buy some more, so at least you look like a pro. You can also keep on fishing the fly that worked yesterday or tell anybody you'd take Barbel over stockie rainbows any day. Instead I decided to be bold, confess and quote Manual from Fawlty Towers about knowing nothing.

About stillwater fishing that is.
What I do know is that being able to hear, see and understand what's happening is an essential part of my fishing. I love to catch fish just as much as the other guy, but the satisfaction is much bigger when it is part of a plan.
But… I didn't really have plan.
Or did I?
I brought just one rod and stepped into the-fly-that-worked-last-week-trap for everyone to see.
However, all of this of acted as a cover-up for my real intentions, which consisted of having a good look into Chris flybox, watch him fish and pick his brain….
Upon arrival Chris showed my his flybox without me even having to ask for it. I made a quick mental note of the flies inside, a nice selection of well-tied flies which I figured I could make for myself as well. Chris offered me a few of his flies but I declined, 'cuz I was on a mission....
During the day I had a hard time keeping up appearances because Chris kept on insisting on me using his gear.

After the lunch break I had seen enough of the stillwater-experts cunning moves and decided to give it a go for myself. I put on an intermediate polyleader, after kindly refusing Chris offer to use his regular tapered one. After Chris telling me that I hurt his feelings and confessing that hen ever has sex on the first date, we spent the rest of the afternoon fishing the edges between the ripples and the flat water. Then all of a sudden I heard Chris saying that it was all about to happen.
And happen it did. Chris caught two nice fish within five minutes after which he selfishly asked me again if I was really sure that I didn't want his flies.
Off course there was no way I could pass this offer and I put on one of the meastros wonderful creations. I got a few light pulls which may or may not have been fish, but I didn't catch any.

Well, that’s not completely true. I did catch fish….
when I was trying out Chris rod…..

Oh yeah, if you’re interested in Chris’ side of this story check out his fishing dairy on http://www.chrismccully.co.uk/cgi-bin/diarist

Sun, clouds and rainbows

2010-03-23T22:19:00.004+01:00

After a quick visit to one off my local spots to check for Ide, I had to rush to get my car the the garage in time.
I had made an appointment with a friend to go fishing in the afternoon.
Because the Ide weren't really on the move we agreed on visiting a clubwater nearby to try our luck there and see if we could hook up with some of the resident trout.

We both fished from the floattube today for the whole afternoon. Pretty strange. Only a few weeks ago I was still ice-skating and now I was out with my oversized rubber-duck again.
The weather was good and the fish were showing themselves regularly.
I put on a chartreuse spoonfly to give this concoction its first spin.
After three casts I hooked a nice 4 pound fish and after that I had takes and pulls all afternoon.
I caught a few other fish, made some long-distance releases and had a very nice afternoon all together.I fished the whole afternoon with just this one fly. I never bothered changing it for something else and the fish didn't mind. It Won't be long before I can put the box with streamers away and fish for them with a dry fly.....

Morning Glory

2010-03-23T21:49:00.000+01:00

Just a few pics to show you the reward for getting out of bed at an ungodly hour.
The water had rissen about 5 cm and the fish didn't show themselves this morning.
After this early morning quicky I had another appointment to go fishing with a friend in the afternoon.
More about that later....

Just...

2010-03-18T22:42:00.000+01:00

…imagine this. Sunday morning. It’s early. At the first light of the new day a there’s someone standing at the waterside. It’s only been a few days since the ice and snow are gone and the first signs off a new season are showing. That certain someone at the waterside is me.

Me being happy that, after a winter of flytying, reading and dreaming about fishing, I can actually go and do this in the real world again.

I do this every year. I know the chances of early succes are slim, but still..

A chance is a possibility.

Even if I don’t get to feel that familiar rush after the first hook-up it’s ok.

I love to be here,

alone.

Just me and a flask with some nice hot coffee.

I watch the water and see if there’s anybody there yet.

The fish that I am after is the Ide. The Ide is on the move early in the year on the road to its spawning ground.

I just emptied my cup and I’ve seen nothing so far, but decide to fish this spot blind before moving on.

The first few casts are a bit rusty, but I soon feel my muscles remember what I want them to do.

I make some more casts and after a while I even try a few fancy ones.

Today won’t be the day. The fish will be here soon though.

I reel in and walk back.

Just me, being happy.

It’s going to be a great season.

Summertime blues

2010-02-02T19:18:00.000+01:00

I don't mind winter, but today I had a hard time remembering the last time I actually went fishing....

Here's a pic from last summer.

CDC Spent Spinner

2010-01-18T19:07:00.002+01:00

Since everything's been covered in ice and snow for quite a while now, there hasn't been much fishing-action lately. I've spend most of my time inside. I completely re-read my John Gierach collection, serviced all my reels. bought a new net, made plans for next summer and tied some flies.

Heck, I even made a video of one off them.
CDC Spent spinner on VIMEO

New kids on the Block

2009-12-02T22:56:00.005+01:00

After last weeks poor catches I pulled out the floattube again today and went to the outskirts of a lake not to far away.
I was out with LW, who could do with a bit of fishing after a few months with other obligations. The spot we went to wasn't topnotch scnenery-wise but we had a fair chance of hooking up with a few resident pike.

After just 10 minutes of fishing LW was allready fighting his first pike. On my first cast after LW released his fish, I saw a swirl a few metres behind were my fly landed a second before. It only took a few strips before I felt a familiar thump It was a very nice pike which gave me a good fight. For some strange reason a part of the lyrics of a song from a while ago popped in my head.

`Don't cross our paths cause you're gonna get stopped
We ain't gonna give anybody any slack
And if you try to keep us down we're gonna come right back
cause we´re...
Hangin´ tough.
Hanging tough.

Well, something like that anyway...

Then LW hooked his second pike at the same time I was fighting mine.
Cool! That doesn´t happen every day. And the fun wasn´t over yet because not too long after that I caught another pike as well. And then the fun was over just as quickly as it started.

Oh yeah, and about that song. Remember "Hanging Tough" by the New Kids on the Block?
A word of advice cherish your memories of the days gone by and do not check it out on You Tube... I did.

Strange bird

2009-11-23T19:42:00.004+01:00

Well, to cut a long story short:
I didn't catch a damn thing this weekend.
After sailing through a storm and impressive showers yesterday, I went out to a small lake today where I usually fish for perch during the summer. For some reason I never went there to fish for pike. Until now that is...

This morning I dug up my sinking lines, poured in another cup of coffee and made a Deceiver with some extra weight; a conehead, which is hidden under the last layers of bucktail, ready to explore the depths.

Don't worry, this is not a one-off. I am still a "concept-fly-man", I just didn't have the time to make a whole serie out of them, because I wanted to go fishing.

The plan of the day was to first check out the banks, reeds etc. with an intermediate line. If there were no fish in close to the shore I would check out the drop-offs for toothy critters.
Sounds like a plan doesn't it. Well for this plan to work I do need some co-operation from the other side of the watersurface. But....

Back to school

2009-11-23T10:00:00.004+01:00

Everybody who's ever lost his/her Fish-of-a-Lifetime please raise your hands!
Do you know exactly what is the most effective way to land a fish ?
Well, yesterday, when I was out pikefishing at a spot were I lost a Big One last year after a pretty darn long fight, I figured that I didn't...

I decided to find out exactly what a rod does when you bend it in a certain way and in doing so, take my fish-fightingskills to the next level. I had some ideas about this, but since I don't consider myself to be an expert I searched the internet to see what other people had to say. I found this article, written by Peter Morse. Very informative.
While I was at it I also found this article about fly choice, breaking out of the mold of fishing the pattern "that-did-well-last-week".

Going back to school every now and then isn't all that bad. Now, all I have I to do is find another fish-of-a-lifetime to put the theories to a test.

My new Toy

2009-11-16T17:03:00.005+01:00

It took some patience and persistence but here it is: My new toy!!!
A CTS Affinity X 9ft. 8-weight. I bought the blank from Martin de Vries who lives nearby and imports the blanks into the Netherlands these days.
I've build a few other rods on CTS blanks and I was impressed with the quality and - being a typical dutchmen - the price.
Anyway, I decided that I would try and do something fancy with the grip this time, so I asked Martin if he could get me some burnt cork. It might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I am very happy with the way the grip looks.

Even though the weather was pretty bad today, I took the rod for a testdrive to a small stream not to far away. I tried the rod with the Guideline Coastal line and various pikeflies (Flashabou, bucktail, rabbit etc). My first impression is that the rod is a real powerhouse. It is very fast but yet still has feel. You can really feel the line and you cab cast loops with it that almost fit into a letterbox. You've guessed it: Me, I like it !!!! It is completely different from the other CTS rods I own, but I must say it is very very good.
Before this I owned a Sage XI2 nine-weight which I never managed to become good friends with. To be honest, there were days when it blew my mind in a positive way, but unfortunately that never happened when I used it for pikefishing.
Here's some pics. Enjoy! Write a comment and tell me what you think.

Slippin'and slidin'

2009-10-26T22:03:00.009+01:00

..so, I decided I REALLY needed a switchrod for my Asp-fishing on a big river. More so, my live would lose all its meaning if I didn't get one fast. So I build a rod, made a few shootingheads and this started the whole doublehanded thing for me.
All in all switchroddin’ has been great fun from the start but while fishing I have to strip a large part of my shootinghead inside the rings to fish a piece of river efficiently. That poses me with an interesting challenge: How do I cast the line out to the horizon without as little effort and as quickly as possible. For this I made up a sort-of Tongario-rollcast mutation to at get the entire head out of the rings but it was far from pretty. And it was noisy to! Not good...
There had to be a better way to get things done and let you me tell you all, there is! A friend told me about this cast and I thought I'd share it with you. The cast has been invented by Juergen Friesenhahn and he calls it the snap-slip-spey.
Watch the inventor cast and give it a try for yourself...

Battle scars and the first signs off fever

2009-10-24T20:20:00.008+02:00

Ever made the best of plans and when you look back, you wonder why almost nothing of it has actually been done. Let me tell you a bit about this week when I really, really wanted to go fishing. With my girlfriend away from home for a few days nothing seemed to stand in the way of a big fish-fest. I had talked a bit about maybe going here or there with some friends but in the end all this was a dead-end street. So I decided to stay at home and really max out my fishing time. Fishing during the day and the evenings would be spend behind the vise, tying like a mad professor.
The reality? Well, you probably get the picture….
But yesterday it was all about to happen. After breakfast I dumped all my gear in the car including my floattube and headed for a nice little lake not too far away. Big pike live there and they’d better be ready for this man on a mission.
After being checked for my permit twice and a bit of off a discussion about how to interpret the regulations I finally got myself into the water. There I was, floating around like a big rubber duck. It had been a bit of a struggle but the scenery, a gasp of fresh air that felt like it only feels in the fall, it had been worth it…. And look, the small depth finder mounted onto my floattube even showed fish and a few nice bumps and holes in the bottom of the lake. Filled with expectations I made the first few casts, but nothing happened. When I had worked this part of the lake for about 15 minutes without anything happening I crossed the lake my streamer trailing some 15 meters behind me, crossing the deep part of the lake. I’ve caught fish paddling like this from one spot to another, so who knows. I might be in luck after all. When I looked at my depthfinder when I was halfway across the lake instead of the 25+ feet I expected to have underneath me, my little digital friend told me it was only 13 feet deep here. Perfect! And it stayed that deep for the rest of the way over to the other side. I must have discovered some kind of narrow ridge, I thought, might be something nice to remember. When I had fished the first half of this side of the lake I was a bit surprised to see another ridge, 13 feet deep followed by a 15 foot hole with a flowerbed in it and two fish I realized I had been playing the depthfinders demo-program nonstop for the last hour or so….
This was an omen and I decided to move to another lake to see if the fish were biting over there and after all of this, luckily they did.

I caught a nice 80+cm fish on my second cast. A few nice German construction workers were very surprised when they found out I was going to release the fish.
When one of them explained how nice a “hecht” is when you cook it on the grill the fish jumped out of my hands back into the water, leaving me behind with some battle scars, because when your fingers touch the gill-covers, you bleed.

After this I caught another, smaller, fish and while I was fighting this one a really BIG pike completely leapt out of the water a few meters away. Off courses I spend some time trying to hook this biggie as well, but without any success. When it got dark I got out of the water with cold feet, a runny nose and the first signs of Big Pike-fever….

Ide and the IJssel-river

2009-10-23T00:39:00.004+02:00

...a few pictures from spring 2009; Ide season on the IJssel-river and some other spots.

Some old pictures

2009-10-22T23:52:00.003+02:00

I dusted off the archiveboxes and stumbled upon these....

Get Up!!!

2009-10-22T23:22:00.003+02:00

...a picture showing why it isn't hard for me to get up early during the weekend.

We were fishing the IJssel-river near Zwolle last sunday, fishing for asp.
Besides one foul-hooked bream, which put up a fight that would make his father proud, we had lots of castingpractice....

If the waterlevel rises soon, we might have a shot at catching an asp. If not, we'll have to wait untill next spring.