Waving a Stick : On the Move

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

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?

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

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

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

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!

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...

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

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

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"

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

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

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....

...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

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

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

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

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

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

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