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.

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 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 long awaited rod review

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....

Slippin'and slidin'

..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...