| Monday: | Kalyn Hoggard |
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| Tuesday: | Paul Arden |
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| Wednesday: | Tracy&James |
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| Thursday: | Martyn White |
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| Friday: | Chris Avery |
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| Saturday: | Rickard Gustafsson |
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| Sunday: | David Siskind |
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If You Pay, They Will Play?
Monday, 20 October 2025
I dabble in hosting casting competitions. I say that I dabble because the first iteration of the Best in the Driftless competition that Marty and I hosted this year went surprisingly smoothly. All of the casting competitions I've helped host have been associated with events that were already planned. This arrangement is a blessing. I don’t have to worry about the logistical nightmare such as venue selection, catering, insurance, vendors, permits, and so on. I might need to face the more significant challenge of hosting a competition as the main event before I can confidently call myself a proper competition host. Unfortunately, casting competitions currently lack the attendee numbers needed to generate sufficient revenue to get them off the ground, but I am working on that.
The Hot Tornado
Tuesday, 21 October 2025
Oh yes. We are planning to start building rods in the US around the end of the year…. the Hot Tornado. I’m also looking at the Hot Tuxedo. See if you can guess where those will be built? That will give us Hot Torpedo, Tortuga, Tornado and Tuxedo. Just different labels for the appropriate markets. The motor industry does something similar, but not as well.
Knockout
Wednesday, 22 October 2025
Tracy and I are now back in Wales after our last casting competition of the year at the Argentat fly fishing festival in France. This is run by the guys at the Fly Casting Lab (FCL) Facebook page and consists of an indoor exhibition event and an outdoor open competition, both cast with the #5 MED line. The standard of both these competitions is extremely high, the French guys have clearly put in a lot of work since the time I first cast against them, when they came over to a BFCC meeting, and it has paid off in the distances they are now hitting.
Everybody loves A Wee Sweetie
Thursday, 23 October 2025
After all the trouty flies over the last few weeks I thought I’d go a bit salty this week, and with seabassing starting here now, the surf candy was the obvious choice. Obviously, it’s nothing new, but it’s an amazing fly at what it was designed for, and also loads of other applications.
Ok Sinners here’s how it goes.
Friday, 24 October 2025
In hundreds of visits to ‘the field’, I rarely get a comment. The football pitch and grassy expanse that’s also fraternized by dog walkers; always at least one, and often up to half a dozen. There’s the occasional huddle of public school, 6th form, spliff smokers, and of course the local nut-job eccentrics, which I guess includes me, as I regularly go down practicing my fly casting on this grass expanse, a stone’s throw from the river over the far fence.
I’ve had probably two “Have you caught anything, ha haha’s” and one genuinely inquisitive “Can I ask what you’re doing (my son is fascinated)”? in all the years of going there.
What’s next, part 2
Saturday, 25 October 2025
Where I last had to end my FP was 1:30 in the night. I sent the FP to Paul and got the usual, “Heading out for a fish, have a great day!”. First I needed a great sleep. The following day was a great day. All the days were great days during the event. To me it felt more like a meet up for fellow caster to have fun, share ideas and teach each other than a testing event. The hotel had the good taste to not open breakfast too early so you did get some sleep in the morning. But we were all there when the breakfast opened, except a few that liked to sleep a bit better than some of us. Well I would have liked to sleep a bit longer but couldn’t. Then it was out on the field and spend the whole day there, doing fly casting stuff, then dinner when we ran out of daylight, then hanging in the bar and talking about casting and fishing until late.
Meditations
Sunday, 19 October 2025
It’s hard to believe Clarence Thomas was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice October 15, 34 years ago. Just before, I embarked on a 4-day trek with a couple of friends. We walked a loop from a trailhead in Independence, CA, famous as the site of Charlie Manson’s trial, across Shepard Pass, through the cirque that is the source of the Kern River, along Diamond Mesa and back down to Independence, returning to LA in the middle of Anita Hills testimony.
