Nordic Fly Fair 2024

Wow, the fourth (previous shows in 2018, 2022 & 2023) time attending the Nordic Fly Fair in Elverum, Norway. This fly fishing show feels much more like a gathering of friends rather than a show.

As so often the case with this show the weather this weekend (May 4 & 5) was amazing. Probably too nice as the amount of visitors seems to be a bit lower than the previous ones. But time wasn't wasted as we got to enjoy more stories together and of course cast outside at the casting pond.

The dinner after the first day is as usually superb. Amazing food, wonderful comradery and because of the fantastic weather we ate outside at the terrace overlooking the majestic Glomma river.

I also got to cast the new Orvis Helios 4 (904-F and 905-F). There was so much hype around this new rod. To be honest I barely feel any difference with the previous Helios 3, which I really like... The price of the new Helios 4 is insane. Orvis probably needs to sell rods to keep up with their overhead costs.

Well anyway, I cast many different rods including a NAM (way too fast / stiff with very little feedback), a few Scotts (the 884 GS is so wonderful and the discontinued Radian 905 still rocks!), bamboo rods and a few vintage fiberglass rods as well.

I'm already looking forward to next spring!

Tom Sutcliffe

Tom passed away April 8, 2024 so I moved the original posted on June 18, 2020 forward.

Tom Sutcliffe is certainly the grandfather of South African fly fishing. Tom owned a fly shop in the early 1980's in Johannesburg (source: Leigh Perkins' book 'A Sportsman's Life', page 147), is an accomplished author, fly tier and a wonderful painter.

We got in touch when I subscribed to his newsletter called 'The Spirit of Fly Fishing' Tom started in 2010. His weekly newsletters has been a wonderful potpourri of South African fly fishing scenery, short stories and pictures sent in by subscribers from all over the world. Even a few short stories from me. Fast forward to March 2020 Tom announced the end of the newsletter.

Over the years through Tom I also got in touch with several South African friends like Ed Herbst, Peter Brigg, Koos Eckard, Stephen Boshoff and Gavin Erwin. As a thank you to Tom I decided to send him a frame with a couple of flies. I asked my friend André Frijlink of Frame Your Fly to help with the frame. The result is top notch.

Thank you Tom for your friendship!


Update April 29, 2024:

Tom's daughter sent me a few pictures of Tom's study.

It's so nice to know that Tom, when walking to his study, would take a glance at the frame 😢

Update April 18, 2024:

A memorial service for Tom was held at the St Andrews church in Newlands.

Update April 8, 2024:

Today the sad news arrived that Tom has passed away...

Good bye Tom


Update July 3, 2021:

Tom's June 2021 newsletter mentions he is pleased with the frame 😄

Update June 10, 2021:

Wow, what an adventure.

I shipped the frame on June 18, 2020 to South Africa. The parcel was seemed lost as Tom never received it. May 25, 2021 (almost a year later!) the parcel was returned by the South African postal service. The address was correct so why it wasn't delivered is a mystery. I'm glad the frame returned back undamaged.

I shipped the parcel again, this time with UPS and as of today (after more than a year) it finally arrived at its destination!


Update Jan 10, 2021:

Tom decided to revive his newsletters again!

Blue Winged Olive

Green Hulk?

Found this green kapok dubbing in my tying bag.

The body looks like the green paint on the TV series The Hulk 😂

Elk hair Green Drake

Elk hair Green Drake dun and spinner (aka Coffin Fly).

The idea of this design is to make a large profile fly with less bulk.

Using a 1x (or even regular length) hook, less bulky body (strands of Elk hair rather than a long dubbing body) and long pheasant tail fibers for tails.

In this video I show how I tie the Coffin fly. For the dun use an olive dyed elk hair for the body, some sort of dun shade hackle tip for the wings (I like the wider profile of a hen feather) and a dun hackle.

Corey Ford

Corey Ford - a fly Walt Dette named in honor of writer Corey Ford.
These days a rounded rooster hackle tip is next to impossible to find. This was the best I have in light cream.

Tying a Gray Ghost

Land of little rivers

The delightful documentary 'Land of Little Rivers', originally only available on DVD, can be watched on Youtube for free now! Not sure if it's legal, so watch it before it's taken down.

Goodbye March

March is almost gone already!

Saying goodbye with a March Brown

Dark Coty

The hackle is a dark dun with a slight brown-ish sheen over it. Really buggy looking hackle.

The body is muskrat with a few straggles of claret seal’s fur

Honey Dun

 

The Relic

A fly that was deeply inspired by a color pencil drawing by an artist called Kate Hall.

Kate also came up with the name for this fly, The Relic.

Lady Beaverkill

Another Lady Beaverkill

Ginger Quill

Tied a Ginger Quill after seeing my friend Eric Austin post a new video on tying the Ginger Quill.

Here is the video of Eric tying a Ginger Quill

Eric tied this and a Light Cahill at the weekly Friday night tying with the Beattys on Facebook.

RIP Tom Dorsey

The last of the two founders of the Thomas & Thomas rod company passed away yesterday.

Here are the posts I wrote about Tom Dorsey along the years:

1) Interview with Tom Dorsey

2) Short video with Tom Dorsey

3) Video of how a bamboo fly rod is made at T&T

A nice short bio on Tom Dorsey at Fly Fisherman magazine.

A picture of me with a T&T bamboo rod back in 2009:

Dark Cahill

Variant (again)

Recently acquired some vintage Mustad 3911 C sproat hooks in sizes 12 & 14.

These are 3X short up eye hooks. I bought them with Variants and skaters in mind.

Ausable Wulff

Here are two different videos of Fran Betters tying his Ausable Wulff.

I'm not sure if his tying changed along the years but it looks like in one video (the second video) shows the fly tied much more proportionally nicer than the other. The body looks much more tapered than the first video.

Get rid of the clock!

I’ve wondered for so long why so many casting instructions are so complicated and confusing.

We have also been taught with so many wrong paradigms that make no sense. One of them is the clock to teach casting, to be precise when to stop the rod. Most instructions tell the student to stop at 10 AM at the forward cast and 2 PM at the back cast. This is rubbish! Let's get rid of the clock right away!

I'll use my kid's math tool to show this.

Angle changes with distance

Rather than the clock I'll use a pizza slice to demonstrate the idea. The size of the pizza slice represents the angle the rod makes between the forward and the back cast. And the angle reflects the length of the casting motion you need to make to cast the desired distance. This applies to the forward as well as to the back cast (obviously).

To make things really easy to understand, I’ll define three different casts:

1) short distance cast

2) medium distance cast

3) long distance cast

What numbers these distances represent, is up to you.

So, here's the whole idea:

Shorter the cast, the smaller the pizza slice.

Longer the cast, larger the pizza slice gets.

That's all?... Well, almost. Depending on the distance you cast, also the direction of the fly line (also known as 'trajectory') changes.

On the shortest casts the

1) pizza slice is small

2) trajectory of the forward cast is aimed at a downward angle and the back cast in an upward angle. Why? For more accuracy. 

3) line speed is low

On a medium distance cast the

1) pizza slice is larger

2) trajectory of both forward and back cast is more or less horizontal, basically parallel to the water.

3) line speed is a bit higher

On a long(er) distance cast the

1) pizza slice is the largest

2) the trajectory is angled slightly upwards on your forward cast (and back cast slight angled downwards) to compensate the influence of gravity exposes to the fly line. Remember shooting a cannon to a target far away?

3) line speed is higher even

As you can see depending on the distance of your cast, the size of the pizza slice changes as well as the trajectory. Knowing this makes the '10 AM to 2 PM' analogy to teach casting totally confusing and misleading. So get rid of the clock when (trying to learn) casting!

Need some help on your foundation cast? Check here.

Expert vs real

Ok, I don't want to bash anyone here but how does an expert in fly fishing do such a terrible job?

Are they as good as we think from their stature or is it just all baloney?...

Del Mazza’s Classical & Contemporary Dry Flies

I heard this name 'Del Mazza' many times over the past 5-8 years. He sounded like an Italian pizza restaurant owner who mistakenly opened his restaurant next to a Catskill river 😂.

There wasn't much available on him on the internet, except that he worked at a fly shop called Hunter's Angling Supplies and also raised roosters for his tying.

The fly shop is long gone unfortunately. Also heard that there was this great DVD he once made but couldn't find it anywhere. Until last year it was suddenly available at the web store of the Catskill museum.

I watched this DVD ‘Del Mazza’s Classical & Contemporary Dry Flies’ this wet Sunday afternoon. It's a well made DVD from the mid 90s. The quality of the video is obviously not as high as we see nowadays but perfectly clear to follow.

Mazza’s flies are dressed a bit too heavy for my taste but for anyone looking to learn the steps I can recommend it. The DVD can be ordered at the website of the Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum.

Update 17 Jan, 2024:

The DVD seems to be either sold out or no longer available....

The history of the Jackson Hole One Fly