A little gig I did with one of the Norwegian fly tier, Jan Håvard Krohn, at the recent Nordic Fly Fair was to collaborate in tying a couple called Mr. & Mrs. March Brown.
I tied the dry fly and Jan tied the (wonderful) wet fly version of the March Brown.
I bought a fair amount of DVDs back in the years. My favorite ones were videos that had various types of fisheries or destinations that were spotlighted rather than one subject.
One of the great videos produced by the now gone company called Confluence Films. I enjoyed them a lot on DVD, now Drift is available on Youtube to enjoy for free!
This video was released in the late 2000's. DVDs were still the main way to enjoy movies as well as fly fishing videos. Now I'm feeling really old...
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.
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 storiesfromme. 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...
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!
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 - 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.
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.
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.
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.
