I took the opportunity to have some 'me time' on the river today. It was a bright, cold day with a few sporadic hatches that encouraged a few grayling to take a dry fly and give themselves away. The final tally was 5 fish in 3 hours.
For me there is no better sport than casting a dry fly I've tied myself to a rising fish.

In Part 1 I gave my basic definitions of the component parts that make up a cast. In Part 2 I expanded on some of these definitions as they relate to a basic cast.
In this post I'll cover a few more advanced definitions. These are: Stroke Length, Drift and Mend

Stroke length (the distance the rod handle travels during the acceleration stroke). Extending the stroke length allows you to increase the duration you are accelerating the rod (and by definition the line the rod is dragging behind it), building up more speed prior to the abrupt stop. Increasing line speed is important if you want to cast further.
Increasing stroke length in the forward cast can be done by extending your arm further during the casting stroke and/or introducing drift after the back cast.

 Drift (the repositioning of the rod after the acceleration ​stroke on the back cast). This is achieved by moving your arm, and the rod up and back (think of the leg of the figure 7 or a backslash /). This is not aggressive or  extensive, simply a smooth, subtle movement of the rod after the stop.

Creep The opposite of drift, however drift is good and creep is bad. Creep happens after the stop of the backcast and is the unintended forward movement of the rod before the start of the forward acceleration stroke. Creep deprives the caster of stroke length and is detrimental to the forward cast.
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Mend (manipulating or repositioning the line after the acceleration stroke) A mend can be performed to deliberately add slack to aid presentation and/or extend the length of time your fly can be fished drag free. A mend always happens after the acceleration ​stroke either before the line touches down or once it's on the water.

Well that's it then, the AAPGAI Open Day has been and gone (and a good time was had by all who attended). That draws a line under the show events for me for this year. Got to admit I'm a little sad, I love doing the game fairs and country shows.
Still, on the positive side, I can look forward to some great autumn and winter grayling fishing and the 2015 BFFI is just around the corner!

This Saturday 18 Oct sees the AAPGAI Open Day returning to Caer Beris Hotel in Builth Wells. If you have an interest in fly fishing why not come along.

Follow this link for more details

Great! The weather has been brilliant for months and is again today but yesterday, the day I go fishing it's really grim, wet, misty, cold and windy. I wrap up warm and head off to the river figuring it would be a good day for some nymph fishing. How wrong was I. There was little or no surface activity so I tackle up with a French nymphing setup. After about an hour without a nibble I decided to change tactics and switched to a floating line and try spiders or dries.
The one thing that frustrates me at this time of year is the amount of dead leaves in and on the the water that get snagged on my flies (Does anyone have a suggestion as to how to stop catching them?). It doesn't matter if I fish nymphs, spiders or dries I still catch a load of leaves :0|
Anyway in spite of being inundated with dead foliage I finished the day with several grayling all caught on small dry flies.