If you are wondering what the hell is going on in the photo's below (and you should be) here's a brief recap and sequence of events that seems to have led to this strange behaviour.
October 2012. Our mate and fly casting guru Peter Hayes came to New Zealand to help us with some IFFF testing. Peter was accompanied by our now good mates, Simon Zarifeh, Matthew Howel and Tony loader - All IFFF Master Casting Instructors.
At that time I had pretty much completed the Epic prototypes, so dished out a few to the boys to see what they thought. After a week of trying to break them by horsing out large trout at all manner of stupid angles, casting 800 grain skagit heads in hotel carparks after dark , and generally doing things that you just don't do to fly rods - It was generally decided that the Epics were indeed epic.
April 2013. I was fortunate enough to be invited to head over to Peters Fly Casting get together in Tasmania (a fine event too I might add) - I took over a few Epics I had made up and passed them around - Peter took a shine to the Epic 580 (8ft 5#) and said he could really give one a hiding for me on his upcoming trip to South Africa and then Alaska. So when I returned to New Zealand I built one up for him and fired it over.
Well Peter did indeed give that 8ft FastGlass rod an absolute hiding & nailed some very large salmon on it - as reported here.
I spoke with Peter after he returned from his travels to see how things went, he said the trips were great, the Epic lived up to it's name and that I really should emphasise how incredibly tough & strong they were. Somewhere in the convo' I now recall Peter muttering about "Stomping on it in a carpark" - at the time I didn't think too much of it - you never can tell with Haysie....
But it's now dawned on me, after seeing this photo on facebook today the mist has cleared - Peter Hayes really is a sick, sadistic, rod torturing bastard. He's out there traveling around the world trying to break my rods!
Now, Peter takes his work seriously, and here he is hard at it once again. This is his latest effort at the International Fly Fishing Show in Indonesia. Not content with just standing on one of our rods he's carrying another bloke and making what looks like a fairly concerted effort to crush the Epic 580.
Those Aussies really are a strange bunch ;)
If you ever want to book Peter for a fly casting lesson, bar mitzvah or rod crushing party - you can find him here
(and if you are wondering what Peter is sporting on his head it's an honourable Indonesian Fly Casting Guru headdress)
Our Friends from The International Fly Fishing Show can be found here
Photograph courtesy of Agustin Tjendra
"I can't see - is it broken yet?"
