Daily Cast Archive


Snakehead are Monsters

Paul Arden - Monday, August 31, 2015

Temenggor is a world-class sport fishery. I came to that conclusion this week. It's also incredibly hard to be consistently successful. I'm still right down near the base of my learning curve and I recognise this. A big change happened last week, when I suddenly realised I was expecting to land Toman/Snakehead - and big ones, I stopped taking shots at small ones (2KG) when there are big ones around, 3KG Snakehead are nothing to get excited about and I want 5KG+ Toman - and not off babies. I've smashed two rods now in the last 3 weeks fighting these bastards, I've been snagged, I've had wire bitten off, I've had so many "almost" moments - fuck, these fish are incredible. And they have personality like trout do, but more so, and with attitude, they fight like monsters, you need stealth, you need to try to read the next rise location, the shots are the hardest imaginable - don't even bother if you're not in the top 1% - and they are cagey... fly matters (although how much I don't know yet). So many unknowns... how far do they roam? How long do they stay in social groups? How do they communicate? How do they sleep? Together?? Do they run one big giant territory? Yes... Toman are Monsters. I came to that conclusion too. No wonder Ashly is scared of them! Hell I'm sacred of them and have stopped swimming in the lake!!!

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Rehab - finally cleared!

Scott Loudon - Sunday, August 30, 2015

It's been a good week here... I'm 6 weeks into a Pilates rehab class with physio, been attending physio appointments for about 2.5 months now and finally I received the news I've been waiting for. I've been cleared to get back to all gym work and exercise as long as I don't run straight back into playing rugby.

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organizing tying materials

t.z. - Thursday, August 27, 2015

Flytying stuff, and/or stuff in general is very connected to the big question in life. Where do you put your stuff? George Carlin did a very nice piece about that. My approach is minimalistic. I try to use very few materials to generate the flies I need. It´s my thing. Others do have different approaches, which is nothing wrong with. But my simple mind needs to have overview. I feel my flies get better than too. So over the years I have (and still am) perfecting my kit. I will give you a quick run through which materials and tools I use and how I store them.

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carp fly fishing - easy fly design

Bernd Ziesche - Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Last week I fly fished for a single huge carp. He was cruising up and down a bank in crystal clear water. Several times I was in proper casting position but had the wrong fly on!

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Labrador

John Field - Tuesday, August 25, 2015

As the U.S. Contributor on the mast of the extinct magazine, Canadian Sportfishing, I had to submit an article on one destination for their travel annual each year. Back in 1992, I decided to visit and write about Labrador and its superlative native brook trout fishery. I could have included Atlantic salmon but I wasn’t as interested in fish that don’t feed in the rivers. Having grown up fishing the remnants of native and stocked populations of brook trout in the Northeast U.S., seeing this totally intact native population sounded like stepping hundreds of years back in time.

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Jungle Moments

Paul Arden - Monday, August 24, 2015

It's amazing, how on this really quite hard fishery, how just one big fish makes all the difference to feeling good about life! This year I've taken to doing some things very differently to my previous visits. Firstly I'm going to bed relatively early - and getting up early/ish too. I've made a conscious effort to eat better; my previous trips here were mostly about two minute noodles and a tin of peas or sweetcorn... this year I'm packing fresh veggies for the first two days, fresh fruit for the first three-four days, and potatoes, onions, garlic and chillies for the rest of the week - and I'm making bread. Also I'm taking extended trips away from base camp; four and five day fishing trips. And finally, one, two or even three times each day, I'm cooling off in the lake - throwing buckets of water over myself and scaring the monkeys.

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Planning trips

Scott Loudon - Sunday, August 23, 2015

How do you go about planning big trips? Is it a picture, something you heard on the grapevine, where your buddies are going or just some sort of inkling about wanting to try a particular kind of fishing?

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poor light and small flies

t.z. - Thursday, August 20, 2015

Insects hatch in the evening when it gets dark (and less windy). The before unseen fish start feeding - and panic kicks in. What are they feeding on? You might find that midges are on the menu - and than what? You have to change the fly of course. Changing the tiny thing at the end of your leader in the dark can be a real pain in the butt. Chill, here´s a little tip to ease the struggle!

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Flavoured Fly Fishing?

Bernd Ziesche - Wednesday, August 19, 2015

During the past week I went coarse fly fishing again. Carp were my main target. What really made me think was seeing some of them rising to my fly and then stopping less than an inch below my fly and finally (after SEVERAL seconds) refusing to take it. It seemed to me like they were realizing the WRONG smell signature on my fly!

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Fishing Friends

John Field - Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The memories of people who taught you to fish, or with whom you shared great fishing experiences, stay with you forever. As I get older and more successful, I try to choose people with whom I fish or collaborate with in the angling media as individual human beings. Back in the 1990s, after working in angling TV for a while, I was at a creative crossroad and considered shooting a fishing pilot. No, I wasn’t going to point a gun at a floatplane; I was considering filming a sample episode for a potential cable TV fishing show. I thought I should keep my eyes open for a talented young fly fisherman to test on camera as host. Nothing personal, just business.

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Learning to fight hard - Week 4

Paul Arden - Monday, August 17, 2015

I've come to the realisation that if I want to do well here in the Malaysian jungle, then I have to learn to fight fish much harder. I think I've managed to solve my missing fish on the bloody strike phase after reducing the amount of foam in the popper. After missing two possibly 5KG plus (well you know how it is!) Snakehead last week and 3-4KG Snakehead and then finally a small 2KG Snakehead at the beginning of this week, I reduced the amount of foam used by 50%. On Tuesday I hooked a really big Snakehead, well into the teens of pounds. I can't guess how big because I've never landed a Snakehead close to this size - it was bigger than the boat! And after an exciting and explosive surface battle of immense proportions, which is a first for me with these fish, he took to going deep and I couldn't - or at least didn't - stop him. He or she snagged me and the leader parted like butter. Now in a fishery where just hooking up is hard, you don't want to start losing all your good fish.

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Leaders

Scott Loudon - Sunday, August 16, 2015

...how much attention do you pay to them?

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Warm water

Harps - Friday, August 14, 2015

Drought and unseasonably warm water have resulted in a closure of Alberta rivers for the first time ever.

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FlyTying at Tradeshows

t.z. - Thursday, August 13, 2015

Tying at shows is something I have done since several years. It is really a lot of fun and I am glad that am given the opportunity. It is funny how the time flies when one sits there and can talk „shop“ all day. Encouraging and inspiring.

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Don’t Be Misguided

John Field - Tuesday, August 11, 2015

I’ve spent most of my life fishing and most of the entries in my list of contacts are guides, licensed Captains, angling media and tackle manufacturers. We’ve become friends because we’ve fished together for dozens of years, helped build each other’s careers and shared our private lives. On occasion I’ve even been mistaken for a guide.

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Headed South - Week 3

Paul Arden - Monday, August 10, 2015

This past week Ashly and I headed to the far south of Lake Temenggor to check it out - the hunt for giant Snakehead continues. Unfortunately the fishing down there wasn't very good! I suspect commercial netting may be to blame. We struggled to find any Jungle Perch. I did have two 5KG plus Snakehead eat the fly in one bay, and I didn't manage to set the hook! I had a smaller one eat through my wire - yes really. And saw a MASSIVE one, but I threw behind it and spooked it. I had a very big Gourami inspect the fly... but not take, dammit. We landed some smaller Snakehead of course and had an excellent time as we always do. I suppose learning where not to fish is every bit as important as discovering where to fish on fishery like this. This week, after I've cleared the Sexyloops Decks, I have a vast new area to explore!

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Surface Fishing

Scott Loudon - Sunday, August 9, 2015

Do you ever get the urge to just chuck big flies? You know… a mouse, a cicada or a popper the size of a duckling? I ask this in the hope there are other people out there with this problem.

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flyboxes

t.z. - Thursday, August 6, 2015

Not a fall topic really, but I think this fits right in with the discussions around friendship, secret fishing spots and handshakes.

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fly fishing in grayling heaven

Bernd Ziesche - Wednesday, August 5, 2015

In my last front page I told you to be on fire looking forward to a very special fly fishing trip together with my mate Hein van Aar. Hein and I indeed had a blast catching some truly cracking fish!

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Fishing

Glenda - Tuesday, August 4, 2015

No video this week....I'm actually out fishing and not at my normal computer and using iPad. No luck with the fishing so far. It was our first day out today and it was cold and windy. Casting into the wind is a bitch....

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The challenges and intensity of Malaysian fly fishing...

Paul Arden - Monday, August 3, 2015

Tuesday was a bit of a disaster for me. I was going to start writing this page that night but had a serious snakehead hangover and so crashed out early instead. The thing is, that I managed to hook my biggest snakehead, not only of the trip but of all time, and I lost the bastard. Now while it's very early days, and quite frankly I feel that I've moved here at least semi-permanently, it was very disconcerting to have absolutely no control over this fish, despite using a leader of 30lb breaking strain.

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Loud Mouth Popper

Scott Loudon - Sunday, August 2, 2015

I'm filling in for Scotty here at last minute, and have a kick-ass page for tomorrow. So while I think about it I will describe a fly that I've been using here on Temenggor, namely a colour variation of Vince's Loud Mouth Popper. I first came across a grasshopper variation of the pattern tied by Sean Ash, who's a fly angler and tier from Queensland, Australia. He kindly gave me a few patters to try while at one of Haysie's famous Conclave-bashes. This was a great pattern for me, I caught Spangled Emperors over at Exmouth out the salt - yes dry fly in the salt! They were eating them. And later I caught a really nice 48cm Australian Bass while fishing with Beerie that same year.

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Adapting

Viking Lars - Saturday, August 1, 2015

In Denmark, we have a lot of relatively (and quite) small rivers, which hold sea trout during the season. Some are actually too small to fish in a meaningful way with a fly rod, and some, although small, offer great fishing, beautiful scenery, sea trout - and challenges to the fly fisher!

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