Paul Arden | Tuesday, 16 September 2025
It was bloody excellent to catch up with Stuntman Ronan again. I was mildly disappointed by the lack of stunts however. I tried making some interesting suggestions that I thought would have appealed to Ronan, such as to climb stumps or rock faces, but it may be now that he has children to support, that his death defying stunts are on temporary hold. So the only stunts that I saw on this trip were fish in the boat.
The fishing was hard but we had shots at babies as well as some quite frantic free-rising activity here and there. No Gourami shots revealed themselves. We did hear a few rises that may well have been Gourami feeding on algae on the stumps, but I didn’t see any actually do this. I haven’t seen that in fact for quite some years now.
Mostly Ronan fished but I took some shots too. In some ways that’s best I think, to watch as well as to fish. Ronan had a couple of fish to the boat on the first day, including a good sized freeriser. Then we had a couple of relatively slow days, but not without shots and chases. On the final day I took an adult off babies.
It was a blast and it was great to hear Ronan’s stories. We both started guiding properly around the same time, Ronan in New Zealand and me here. We share quite a few guests as well. We definitely fixed the world on a few nights, as is our way. Consequently we managed to burn the candle at both ends.
The only unfortunate thing was that the trip should have been longer. Three or preferably ten more days would have been better. On the final morning Ronan’s shots were significantly better. It takes a little while to dial in the shot. It is very very difficult as anyone who fishes here knows well.
It’s interesting how some of my friends find the babies easier and others the freerisers. Ronan is definitely preferring the freerisers but that might change with more success on the babies. I personally preferred freerisers too for many years; now however I fully appreciate both activities.
That may be because fishing for babies requires more boat craft skills; positioning the boat in anticipation of a moving target. And of course “reading” the set; where they will next appear and where to be in order to make the required shot. That’s a set of skills that I enjoy and appeals to me. It’s much more actively about creating the shot than with freerisers, which while still containing these elements, is not as intense or as precise.
So really great fun. The only downside to the trip was Ronan’s farting. I don’t think Ronan would make a good vegetarian and his wife would definitely leave him if he tried. In fact New Zealand would remove his residency and he would have to live far far away from other humans. I’m quite sure that the reason we didn’t see any elephants was because of his farts. For his next visit I’m going to have to buy one of those WW1 gas masks.
Six and a half weeks to Ironman Malaysia. Now is the time to put a huge load on my training and of course start swimming!
Have a great week.
Cheers, Paul