Paul Arden | Monday, 22 February 2016
I bought a tape measure last week so that I can accurately measure my shots and sorry, much of my stated Snakehead shot distances have been misleading and the required distances are considerably longer. My slipped-Lift Shooting PUALD Shot comfortably casts 22 metres, however the good news/bad news is that this is too far to reach the Snakehead before it's turned down too deep. The best shot and the distance I aim to position the Snakehead from the boat at is 17m. This is your money shot. Closer than this and you don't have the room to tease the fish if it decides to chase, further than this and you don't have enough time for the shot to reach the fish. Anyway it's good to know that with a PUALD shot and starting with 2m of flyline outside the tip you can reach 22m using an 8-weight line with practise. This actually surprised me... so anyway the optimal distance you need to be able to make a 2m length of flyline slipped-lift PUALD go is 17m. It should go that distance with accuracy, speed and deliberate force.
There's a topic on this here - http://www.sexyloops.co.uk/theboard/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1905 I'm not sure I agree with Pete that this is a Bonefish shot - but if it is then you guys need to get over here because being able to make this shot puts you in the game. Whenever I've fished off the front of a skiff I've started with fly in hand which adds a false cast to the shot. This doesn't work well in Malaysia where you don't have the luxury of time - you only get 2 seconds to place the fly in front of the fish.
I also made another mistake in last week's FP "Three shots for Snakehead" when I said I was using a RIO Bonefish line - that was the previous trip. This year I've been using SA Bonefish lines. The SA Bonefish line has a 40ft Head. Both RIO and SA kindly give me lines for these trips.
It's been an interesting week this one. I took Ashly down the lake for a couple of days of Valentine Fly Fishing. It rained like hell on one of the days but Ashly got a few shots at Snakehead with babies and I had a couple of close inspections from good-sized Gourami - nothing hooked. She left back for KL on Tuesday night, Wednesday I had some minor truck repairs (such as the exhaust having fallen off and the starter motor jammed) and then I spent the rest of the week fishing on my own. I have to say it's a big mystery to me why on the lake half that I'm fishing - that is in itself quite HUGE - 40km from end to end, with vast expanses of bays and at least three major basins of water, that I can only find fish in one small arm. I know this will change and I hope it changes soon, because until fish start to make their appearance known elsewhere I can only take people fishing in this one arm!
Guiding has been a big game-changer for me incidentally. Three months ago I was pretty damned broke! The fourth quarter of last year was very slow for sales but we're safely over that hurdle now and pre-season Europe sales have started. One week of guiding allows me to fish for the next 8 weeks, which is prefect because this means I'm not taking money out of the Sexyloops business and can reinvest profits - something that is very much needed - business man Paul says. It's always been interesting trying to juggle Sexyloops sales and fly fishing, which I'm not very good at because I always have and always will put fishing first! Guiding on the other hand can fully support me and then some. All very positive and will allow me to get on and continue developing new Sexyloops gear. It will be nice to step out from the business slightly and my decision making will benefit this.
Right, it's Friday night, I'm camped out in the jungle. Two more days of fishing and then it's back to base. I have two big bays and two river mouths to explore tomorrow. Next week I'm going to target Tilapia. In fact the way sight-fishing is right now, I think this could be a worthy exploration.
Final thoughts... it's been very hard this week, it's very hot and humid, water levels are high and there is very little surface activity outside of the areas I'm guiding. So this week I'm going to do something different and spend a week fishing with sinking lines. To my knowledge no one has yet targeted the Tilapia on fly in this lake - I have a few ideas but I really need to catch one first to see what they eat. I'm guessing freshwater shrimp and maybe insect larvae - damsel nymphs, and maybe small fish. They also eat algae which is going to be difficult to imitate. It's about now I really wish I had a sounder but getting a free one is proving challenging! Even for me 
Finally thanks Mike for a great run of FPs! Mike is going to take a short break until he's boat-mobile. Can't wait for the day Mike tells me he's bought his boat! Cheers mate!!
Have a great week,
Paul