Paul Arden | Tuesday, 14 September 2021
I was supposed to be fishing off-line in the jungle from the 16th for ten days but apparently the river where we are due to head is currently in flood. This is something that worries me; just imagine trying to film two episodes of a fly fishing show but arriving after an 8 hr truck ride and 5 hr boat ride only to find the water unfishable. So we are trying to avoid that. One thing I've learned in Sungai Tiang in North Belum (the river where I'm training the Orang Aslis to be fly fishing guides), is to always make hay while the sun shines. It's possible that the Wet Season is coming in early this year, but equally a bit more water from the heavens can certainly occur at this time. The only time you can virtually guarantee no rain (in the part of Malaysia I'm in at least) is Feb/March when it usually doesn't rain a drop.
So it's back to the lake for a few days where the fishing has been good and is really starting to pick up. The free-risers I've found mostly are on the small side, although I managed to miss one of about 4KG on the same day as I picked up the one in the video caught off babies. (The adult off babies incidentally was 4.7KG).
Normally catching them off babies for me is less challenging nowadays and I actually prefer the free-risers. However there is one exception to this and that is when the babies are big! When the babies are large (as in about 8-10"+ long) then catching the adult becomes very difficult. This is partly because the set is moving MUCH faster and is often difficult to keep up with without using up the entire thruster battery, also the adults will almost certainly have been fished for, but finally I think the most challenging part is putting in the shot without the babies finding the fly first.
Snakehead with small babies you lead by about 2-3 feet. Snakehead with babies you often need to put within a foot of the fish's nose, which is actually a shot that spooks the first set of adults. So in other words you set up for a much tighter shot. Now that I've told you all that, that's not what happened in the video above! Because in this case the adult rose apart from the babies and started to descend across in front of me and away from them. Those circumstances needed more lead without the risk of spooking the adult.
Excellent fishing at the moment and I like the variety between free-rising shots and babies. There are Guorami shots starting to appear but they are unpredictable - when are they ever? The last opportuninty to catch a Gourami I tried before morning coffee which is obvioulsy completely impossible.,
Talking of which, one of the comments on YouTube I found to be quite interesting, that I should get a hair cut unless it is a religious thing. Well it is a religious thing of course. I'm a Guaramiist. We believe that fish are the chosen ones and that the Gods are in the image of Giant Gouramis. For us fishermen, to become fish in our next life-times, we either have to be completely bald, very hairy, or both. I didn't explain all of that of course and just said it was my religion.
Have an excellent week!
Cheers, Paul