Paul Arden | Tuesday, 18 March 2025
I’m back aboard the Battleship. Totally jet lagged! My body clock is in haywire mode, but I did have a long drive up from KL, a short swim upon arrival, a longish 14K run in Gerik and a shorter threshold 10Km run the following morning. There is quite a temperature and time difference between Scotland and the Malaysian Tropics and my body really hasn’t got itself adjusted yet. No surprises there then! I used to be able to sleep on planes. Nowadays it’s simply impossible.
I have a guest arriving on Saturday for one week. He’s an airline pilot so maybe he’ll have some useful flying tips! Three days with me, chasing Snakehead and Giant Gourami, and then four days in Sungai Tiang. I’ll head up Sungai Tiang with him, to see what it’s like, take photos and lend a hand, offer advice, drink beer – all sorts of useful things.
I’ll do the airport pickup to collect him from Penang, which will cunningly allow me to stock up on boat supplies. It’s Hara Raya when Ben leaves. Which means I will hide out somewhere down the lake and not venture anywhere near a road surface for at least a week!! Possibly two.
A really interesting read from Kalyn yesterday, about the problems that can occur if you ask a guide to cast the rod to show how it’s done! There is a time and place for it for sure, but there is also a time and place not to do it!
For me there are some considerations, for example: are there a hell of a lot of fish? If it’s a stream or lake with hundreds of similar opportunities, then it can be a good idea to demonstrate. But if it’s only a few shots per day, then it’s probably best to not do so!
However, I do believe that over here and prior to a guest’s first fishing adventure solo, in one of my boats – the “self guided” experience – that guests really should watch how I fish. There is a lot to be learned from doing this; the stealthy approach, the clever boat positioning, the dynamic split second shot, the muttering to myself, the foaming at the mouth and so on. I do teach and explain all this while guiding of course; for me it’s not so much about guiding, as it is about preparing anglers to fish alone, successfully and without me, but seeing it happen first-hand beforehand, is definitely helpful for many, if not all, anglers coming here. This usually occurs on someone’s second or third visit, and only then if they intend to fish by themselves. It’s very much harder to find the fish, create the shot, position the boat and to make the shot while continuously boat handling – and seeing it all done successfully helps us to visualise what needs to be done.
I’ll soon be employing someone at Sexyloops to help primarily with organising, fulfilment and stock levels, and also to help with the complex daily operations on Sexyloops. As some of you may know, I am not very well organised. I may not be the most disorganised person on the planet and it’s possible that there are people out there who live an even more chaotic life. But it’s highly unlikely. Because of this, the price of eggs, the new X system (where we now replace rod sections directly, without you having to ship back broken ferrules), and because we now use courier and not mail services, there will be a fairly significant price increase on rods starting next month. Rod prices will go up by 20%, so please order now if you want to beat this!
We do have complete rods in stock: HT7 and Instructor HT6&7 standard builds, which can be posted immediately. But we also have a builds to-do list of about 8-10 rods. So around a 2 weeks waiting list.
Remember every rod gets a 1 in 666 chance of a two week saltwater holiday, fishing with me and living as pirates.
Having just spent two weeks in England and Scotland, I’ve also decided to increase my coaching and guiding rates slightly. Coaching flycasting via Zoom after March will be 950USD for ten sessions. Guiding will be 700USD/day, including Full Board. Taking out the Ronan and DIY fishing is currently 250USD Full Board and 350 for two. I haven’t decided whether to increase this yet, but I’ll probably increase both slightly. These price increases will take effect at the beginning of April. If you book now I’ll maintain the current prices for your trip and/or your coaching. The current guiding rate is 650USD/day and flycasting coaching is 900USD for ten sessions.
I’m planning to visit Edinburgh 17th August for a 70.3 triathlon with my sister. Maybe we will have a Sexyloops Meet on Whiteadder Reservoir the following weekend. Let me know if you are interested and I’ll get more details arranged. It’s been a while since we have done one of these weekends and they have always been both fun and educational. The last one was something like 10 years ago and I’m sure we have all moved forwards from then! So there will be a great exchange of new information to be had. And a few beers to be shared I suspect.
Have a wonderful week!
Cheers, Paul