Paul Arden | Tuesday, 25 February 2025
The majority of my Zoom casting coaching athletes/students are based in North America. The time difference between Malaysia and North America is 12-16 hrs depending on location. As a consequence of this I have two different working slots depending on time of year.
In the US/Canadian Winter, which is Malaysian Wet Season, i largely work at night under Battleship floodlight. This is good in that I can give two or sometimes three Zoom sessions in an evening. This makes for a busy evening, particularly because I ride my indoor bike afterwards and then eat! Consequently, for most of this time, my fishing is an afternoon/evening affair. But I enjoy it. In fact I really love it, principally because it’s a contrast.
For the rest of the year, times flip over, and for most (not all) teaching in North America, we switch to their afternoon/evenings and my mornings. This week for example, I have early morning lessons every day, including one at 6.45am my time, which is just before daybreak! I like this too, because then I can fish the morning session on the lake, and my evenings are more relaxing.
New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Europe – these are all very easy times to organise and I try to time lessons there for when the fish are shut down here, during the heat of the day! Oh yes, have to try to organise around fishing :))
Winter must have been pretty harsh this year over in North America. I know this because many students hibernated! Anyway it’s nice to be moving towards summer and daylight coaching again. I think I look less scary in the light of day, although that's debatable. I suspect that my 7am morning slot will be busy 6 days/week for the foreseeable future now. I do have the option to teach at 6am (in the dark) if necessary. Although I’m going to try to avoid this!!!
The fishing here is still really good at the moment and there are Snakehead with babies on the lake. March sees the beginning of the Gourami season proper, with morning ants and shady banks. And Sungai Tiang is open for Mahseer. Please come or at least enquire about the Mahseer fishing with the Orang Asli. The next two or three months is prime time to fish this water. We really want to get guests in there to protect the river and make a success of this venture for them.
I have a short trip to the UK March 2-13. I have no plans to teach in person but will be coaching via Zoom. I’m also going to tune up my distance and run as much as I can. It definitely looks cold over there and I will have to wear socks again!!!
I have a second rod builder for HTs, based in Tassie. So that’s exciting! And we shall be sending him some blanks to build next week. In a few month’s time we should be set up to manufacture in Australia.
We also have a new writer to take over Andy’s slot. I’m very excited about that because I know he has a wealth of fly fishing knowledge to share. In fact I have two writers in the wings now, which is very good news because for the past few weeks I’ve been finding it tough to come up with multiple weekly FPs!!
Today’s fish is a fish I caught last night. I saw both Snakehead leading their young near the surface. I took a shot across their path into surface glare. One ate. Unfortunately the wrong one, because the other adult was at least twice the size! When you come across that knowingly – and are stalking them – then you can actively target the bigger fish when it breathes. This wasn’t that sort of opportunity.
Have a great week!
Cheers, Paul