If not now when?

If not now when?

David Stocker | Sunday, 15 December 2024

Malaysia - If not now when?

When I last wrote here I was anticipating a couple of fishing adventures. The first in October was a redfish trip in the marshes and open gulf near Buras, LA on the Mississippi delta. The weather was great and the reds were cooperative. This month I had the exceptional pleasure of visiting master Arden on lake Temengor in Malaysia fishing for the remarkable and aboriginal giant snakehead. We lived on the “Battleship” for a week and fished out of the “speedboat”  seen in Paul’s YouTube videos . He was a gracious host and a credible chef. The snakehead babies were blooming all over the lake. Apparently the mating season is long and the sets of babies  varied in size from new born fry, visible only as effervescence in the greenish water, to 10-inchers periodically evident from a couple of hundred yards away. The parents loomed somewhere near every set. It’s touching. These are amazing beautiful fish and seem to be loving parents. There is something about the variability of their behavior that led me to imagine that  they displayed facial expressions. It’s easy to love these fish. I had practiced the snakehead shot for months prior to the trip  but executing under pressure was surprisingly difficult. An epiphany late in the week, understanding the slipped backcast and slipped forward stroke in a new way, came a little too late, but I was very lucky to have great conditions, getting 5-10 good shots per day. I found several creative ways to fuck these up. Thanks to Paul’s expert boat handling, I was able to catch some fish. It’s an exotic place (duh). The lakeshore is a stunning ancient rainforest rising steeply off the water. The trees are 80’ tall. Monkeys howl in the morning -  unseen elephants were close enough to smell, leaving big footprints on the shore and coconut-like poops in the lake. The experience was intoxicating.  I'm going  to work on my casting  and go back.

 
David Siskind