Paul Arden | Tuesday, 7 May 2024
The lake has been tough. While every Snakehead in the lake is breathing, with the water temps as high as 35.5C, the fish are hanging around at the surface less long than usual. And as you’ll probably have figured out by now, even this amount of time is already quite short; only 1-2 seconds. Currently it appears to be less than half this now and their heads are well and truly down. Best chance of a freeriser is close to dark I think.
That said, due to lessons and other organisings I didn’t get to fish last week nearly as much as I would have liked. Mika and Satu are currently up in Sungai Tiang, fishing for Mahseer with the Orange Asli. While I have multiple lessons on all days, as well as three videos to make for a fly fishing gathering in the States, I should also have a bit more time to have more of a go myself. I’m excited to see what happens!
Talking of other organisings, DHL have finally agreed to pick up our Sexyloops rod stock and ship to Spain. The complications of shipping to the EU from the UK is a logistical nightmare of mammoth proportions and I’ll be very pleased when we are building the Hot Tortugas. We have eight orders to fulfil so looking forward to really getting things rolling again. I think sending from UK to EU is undoubtedly the most complicated shipping process in the world. Just 20 miles apart, shipping anywhere else in the world is a walk in the park by comparison. In fact I think I’m correct in saying that it’s actually easier to swim the channel than send stock to Europe.
One of the gifts that Mika and Satu gave me was a “kuksa” which is a wooden cup only to be used for coffee and whisky. To christen it I had to drink a full mug of whisky by myself. Well of course this is not too much of a problem for me. But my next morning wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders!! Whether this is a Finnish tradition or a Mika and Satu tradition I’m not sure. They have one for Ashly too. I doubt Ashly has drunk that much whisky in her entire life!
With this current freerising activity I can see my shots developing again. I had the idea that one way to make a particularly long shot would be to shake some line out on the lift and not simply slip line. This is something I’m going to start work on. It’s all about to happen…
Have a great week!
Cheers, Paul