Paul Arden | Tuesday, 18 January 2022
Just a reminder that we are currently taking orders for the new and very exciting HT5, our latest Sexyloops flyrod, which we will start delivering mid March. It’s a great time to order this, or indeed our other rods, because we are building up quite a waiting list for when the blanks arrive! We do have standard rods in stock, ready to ship, and can currently get straight to work — or at least very quickly — with custom orders. You can also order blanks; we have quite a few blank orders at the moment.
Gene, one of our latest Board members to join the throng (from Bermuda), apparently had a good laugh at my video when I said it took 8 years to develop, because as he said “I was fishing in the jungle all the time; of course it took 8 years!!”
On the Sunday FP I talked about lake “downtime”, which is what I experience in January through to early March here in the Malaysian Jungle, and yesterday, in a shallow flooded area I call “The Gardens”, I found a set of small bright red babies and two beautiful-looking Giant Snakehead. I caught one of these (of course!). I love the greens on this fish and can only surmise that they, like many fish, take on the hues of their surroundings.
Curiously, as I was entering “The Gardens”, some visiting anglers were leaving the area. I’m not entirely sure they were here legally, because they had their own boat and to launch a boat on the lake it needs to be locally registered. But I won’t make a big fuss about this because it took me a few years to get myself registered :D Anyway they must have missed this set because they were unspooked. It was fun to watch the babies and adults swim around for a little while before I took my shot.
Now let me tell you something, that I found very interesting (but don’t tell anyone else :p). I managed to put the shot in behind the fish. This was my first mistake. Often this spooks the fish, but in this case it turned around and ate the fly. Thanks! As you will know, if you’ve been reading the Board or earlier FPs, I’ve been experimenting with different timings of the hook set (or strike) and after, what I thought a suitable delay, I tightened.
All was good and the fish was on for fully six seconds. I thought “ah-ha! I’ve got him (or her). Perfect strike!” And then it came unstuck. FFS!! I cast again, because I always do, and it ate again!! But I missed it. I cast a third time, it ate a third time (WTF?) and after an even longer delay I set the hook by slowly applying force to rock solid. Fish on and in the boat!
I’ve only seen similar a few times with Snakehead and of course many times with Pike. But as I said please don’t tell anyone, because it makes me sound completely incompetent :D Actually hang on… yesterday I wanted to experiment to see how long a fish would hold the fly on the first take and eat again if the hook comes free and you are extremely skilled in re-presenting the fly twice more. The answer is 6 seconds.
Good stuff on the Board. Some good instructor discussions which I’m enjoying. But don’t feel that you have to be an instructor to post! Get in and start a discussion about anything of interest to you. I’m not going to start conversing on Facebook, so get involved and keep me sane!
Thanks, Paul
PS the line in the video is the SA MED5 and this is how it behaves in the tropics; like a coiled snake!! :)))