Paul Arden | Monday, 22 April 2019
I’ve been fishing with my good friend Stefan Siikavaara this last week. For the first few days I showed Stefan the ropes; the Snakehead Cast, how to approach them and so on. Stefan missed a Snakehead on the second day by striking (rarely should you actually strike on Snakehead). And for the rest of the week we’ve been fishing in two boats. Friday was completely flat; neither of us had a shot, but the rest of the time has been reasonably good with fair opportunities on all days. I sure hope Stefan catches a fish; it’s very hard to catch a fish on your first trip here, but Stefan is an excellent caster and I have every confidence in him!
I really enjoy this fishery - it’s challenging; and just the right amount of challenging. Not impossible but nothing is easy. The more time I spend here, and the more friends who join me, the greater my appreciation for these fish. If there is a more interesting fish than Snakehead or Gourami then I really don’t know what it is.
It’s physically quite hard work fishing here too. It’s hot, it’s humid, the days are long! But what I love most about it is that there is still so much to be learned. There are vast sections of the great fly fishing species jigsaw puzzle that are still missing for me. I’m not even sure I have all the corner pieces yet and in fact there are still a hell of a lot of straight edge pieces that have yet to be found. I’m definitely a much better fly fisherman having spent most of my last six or seven years fishing here. The level of fly casting required is second to none. One second to carefully present a fly on a saucer anywhere to 20m plus and without warning. It is electric.
Or at least it can be! Currently the afternoon sessions aren’t producing much in the way of electric activity from the Snakehead. This may have something to do with the thermocline being at 50ft... normally maximum I’ve seen it is at 35ft. 50ft might be just a little bit too far for Snakehead to surface? I don’t know and I’m inventing a new theory as we go! The surface water temperature is plenty warm enough - 33.5C today. Anyway this means that we will have to fish doubly hard in the morning sessions - also we will start this week fishing a completely different part of the lake, to see if the story is the same there or different.
Now to other things - we are starting a new Hot Torpedo Competition. The rules are simple - we want to hear from your rod! We want to hear a story of whatever your rod wants to tell us. Best monthly entrant gets a Hot Torpedo shirt of his or her design. Best overall entrant for 2019 wins an all singing and dancing brand new Custom Hot Torpedo Fly Rod (best fucking rod in the world). So that’s it. Start them coming! Tim has already sent an entry so you can see what we have in mind. Tim in fact tells me he has four rods, four stories, four trophy moments. Now that sounds exciting!!
Talking of which we now have two new Four Set HT owners - Steven and Eddie Sinclair. Both now have all four rods - 4, 6, 8 and 10. Joining Tim, Viking Lars, Tom Bentson, me of course, and An Ren Tan. Lucky for everyone we have some new rods very close to production!
Have a wonderful week.
Cheers, Paul