The Hot Tornado

Here on the lake, the water level is lower than I’ve ever seen before. The electric company is doing some maintenance on the dam wall, and by my reckoning the water level is about 12 or 13 meters below normal Wet Season levels. This has made the lake extremely treacherous and driving around at night is now certainly out. Even during the day, great care has to be taken not to flip another boat.

I had a return guest/friend for five days of fishing last week. We saw some Freerisers and we had a couple of those in the boat. There was not a lot of freerising activity however and we spent most of the time looking for babies. We found less than expected… 13 sets in 5 days. That’s pretty slow. I’ve been averaging 3-4 sets/day recently.

However… every set had at least one big fish of around 5KG and at least two of these were over 6KG. 5KG is a trophy T shirt fish. Fish over 6KG (and I can never tell how much over 6KG they are until I weigh them… they could be 8KG for all I know) really are brutes. If the shots had been tighter, earlier and on the money, then it could have been an amazing week. Maybe even the best week. I’ve never seen a week with so many big fish opportunities as this one. But it is extremely difficult here as you know. The shots must go in, accurately, stealthily and fast. That will not happen without training, training, more training and even more training.

Now you might say “aren’t you a flycasting coach, Paul?” Yes I am. Indeed I do more Zoom coaching than Snakehead guiding. But you simply cannot build the shot during a fishing trip. This stuff has to happen three months out, six months out, a year out. You may get lucky, but probably not. In fact it’s extremely unlikely to get lucky here. Maybe a couple of times in the last ten years I’ve seen what I would call luck. I think Peter had a lucky fish when he was over, and we really should have played all the lotteries when it happened. (Peter’s lucky fish was not the 5.5KG Snakehead in the picture by the way. If it was, he wouldn’t be getting the shirt!! :D)

Now while some of this training can happen on grass, you also need to train on water. You need to use the same leader, fly, fly line and rod that you will use here You need to pick/position targets, from the 9’ distance away “Oh Shit!” Reach Cast Shots, to targets from anywhere up to 18 meters. You can also work on lengthening your distance with the Snakehead shot, starting with 6’ of flyline outside the rod tip, to casting maximum distance. For me that is around 25 meters with the single backcast. That’s too far for a shot however, because the fish will be long gone, but 18 meters is still a very doable shot. Hell, if you can be accurate from 3 to 15 meters then we are going to be a dangerous team!

The critical stuff is the “Oh Shit!” shot, which I practise every day, and the accurate 5-15 meters money shots. You want to be able to put it in 2’ diameter circle. Those are the shots that work, and 95% of the fish will eat that fly first or second bloop. That’s what has to happen. If you can do this then you will catch fish. This is the game. It’s amazing.  It’s incredible. It’s some of the, if not the most, exciting fly fishing shot-taking there is, in the Universe. Not to put it too lightly, but the entire reason the human race evolved was so that we can take fly fishing shots at Giant Snakehead. This is the pinnacle of evolution. It’s why we came down from the trees. It’s the reason the Big Bang happened in the first place. Consequently, when the big fish appears, you don’t want to fuck it up.

It’s not the whole game of course. Finding the fish, positioning the boat, working out where they are going, where to be for the exciting shot… this is a huge part of the puzzle and involves additional required skills when fishing by yourself. But with me, “all” you have to do is make the shot.

Now the key to making an effective shot under the pressure of seeing the big fish appear, is to look exactly where you want to place the fly. Not at the fish, and not to just throw randomly in front, but to actually pick a precise point target, and really look at it. Then the rest has to be automatic; slipping line, aiming to the “backcast bell”, shooting line, Slide, the Delivery Shot, Checking the Shoot, Bloop. You MUST above all, pick and look at the target. It’s not randomly in front of the fish. It’s the same as aiming to a floating leaf. We just put the imaginary floating leaf in front of the big fish when it appears. So you need to train that, when training the shot, at home… see the imaginary fish, pick the precise target, slip, touch, shoot to the bell and so on.

At home you can do this thousands and thousands of times. Here you might do it 3 or 4 times/day. When it’s really happening and there are lots of shots, then you may even get to perform this activity as much as 8 or 10 times in one day. And then you are at the very forefront of evolution. And you know what they say... Revolution is Evolution with a Double Haul.

This week is my final run up to Ironman. I’m swimming daily. Planing my nutrition. And trying to refind the 6KG+ fish that we saw last week!! Ironman November 1st. The hard work is done. Now it’s just about recovery and not going backwards.

Have a great week!

Cheers, Paul