Tough shots!

Tough shots!

Paul Arden | Monday, 19 March 2018

I’ve just dropped Piffen off at the airport. It was a great two weeks of fishing and camping with the odd evening of bar pool thrown in. Piffen managed a Gourami which was great and was unfortunate not to have landed a Snakehead on the penultimate day. He had one follow and another eat (a free-riser no less!) but unfortunately it smashed the wire connection to the leader. So very close! However it is very hard as you will know by now but by the end of the trip Piffen lifted his casting shot game and started to look a little dangerous.

It’s the start of an interesting year I think. There are not many sets of babies to be found. Most days we only found around three sets - and we scoured the lake - but there are free-risers starting to appear. I landed my largest free-riser to date last week which weighed 11.5lbs. A nice fish on the HT8!

 

There are Gourami to be caught as well and it’s very early in the year for the stumpers but they can be caught (both Piffen and my Gourami were caught off the stumps). The Cicada are shagging but as yet have not made themselves Gourami food. There is virtually no surface activity from jungle perch. 

 

However I do feel it’s all about to happen and while I have a lot of catching up to be done this week which will see me camping around phone coverage and therefore will limit my fishing areas, I do think that there are enough opportunities to catch more than a few fish, in this very tough fly fishery. 

 

Soon Ashly and I are setting up a small service where you, or you and a friend, can rent a boat (“The Ronan”) on the lake I fish and fish with me. I’ll talk more about this next week but if you are interested in testing out your skills on some of the most challenging fly species on Earth then Malaysia could be for you. 

 

More next week. Expect a lot of activity this week, an SLTV video, Tonic Eyewear going in the shop and the continuation of our flycasting video section as well as our Front Page team. 

 

Cheers,

Paul