Paul Arden | Monday, 17 July 2017
It's been an eventful week for me. Flavio has returned to Switzerland after a fantastic 8-week stay on Temenggor Lake with me (and he's seen a lot more of the country besides, as well as Thailand and the Maldives). For the final three weeks he was concentrating on Giant Gourami. Having lost three, Flavio finally landed one early one morning. And then to prove that it wasn't an accident, he caught one on his own that was stumping mid-morning.
Chuan Tay has also been over for some fishing - Chuan wanted to catch a Giant Gourami before both Ronan and Tim. And on the first evening he landed two! So that took the pressure off me and put the pressure on Ronan. The next day he caught a Toman off babies. It's been a fantastic adventure watching Chuan lift his game with these fish - particularly his casting shots for Snakehead, which is the hardest shot casting there is. Fighting these large fish, without the use of the reel, is still a relatively new idea for Chuan as you can see from the video! However when it comes to fighting Gourami, Chuan is all over them.
Even bigger news is that while snorkelling in the South China Sea, in a place called "Fish Garden", I proposed to Ashly! The wedding will be next March (she said yes!), we will start off with 5 days of Jungle Fishing - BEACH WEDDING - and then we plan to go fishing for Bonefish and GTs somewhere. Exactly where I'm working on at the moment. Don't ask to see the ring because I haven't organised this part yet!
But now... Stuntman Ronan is here!!! Two weeks of fishing Temenggor Lake together. I'm very excited to show Ronan this challenging fishery. Let's hope he doesn't get eaten by a tiger! Giant Gourami are the most amazing dry fly fish I know. I need to buy a zoom for my camera to show you these takes - they are mind-blowing.
Cheers,
Paul