Paul Arden | Tuesday, 2 December 2025
We have had two days of fishing so far. Yesterday was very slow and we only found one set of babies. Matthias did however put in the shot and hooked undoubtedly a T-shirt fish (over 5KG) which unfortunately then broke the wire. Maybe I overstressed the importance of playing the fish hard! That was his second cast of his trip. The first cast had a follow from the same set.
Today 4 sets and a few other moments as well. But nothing in the boat as of yet. Two chases and one small eat next to the boat.
The babies on the second day were all small and hatched this week. As well as this we found a couple of fish that were paired up. So it can only keep getting better!
And this evening, we saw a nice elephant, that very obviously could smell Matthias’ socks. Matthias is wearing socks to try to prevent “White Man Foot”, which as David so excellent demonstrated on his trip last year, is when your feet swell to twice their normal size. If Matthias’ feet do this then we will need a bigger boat.
One of the things to practise before coming here is moving the leader, fly and 1-2 metres of fly line around in preparation for the shot. I’ve noticed that many people struggle with this. It’s a very narrow wristy cast. I think of it as a type of “mend” incidentally. A pre-shot mend!
Line management is a really big issue here. You want to be aware of where your fly line, leader and fly is outside the rod tip at all times, as well as the line inside the boat of course. No slack between you and the fly. Remember the boat is moving so you need to be constantly adjusting.
And then always ALWAYS look where you want to place the fly when the shot appears. This, and failure to ring the bell, are the two most common causes for a fly not to land where it should. I’m assuming of course that the slipped lift is trained and ingrained. Otherwise the trip will pointless and we will drink beer and tie ugly flies instead!! Nowadays, principally because of Zoom, all my visitors have this aspect dialled in as a matter of course.
Anyway, Matthias can do all of this stuff, so it’s all about to happen!! More shots, more sets, that’s what we want now.
I’ll make some more casting and fishing videos soon. And I will cover this stuff in detail. These are the small details that are difficult to find online, and they are key to consistent success. And here, on one of the world’s most challenging fly fisheries, you need to have the small details completely dialled in. I will share some drills next week, or if not next week, then at some point in the foreseeable or unforeseeable future. Stay tuned!
I hope you are having a great week. Incidentally I have one week available for Snakehead in February, and March onwards I’ll be on Sungai Tiang. If you are interested in a trip to Malaysia, for either of these, then please get in touch.
Cheers, Paul