Rickard Gustafsson | Saturday, 3 January 2026
After three slow mornings this morning is different. Paul is up before me. He is getting ready to move the boat. I think we are moving before I’m up from the hammock. It is a good feeling to finally see Paul somewhat alive again. He doesn’t look completely well, but he is up and strong enough to drive the boat. He mentions that his vision is a bit off. Apparently not uncommon when you have been in such a state that he has been the last days. We get moving but is soon hindered. There is some problem with the fuel supply to the engine. I don’t think we figured out what was the problem but some blowing in the fuel hose got us going again.
At our new location things look better than our previous location. Not much wind and Paul has spotted sets of babies on our way there. I go out on my own again leaving Paul to rest in the boat. I don’t get far before spotting the first set of babies, I spot more than one at the same time. I work on positioning the boat to one of the sets. No wind that moves the boat around but we are out in the open water so it is hard to guess in which direction they will move. Here I learn a new thing, it is easy to get tempted to get too close to the set. When you only see the movement in the surface you are worried that you won’t be able to see the adult rise. It is quite disheartening to have the whole set coming up to look at the boat. Then it is just to thank them for playing and move on. Though it is very fascinating to observe a set move up close. From a far the movement can seem very random. But seeing this cloud of perfectly coordinated fish quickly rise to the surface and then down in the deep again is quite spectacular. There are more fish than you realise in these sets. From a far it looks like there just is a few fish that congregate in the surface swimming around without any direction.
You might want to know how I managed with the sets I found? Badly.
The first set is with big babies. I see the adult rise on the other side of the babies. This is a good method to create chaos. Babies jumping every where and attacking the fly at the same time and the adult is nowhere to be seen.
The next set the adult rises where I’m resting the fly, I bloop the fly without any success. I had probably already noticed them of my presence.
An other set I manage to scare the set of small babies with my cast. Small babies scattering everywhere and it is game over.
And the last set I found here, or it could’ve been some of the previous sets also, I manage with something that is “easy” to do. As you see the adult rise you can have so much anticipation built up that you just start the cast as you see the fish, you don’t wait to see where it is going. Your eyes are fixated on the rising fish, the cast is early. And you smash the fish on the head with the fly just as it breaks the surface. That is also game over.
I’m already out of water and the battery indicator on the thrusters says the battery is low so I head back for water and a charged battery. Lifting a battery from the bow of the Ronan isn’t the easiest thing. So it feels a bit stupid when you find out that you have lifted the best changed battery you have out of the boat for no valid reason. Paul has a portable voltmeter now. I stock up on water, crackers and some chilli tuna. I miss that chilli tuna. Canned fish that doesn’t smell like cat food, what a thing!
On my way out I spot the same sets as I have scared earlier. I decide to let them rest.
The weather has changed now, both wind and rain, so fishable spots are fewer. This means that I managed to cover the area Paul pointed out much quicker than expected. I manage to find one set in the whole area. It is a set of medium sized babies that I follow for a long time. And again I misjudge their movement and they get close to the boat. I’m about to give up when I get a rise from one of the adults. I think I got a good shot away but gets no interest from the adult. The rise was towards the set of babies and I put the cast in the direction where the adult was moving and right next to the babies without scaring them. So at least the shot got according to plan. I leave them alone after this as we are getting really close to a camp of some fishermen.
As soon as I’m preparing to leave I hear Paul on the walkie-talkie. Paul is up and out on the Rocket. He wonder where I am and we decide to meet up as we are very close to each other. On my way to Paul I can see that he has stopped and it looks like he is looking for something in the water. He is stalking a set of babies. I move slowly towards him to get a good view of what’s going on. I get to see him take a shot at a set from a really good position, and see him catch the adult also. It is great to see him up again, but did he have to make his comeback like this? What a show off!
We leave one of the boats behind and head out to fish together. We manage to find some sets, and I manage to screw all of them up.
The same story repeats the following day, we find a number of sets and I don’t manage to get a good shot in. Know that each set we find possibly is the last of the trip makes the pressure I put on myself so very high. A number of times it feels like I will throw up from the pressure. The pressure here I feel here is higher than any of the competitions. The only competition scenario that has gotten close is the accuracy round at the world championships. Where I was the first caster out of the whole competition. Then I put a bit of pressure on myself.
An interesting thing from these high pressure situations is that I can remember details vividly of them, but it is hard to keep track of when and in which order they happened.
Some of the pressure I felt here I could’ve avoided. Like not worrying about the time we had to leave to be in time for the flight.
It was during this outing that I cracked my rod. And saw some interesting fish. Big and moving fast, just a silvery big side flashing by near the surface in a small bay.
A couple of fun things happened during those last hours. Like we were probably offered to buy fish from some local fishermen, twice. I think I’ve mention this one before. When they came back with a snakehead as it was the only thing we did mention that they understood. And they looked very confused when we tried to explain that we wanted to catch snakehead and put them back in the water.
I took a shot at what we realised was a stump afterwards and not the adult, and that Paul told me to take another shot at the “adult”. It was an other stump.
We found some interesting looking driftwood that almost tipped the boat over as I lifted into the boat. And right after to be decided that it was too big to use as decoration in the battleship.
The next time snakeheads you have to watch out! Then I will be better prepared in a lot of ways.
Cheers, Rickard
PoD: Paul and a set of babies