Paul Arden | Tuesday, 22 April 2025
There have been a few Sexyloops FPs discussing scent over the years and a couple in the past week. For me of course, scenting flies is absolutely not fly fishing. I want fish to eat my flies because they look fantastic, which they do, not because they smell of fish oil. Otherwise we could just tie a tampax to the hook, dip it in pilchard oil and away we go. Of course flies do smell, especially if tied with socks, but does that make a difference?
It’s an interesting question and I don’t fully know the answer. I suppose it’s possible that the infamous 5-minute refusal that we had some years back from Mr Giant Gourami, was not the fish inspecting my carefully tied cicada pattern, but instead smelling the dubbed seal’s fur body. And we cannot know for sure of course because Gourami pretend not to be able to speak English.
But I thought I’d give you a few stories about scent and fish. The first is a story I heard from The Late Ron Holloway, who was a river keeper on the famed River Itchen. It can also be found in his book “You should have been here last Thursday”.
At his workplace they had a hatchery containing many trout parr, with freshwater running into the tank. He took one of these parr and shook it around in a jam jar. This no doubt came as a considerable surprise to the poor juvenile fish. Ron then proceeded to pour a few drops of the water from the jam jar into the water feed that ran directly into the tank. All the other parr in the tank now suddenly went nuts, dashing around, spooked, looking for the perceived threat.
In other words spooked trout (and no doubt other fish) release a scent that then warns other fish of imminent danger or Ron.
In New Zealand, I have seen freshwater Eels (they are big buggers in NZ and can grow to over 20Kg) come swimming around the area where I had just played and released a trout. In other words, they also key into this distressed scent signal. I’ve even had an eel grab the vent of a 5lbs trout I was playing… I landed and separately released both fish, after politely asking the eel to release my trout with the butt of my rod. I’ve also looked down at my feet in river mouths in New Zealand, only to see eels smelling my boots. That was disturbing.
Also in NZ, Hairy Castles and I were on a high embankment looking down into a pool where there were some monster trout milling around on the fin. Upstream, out of sight, Jim and young Aaron tried unsuccessfully to cross the river. Jim was wearing the same pair of polyprop leggings that he had been wearing for over a month and they could almost walk without him. When the water that had flowed past Jim’s polyprops reached the pool, all the fish got seriously agitated, spooked and sunk away to lie doggo at the bottom of the riverbed.
Here in Malaysia I always have a Giant Gourami in the Battleship aquarium for company. They live with me for about a year before returning to the wild, where I catch them again a few years later. Giant Gourami are omnivore, absolutely love cheese, chocolate, sedges/caddis, termites and fruit.
Once I came back from the town supplies run with two bunches of grapes. I fed pieces of the grapes to the Gourami of the time. Mr G ate one of the grape pieces but not pieces from the other grape, which it spat out. The difference? One of the grapes was sour and that was the one that was spat out.
One observation I would make at this point, is that the Gourami had to mouth the grape piece first, despite having highly sensitive pectoral feelers that can taste/smell and are apparently used as the piscatorial equivalent of shaking hands.
Finally, one piece of cooking advice. WTF? If you don’t know whether a spice will suit your Fishing Campfire Curry, taste the curry first and then smell the spice. If it doesn’t fit you will know immediately, without spoiling your curry.
I know that last story was completely out the blue but I am here to educate after all.
I’m very busy coaching flycasting at the moment. Why do more than half my students live in Eastern Standard Time USA?! There must be anglers wanting to improve their flycasting prowess in other parts of the world too! Actually there are of course, I have students in other parts of US, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands, UK, Ireland, Sweden, the Philippines, Czech Republic, Austria, Hong Kong… it’s a long list, but more than half are Eastern Standard Time! Which means that my 7 o’clock in the morning (7pm EST) is always busy. Every morning I have to tell myself that I really am a morning person without actually believing it.
Sexyloops coaching with me costs 1000USD, for an intense and fun-packed ten-lesson course, which usually takes about a year (but can be quicker or longer and completely at your pace). If you are interested in becoming a Flycasting God, then please email me and I can send you full details. I don’t have much space at all at the moment, but time zones other than EST are considerably easier to accommodate!!
Today’s picture is a nice fish caught by me on Saturday on a tampax. Only kidding! Now I’m heading out to find some more. Have a great week!
Cheers, Paul