A lurker from the shadows who has finally registered for an account here

[Hantu Tetek]

I was introduced to Fly fishing about 12 years ago and I learnt about Sexyloops in 2011 when Paul came to Malaysia to give some lessons to us. I never knew there was a board with such a wealth of information until recently being told about it in the middle of the Temenggor Dam by Paul.

I've mostly been doing mainly salt water fly casting for Giant Herring and Sailfish in Malaysia and Bonefish in the Maldives. I've done a bit of Lenok and Rainbow Trout fishing in South Korea too.

I pretty much gave up fly fishing about 5 years ago and switched back to conventional fishing with baitcasters and spinning reels. I ended up landing too mamy fish and too easily so decided to look for something more challenging. So the local fly tackle shop hooked me up to Paul and within a few days, I was getting picked up from the jetty of the Temenggor Dam on the fringe of the Belum Rainforest nature reserve for an adventure of a lifetime.

So that's whence the new chapter in my fishing life began. I was introduced to thr 1 second cast to rising Giant Snakeheads by Paul which saw me landing one out of probably 5 potential hookups. Its not easy, but well worth the trouble of relearning the double haul to accommodate Paul's 1 second Snakehead cast.

Although I mentioned that it was difficult, I saw first hand how effective Paul's formula was. If one got the formula right and executed it with precision, then yes I would totally have to concede that one would definitely have a very furious response from the target fish and a hookup would be inevitable. Then there's the next stage of his formula where one would need to fight the fish in a certain manner to ensure that it doesn't make a run for the tree stumps and tangle up.

This is where I will be doing a little bit of training; doing exercises following Paul's surefish formula. And hopefully I will get a second shot at presenting feathered frogs to the Snakeheads in the near future.

[Paul Arden]

Hey welcome to the Board, Ben!! You’ll find a lot of great guys here. A few have visited me too - Graeme, Piffen, Ronan, Tonio, Flavio, Stu, Stefan. All who post here from time to time. Graeme and Flavio in particular have really done well here. I’m hoping when lockdown is over that they all come back. Stefan had to cancel this year.

Nice Sailfish. I look forward to fishing for them soon.

No Gourami shots tonight. I’m not sure they are here. Will try looking for them again in the morning and if that’s no good I’ll leave this place for another year. It’s been three years since they were here!

Cheers, Paul

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Welcome!

That is a damn nice sail! And on a 9 wt and bonefish reel, no less! That fight had to be crazy.

Congrats!

[Hantu Tetek]

No Gourami shots tonight. I’m not sure they are here. Will try looking for them again in the morning and if that’s no good I’ll leave this place for another year. It’s been three years since they were here!

I'm sure they are around, you've just got to throw them a bag of crickets to bribe them out of their hide outs

[Hantu Tetek]

Welcome!

That is a damn nice sail! And on a 9 wt and bonefish reel, no less! That fight had to be crazy.

Congrats!

Thank you sir. As with the Giant Snake head, there is no way in hell you are going to be able to use the rod even if it was a 12 wt to turn the fish and fight it back to the boat. As long as your rod can throw the size of fly to present to the sailfish then you're fine.

What's really required is a reel with lots of backing capacity which then over built Billy pate has. And it's also got an anti reverse handle which means that the handle knob is not going to break your knuckles when the fish strips line from your reel at the rate of 80 miles per hour. As long as you've got around 300m of backing then you're safe and can slowly turn the fish round and winch it back to the boat. However, I prefer to chase the fish with the boat so that I can quickly land and release it quickly to ensure that the sailfish is not overly stressed and exhausted from the fight thus giving it a higher rate of survivability.

[Graeme H]

Welcome to the forum Hantu.

Yes, those snakehead are an awesome target - as Paul says, it's a very challenging and technical fishery.

I'll be back Paul. I don't know when, but I'll get there again once we can all travel again.

Cheers,
Graeme

[Paul Arden]

Hantu, Graeme is the inventor of the Hird Leader system - the hollow spliced tapered linseed/varnished braid section that I fit between the flyline and the braid tippet for Gourami. He gets these ideas while he is asleep at night.

Cheers, Paul

[Graeme H]

Not quite Paul: I get them when I should be asleep at night ...

[Hantu Tetek]

He's the one who carries a notepad with him everywhere to jot down his brilliant ideas right? Anyway, that's a really easy leader to cast. I was initially sceptical about it seeing that the braid looked so flimsy. But after casting a termite fly to a cruising Giant Gourami did u realise that it was in fact easier to cast than the usual trout leader.

I manages to cast within a few feet in front of the cruising gourami but unfortunately it just gave me an evil look with a grin on its face and gave me the finger and cruised on

[Paul Arden]

What’s interesting about these leaders is how many needles you break in such a short time.

Yep Gourami are difficult. Mind you in those four days with you I saw more Gourami than I’ve seen in a long while. Typically I can’t find them now They can be rather elusive at times. But every once in a while the fat lady sings.

I have also been experimenting with a stronger version of the leader for Snakehead. It certainly is more subtle. 50lb braid is far less obvious than 50lb mono. It’s work in progress.

Cheers, Paul