T.F.M. Spotting - Riki's Snakehead

Riki Rahman takes us on a couple T.F.M. Spotting adventures in Malaysia and this time it looks like the catch could bite back. 

Riki wrote...  "It has been a solid three years since the dream's been dreamt.  Numerous.  Read...NUMEROUS trips has been done specifically to target these buggers on a fly rod but to no avail.  They are seemingly sheepish towards a streamer or too stoked to see a hard-bodied lure – any other way resulted in zilches for me.  But when an opportunity came to check out an old playground, I made two driving trips back and forth more than 400 kilometers, without any hesitancy, to fetch my trusty fly rods, and the subsequent flies that were initially forgotten.
The aforementioned water is a big greenish-colored river that is an extension from a 100-year old reservoir dam – with few horse-shoe turns alongside it.  The task is to comb out these horse-shoed waters with topwater big guns like the Sigler Popper, Pop-Bloxx, and Gurglers. Recent sightings of huge python-like creatures prowling the almost still-watered surface more or less confirmed its presence.  This is the top Malaysian freshwater gamefish...the Giant Snakehead.  Otherwise lovingly known by us locals as the great “Toman”."

"I didn’t hope too strong in this one.  Previous failures have subconsciously turned me to be quite a realist when it comes to chasing the Toman.  So it happened on that very day that I only brought one outfit...a fiberglass seven weight Conolon Charles-Ritz with a matching Ross Reels Gunnison-2 and one small red/white gurgler was the biggest topwater flies of such.  This is so far my heaviest glass outfit so that left me with not much of an option.
The first horseshoe turn we encountered is about three kilometers into a palm oil plantation from the last tarmac-paved road. The timing of the monsoon couldn’t be any worse with yesterday’s rain melting the path and those three kilometers taking us almost an hour.  The first cast was simply a blind one, but when the second one invited a surface crater to appear right behind the stripped gurgler, then the third one was made more meticulously.
Two strips into the zone and the whole bank watched and cheered as the "ol’ fiberglass rod" being bent to a “U”.  The first Toman pull is always the hardest – no matter how hard I tried to stop the line from slipping thru my palm to no avail.  At that very moment I realized this will be the biggest Toman I’ll ever land on a fly rod – providing that the 16lb tippet will hold.
The Tomans are known as the dirtiest fighter around with lunging and lodging every hook and lure into any underwater structures that they can find.  Some anglers swear by the thrill of such – but not me.  In this water snags are much less so the fight was adjourned on a very fair note, I should say.  Having even said that, the fear of that very thought channeled all my bodily energy towards both of my hands preventing the Toman to gain more line and less distance to the nearest probable snag."

"Thirty minutes later, a big black stripy creature is lying on the very end of a sand bank.  It has been confirmed that this is the biggest Toman I have caught on fiberglass fly rod.  No wait – this is the biggest Toman I have ever caught.  Period!  While the feeling of celebratory was gushing all over my peripherals I realized that I didn’t bring my camera, or any image-capturing device for that matter. So another 50 kilometers were needed for me to fetch my trusty Canon 5DMkII.  It is very unethical to do such a thing for most people (and I agree), but thinking that I might not be able to experience such catch again as long as I live, so I might as well.  And by the time the camera reached the now very revived-and-lively Toman, the sky has turned really dark.  Few snaps later, the cumulonimbus started to expel its heartily content as the Toman made its way to the depth.
I managed to land another two bigger whoppers on subsequent trips but unfortunately on graphite.  Mind you, after seeing the abuse that the Charles Ritz has endured, I decided to retire it from such kind of fishing and resorted to a 8/9 weight LOOP Pike Booster and a 13/15 weight Beulah Blue Water.  This time also I went for much bigger flies on a thicker 30 pound tippet. Although these two outfits were also battered left and right, I guess it made for a more comfortable fight, for me and the fish.
So anyone up for Toman fly fishing?  Remember...“Hold the line real hard on its first run, until you can turn its shoulders...which will take you maybe three or thirty minutes”."

Riki...well done yet again.  Downright scary...but neat to see that the vintage Conolon Charles-Ritz could take the abuse.