Like in many places around the world, there is great fishing hidden away… you just need to know where to go. Taiwan is a land full of beautiful sceneries, and has many great spots to fish with many types of challenging fish. You certainly need to “know where to go”, otherwise chances are you’ll end up like most other people there, on the crowded banks of harbors, with lure tackle. But if you want to fly fish fresh waters, you need expert guides especially since you could end up with a $1000 USD ticket in your hands for fishing in the forbidden areas (yikes!). Last time I fished for top mouths with my good friends Caddis & Wesley, they mentioned the possibility to fish for baby Pacific Tarpons close to urban environment…. I could not wait too long to join them.
It’s like one of those surreal scenes out of a movie, we are walking down the urban streets of Taipei then we suddenly slipped through a wall of tall & sharp grass blades, to find ourselves in a parallel secret world. I could no longer hear the cars, I can only see the “plop” of tarpons rising to the surface to grab insects that have carelessly landed on the water’s surface. I can hear the faint sound of someone practicing their clarinet somewhere beyond the wall of grass, playing amazing grace. The weather was hot, but the slight breeze made it tolerable. This was nice, to find myself somewhere close but completely far away…
On this day I was given the chance to try out some of the new rods my friends had designed and had built. I tried a 3 weight fast and 3 weight slow action rods. As expected the rods were highly sensitive and smooth to cast. Caddis & Wesley has already developed several series of fly rods (Approach Eclosion Series, Morewell Traveler Series, Morewell Harrier Series, Morewell Mayfly Series) and they are starting to gain recognition & praise throughout Asia & Europe. Some of their rods have been used in several top competitions (most notably by the Czech national team) and orders are being placed from around the world. I have ordered my 5 weight and can’t wait to get it. It’s nice to see young and talented rod designers creating their vision into products, and building a reputation for themselves. For me, how cool is it that I can use rods and reels my friends have developed, doesn’t get more personal than that.
I was also able to get some free casting advice from Caddis, and immediately my casting started to improve. I basically learned casting on my won, and therefore continue to have a lot of problems. Like most things, people learn to overcome their flaws by overcompensating on other things, but until the problem is properly fixed, there will always be some limitation. It was amazing to watch Caddis cast what seemed to be close to 100 feet of line, and with such ease. We talked about how in most situations, these long casts were not necessary. But we both admitted that there are those moments that only the super long cast will get that fly to that fish. Rare, but all fly fishermen know this situation. When that moment comes, you want to be able to get it there… it’s simply preparing that.
These Pacific Tarpons were a lot of fun! They were the miniature version of the larger Atlantic brothers, but they behaved the same (in a miniature way). They took the fly like they meant it, they jumped really high to display acrobatic skills, and gave a good fight. We were lucky this day, there was a lot of them and the most challenging part of the fishing was deciding on which rise to throw it to. Some friends joined up towards the later part of the day, and it was funny watching friends slip forward one by one from the magical wall of grass. Everyone caught a bunch of fish and the conversation was as plentiful. We wrapped up the day with some awesome hot pot dinner and some ice cold Taiwan beer.
Caddis & Wesley – thanks for letting me test out your new equipment, and I look forward to many more of our multi dimensional trips around the world. Rock on brothers!
