Monday, March 16, 2009

March 21-22 - Pekan



This trip was planned earlier, as I want to bring my colleagues to try what is off-shore fishing. I booked the trip some 3 weeks ago with charter "ikan masin" i.e. salted fish, in Pekan. I have no intention to have a great fishing in this trip, we gonna do mostly some sabiki and squid fishing. Nevertheless, if all of them collapse with sea sickness, I think I will do some jigging, targeting diamond trevally or whathaveu.

As the anglers on board are all newbies, I foresee it will be a "serving" fishing trip for me, helping others to prepare and clear the typical routine works one will need to do when fishing on board.

The day has finally came and we depart from Kuala Lumpur on 7 45pm of Friday. I called the charter during the traveling and we finally arrived in Pekan on 11 55pm.

(I will now upload the photo and the writeup shall follow pretty soon, I hope)


A typical fishing boat in Pekan. Fibre made, with live-bait well, slim hull, good speed reaching 25 knots+, the drawback is a bit rocky with small waves on sea.
Fishing boats are been unloaded on ramp



My colleague Cheong and Ah Fei with their posture. Photo taken while we were heading to fishing spots. This is their first off shore fishing trip.


My colleague Heng with his coral grouper.


Photo of another fishing boat under same charter ikan masin. Boatmen was Ah Boy.



A happy Cheong. The whole boat was hilarious with this catch from him.




Heng with his squid. He loves squid for reason I do not know. March is not an ideal season for squid but we manage to catch few.




Me with my mackerel caught from jigging. Jig used was Sapollo metallic green 40g. I have around 6 nos. of jig casualty while trying for mackerel bites. Will try a new rig with short wire before the jig and wire assist hook line in future. Mackerel bite more frequent on our first day out compared with the second day. Bait fishes will play at bottom of "unjam" during slower current and mackerel bites will be less.

While you say nice size of fish, I would say nice size of 100qt igloo box.



Heng with his emperor fish, chinese name “龙尖“. We use dead prawn as bait on a size 3 hook. This fish exhibited impressive power and causing adrenaline rush on a 16lb light setup。The spot where this fish was hauled is a small coral area, with no sight of fish trap at all (as there is no float on water surface). Seems that this is ikan masin secret spot. 2 parrot fishes were hauled from this spot too.



We drift live bait targeting mackerel on 1st day out and got 2 takes on sailfish. Upon fish strike I asked the boatmen, Mat, to pass the rod to Cheong, Heng and Ah Fei. They were shouting in ecstasy when the braid line been stripped. Nevertheless, after some 10 mins of great fun, the sailfish threw the hook and freed itself. The other sailfish followed a kerisi boatmen managed to get on jig, till boat side and u-turn away.


On the second day we have more takes on our live bait targeted at mackerel, by sailfishes. We hauled the sailfish till boatside, could not helped but noticed its jaw and bill was badly wounded because of wire of our mackerel rig. Nevertheless, Heng, Cheong and Ah Fai had fun with the "sprint" when the sailfish took the bait, not realising the worry me standing at the back, hoping the fish will not strip the whole spool of approximately 150m of 40lb braids. The outfit was brought for parrot fish fishing and I just rig it up drifting for mackerel. At a spot on our first day out, there was one time we saw a school of sailfish, about 7 to 8 of them, swimming around a coral area. I have tried sailfish fishing in Rompin 2 years back on Ah Liang's boat. I was impressed with the speed of the initial run but for some reason I never got hooked on it after that. I will ask the boys if they like it and if they do, probably I will arrange a trip for them.


We had our dinner at a restaurant as recommended by ikan masin. I was made to understand that the restaurant is owned by relatives of his elder son, Rickey. We waited for the food at that restaurant for sometime due to dinner crowd.



1st from right is Ah Boy, our good fishing guide on the 2nd day trip and 4th from right is ikan masin, his father.


Until May 2009, I will come back to Pekan!

No comments: