Sep 25-28 2009 Black Ditch/Jarak/Container Tanker lane 4D3N Trip

I got a trip planned on the above mentioned date. I was on the phone with the skipper Ah Ho yesterday and things are pretty much confirmed, the only thing that is pending is the blessing from the Almighty to us for a smooth, safe, fun and awesome trip.

I checked the GPS coordinates in my possession and have entered those in Google Earth which brought me an overview of the layout of these spots. From there I shall plan my spot moving routes, start from the closer and end at the furthest, or vice versa.

Layout of spots at Pulau Jarak waters that I shall test it out in September 2009

I am not able to tell how exploited these fishing spots are by now, as there were trawler boats from Hutang Melintang, Bagan Datoh, Pangkor, Sg Besar and other smaller fisherman settlement, rounding at these waters every time when the current is right.

In addition, few of the spots were probably known also to other fishing charter, at least to the late Ah Tiong of Seagull, as Ah Koon, the skipper that passed these coordinates to me, were comrades of Ah Tiong when both of them started their fishing charter business together. (background story of these spots are available at: http://lok-chiak.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-meetup-with-ak-koon.html)

Nevertheless, I could not stop hoping there are handful of spots being secluded from routine catch area of commercial fisherman and perhaps I can enjoy my small man fishing at those spots till I am really old.

So let us have a look at the lunar dates of this trip; it is 7th to 10th, where there shall be some fast current remain on the 7th, and I predict the current gonna dies down on 9th, which will be the day we finish the trip. Well, this is prediction, as tide may delay or advance for 1 or 2 days. We shall see, and hope for the best.

I plan to do some game fish activities on the 1st day out, on jigging. On the 2nd half of 2nd day we gonna switch to spots where primary activity gonna be bottom fishing and probably some jigging, I could not be sure. When you have some 8 to 9 persons doing bottom fishing at the same time and every one wish to have a good fresh squid as their bait, which is fair wish, you need abundance of squid in the water, and that is not something anyone can plan for. Perhaps I need to talk to the skipper and get approximately 25kg of dead kembong prepared.

Added on September 8 2009:-

Time flies, we are now in the month of September.

The trip will come in about 2 weeks time. Base on the name list, there gonna be 8 anglers board on GT Chaser. I understand from the other fishing group that GT Chaser going to undergo some maintenance on the weekend before Raya, and I text the skipper to check if my trip is affected.

He said "No, is ON".

Added on Sep 30 2009:-

The day of September 25th started with some hassle while we, CK and me, were driving in and out between Tanjung Karang and Sekinchan, searching and talking with the live bait (mantis prawn) supplier to pickup our stock that was booked much earlier.

Soon after we loaded the kicking and swimming live prawn into ice boxes that we brought, one of the 2 air pumps we brought went kaput. We got that sorted out in Sekinchan and reached Bagan Dato near 11am, a new late record of KL-Bagan Dato journey.

We loaded our gears and other stuff onto GT Chaser, shoot off to our first spot, located at south of Pulau Sembilan.

The journey started then ...

We returned at shore on Sep 28 2009 about 11am and that marked the end of the much anticipated trip. Overall, there are not more than 5 spots from the list that did gave us some great fun, out from some 17 spots we have tested with jigs. Remaining spots, some were really far from the route connecting groups of spots, gave response on jigs that were far between and few.

I was on full spirit while we heading out from Bagan Dato

In total, we travelled 210nm throughout the entire trip. These were only to spots at southern part of Pangkor island, except 2 spots that were nearest to same at the north. Take the average cruising speed of 9 knots of GT chaser, we spent approximately 23 hours changing from one spot to another and doing drift jigging.

There are 2 spots that added few 2kg-4kg grouper to our catch were observed to be very small dot spot, with very small seabed profile. From the display on the sounder, I estimate the area of these 2 spots is not more than 400 feet SQ. ! It was amazing though, when you travel 10nm on complete flat seabed and then 1 small dot spot on huge sea and there is this, a small dot which gave you fish bites!

The weather was completely calm sea on 1st and 2nd day, and we were hit by heavy rain with thunderstorm on morning of 3rd day which last till afternoon. On the 4th day, sea was calm but the current went completely dead.

Some photos from fellow anglers with their catch, nevertheless:-

Angler CK with GT (Giant Trevally)

Angler PK with his GT

While we were checking our fishing spots from one to another, we were close to sea mountain of Hutan Melintang and Ah Ho asked us if we want to have a warm up session there. So off we went, and were rewarded with GTs. One blacktip shark, estimated at 15kg, took my jig and put the tenryu + twinpower 8000 in test.

According to Ah Ho, within next couple of weeks GT will be migrating into the sea moutain waters.

Cobia, by angler Jimmy.

Angler CK with mackerel

The above 2 photos were taken at a spot named "black ditch", where triple hookups were observed not long after the jigs were sunk. That round of fun ended with 1 no. 4kg-ish golden snapper by angler Alan, 1 no. cobia by Jimmy, and 1 no. mackerel by CK. Black Ditch is one of the very impressive spots, with drop-off of approximately 50ft and the terrain stretch through 200m, that is considerably huge area.

What more was, the fish species at this spot covered from bait fishes, mid water specie (the mac) and mixture of bottom species (goldies and groupers). The bite rates was convincing, that this spot is relatively unvisited.

Black Ditch, a sure not-to-be-missed spot in my next trip to this area.

Golden Snapper by angler Ah Keat

This was Ah Keat second deep sea fishing trip this round, certainly not something he would forget for years to come... more stories later.

The spot we have our bottom game at the 1st night were shipwreck near Jarak island. I would say the ang chor catch was not bad, with some 12 nos. 3kg to 5kg-ish ang chor landed.

We tried jigging at 2 spots where huge ang chor catch (9kg+) were recorded in the past, but caught only few smaller ones after several drift. I felt a night fishing with live squid baiting them, would be better way to check it out but was not supported by Ah Ho for safety reason.

A very nice size grouper

Angler CK with his kerapu minyak (translated as oilly grouper)

Kerapu Minyak is a yummy fish when steamed teo-chew style ... hmmmm

Catch Summary at Black Ditch

We made 3 or 4 drifts at Black Ditch, each drift rewarded with 1 or 2 fishes, big and small, mixture of species ... awesome it was.

CK with Golden snapper

Another nice size grouper

Jimmy with a lovely 4kg-ish grouper

Blue sky, navy-blue sea, beautiful fish ... awesome

Ah Keat with his 13kg-ish grouper

Another posting with the jackpot catch

This jackpot fish was landed at a spot labeled with description of "giant grouper spot". For sure I felt tempted to bait them during night time, but the skipper was reluctant to try that due to the fact that this spot is rather isolated and obviously near to Indonesia border.

To conclude this trip, I feel the catch was fair, as the overall catch was OK and folks on board were having fun. Those spots that we have tested were proven to be good spots in bottom baiting and in fact we did not test any of those 6nm further from Jarak island in the entire trip.

As for those spots on Northern side of Pangkor island, I shall arrange to visit those in a not too near future.