Lok-chiak "落甲"

Hua Hin, Thailand, Freshwater Trip - April 27 to May 1st 2012

2012-02-09T22:17:00.000-08:00

Got a trip arranged on date above, and flights were booked just earlier today.

I have been wanting to do few freshwater fishing trips, just few and enough to experience the unique and extraordinary run, hide, headshake, sprint and what have you of each selected specie. Sebarau, or hampala as some called it, has been one of them.

The trip I planned on year 2010 was canceled by the trip agent because of some stories that did not match among the head the tail. For some reason I did not arrange anything for my freshwater "signatures" trip in year 2011, and I hope I will have this trip smoothly materialized.

The travelling route will be from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok via Malaysia Airlines on April 27, 2012. Follow by 3 hours journey from Bangkok to Hua Hin, South of Bangkok.

Nice Villa in Taiping

2012-02-08T20:16:00.000-08:00

Went for year-end holidays last December at this place and thought it was a great spot to chill out and relax. It took us some 15 minutes of driving to Taiping town so it is pretty convenient.

The name of the place, located not far from main road towards the way to entrance to Maxwell Hill check-in point.

Walk way along the stream in the villa garden.

This stream is located between the villa and forest, blended very well into the overall green, peaceful garden.

Branches of trees beside Taiping Lake Garden, snapped early in the morning.

When I walked by this hut with this lazy chair I thought it would be awesome to sit here, listen to the sound of forest, and perhaps trying to do some reading. I ended up sleeping in my room ... a big waste, obviously.

A stand alone unit, a little more expensive.

The care taker of this place make good use of the natural stream and this pool was actually an arowana rearing pool.

My nephew playing with sands happily, something he will surely missed when he is back in city. Love the big wide grin on his face. Your uncle wish you will grow up happily like this, boy.

Morning lotus

Joy of children is contagious magically, aren't they?

Place where kids left their sandals and have fun with sands, streams and everything else.

Trees beside Taiping Lake under the sun light of 8am-ish.

Dec 2011 - Kampar Haruan Trip

2011-12-12T02:55:00.000-08:00

We left Kuala Lumpur as early as 4 30am and reached this coffee shop located at Mambang Diawan, Kampar, by 6 30am. While pushing off so early our aim was to catch the dawn-haruan session where haruan will surface for oxygen. The problem was that the pond owner came to meet us only at 8 30am. 2 hours at the coffee shop counting number of vehicles passed by ... hahaha, not something you will enjoy doing when you wake up at 4am to prepare for it.

This is the entrance to the abandon pond. Long tall lalang were covering the path. "seems like nobody came in here for mama haruan huh?" I asked my fishing buddy S Leong while we were entering the oil palm estate.

I snapped this before I start casting my frog lure. The pond owner stocked the pond with haruan, mable goby, rohu and jelawat since 2 years ago but did not really feed them regularly.

The pond from another angle. Hills behind are Kampar hills. I thought the sceney was breathtaking.

Rohu caught on lure. A "meat-eating monk".

A small haruan caught on lure. It is by fact not a young fish; the owner has stocked them since 2 years ago and there is nothing for them in the pond. All haruan caught were in this size range. This old small haruan was released.

This was my first fish in the first pond, a rohu, caught using yozuri. Fellow anglers were puzzled with the fact that being a herbivorous fish, rohu took a lure. Well, sometimes fish bite when they felt threated too. I have no complain when it was steamed in garlic gravy. The flesh was solid and sweet, and I was told by the pond owner these fishes are more than 2 years old. The pond owner did not feed the stock regularly and the growing rate is slow. Come to think about this, I think what he said was true, I used to steam tilapia from my friend's farm few years back, which was some 12 months old and grown to the size of 1.5kg-ish, and the fish tasted brilliantly good. So, "old fish taste good", or rather, "slow-grown fish tastes good", this is true to certain extent. If the fish stock is fed with heavy fat and protein feed just to hit higher scale when it is weight, then the flesh taste plain and soft.

We tried this spot at the afternoon of our first day at Tronoh Mines area. Plenty of surface action were observed but all were far from where we were fishing. S Leong registered one bite with his dead frog but was nothing serious. The sound and water ripples from unknown fishes have direct made me plan for my next fishing here, with different preparation, of course.

S Leong in action.

This is our 2nd spot; huge lake with water splashes here and there. There were few raises where the head and tails of fishes were sighted, and it was patin, estimated in the size of over 5kg-ish. These splashes were far from shore nevertheless.

Royal Belum National Park

2011-10-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

My family has been talking about where to go for post-exam holidays couple of months back and I thought we are going somewhere special; somewhere none of them has experience before, and Royal Belum Park was therefore decided.

There are 2 tour operators in Belum Park, being Belum Rainforest Resort and Belum Eco Resort (eg. Tasik Temenggor Discovery Island). I checked the patron reviews on internet and decided with Belum Rainforest Resort, for reasons that were not very obvious as both charters offered price that were not too much different. I was told the food quality of BRR is not as nice as BER but I have no complaint about food from BRR after my stay there.

We took tour package where accommodation and visits to spots are included, with price of RM 650 per head. Seems not cheap but actually not really so, if you add up all the cost for each activities that is.

5 of us drove in my AWD to BRR, a bit tight perhaps but was ok. The journey took us 5 hrs plus and my trip meter read 389km, where I reset when we left USJ. We stopped by Lenggong for freshwater fish lunch. The most impressive meal was a 900g half-sliced baung (redtail asian catfish), with fairly nice freshness, smooth solid flesh and no soil-smell. I told myself that was a wild baung, and I felt happier :-). Price was ok, we paid RM45 for the awesome baung, 2 plates of veges, an assam belida (feather-back) belly, a belida fishball soup, a fried noodle and deep fried ribs. Paid around RM 120 for the above.

I did not do any fishing but got the fishing camping trip information from the local people, perhaps I will come back with enough fishos. Let's see.

My brother played with his photographing skill on the waterfall and snapped this. Not bad huh?

Peaceful lake of Belum Park.

Another unique waterfall not far from the 1st one.

Rafflesia. Don't believe my facial expression, it was some 45 deg. inclined and the charm was purely for good nice fun photographing effect, or something like that

The parasitic flower will take more than 18 months to bloom and the flower will lasts for only 7 days. More information about Rafflesia here: http://www.mytropicalvisions.com/animality/rafflesia.html

Take out my tummy, I would say this is a nice photo, what do you think?

Something you cannot avoid if you are doing jungle activities

Leech it is, plenty of it; you get rid of one and you will see one or two more, moving towards you with its very own way. My sister and wife were terrified with it but surprisingly my daughter was not. This pitifull slimy creature ended up as her pet, but they did not last for long.

Our group photo at entrance point of Sungai Papan.

I went to Sungai Tahan September last year and observed all the local jungle tracking guides were using the rubber shoes, or "rubber tapper shoe" as we called it. October same year I saw this shoe in Gua Musang and thought that I want to get one pair for myself too, and bought it at RM 8.90. I thought I will get to use it in my next jungle fishing trip and only this time around I get to wear it in Belum Park. The shoe is now cleaned and wait for my next freshwater fishing trip, cheow-lan reservoir, or so I hope.

A nice fat kelah at sight, 1 kg-ish at least.

Took the photo of this beautiful fish at resort pond. cool...

A typical scene in jungle tracking.

Take the leech out, the jungle walk was enjoyable. Each of the inhale was so fresh, light and my skin felt the difference in the air. Shoes are very important in jungle tracking; a pair of shoes with thick rough sole and preferable high-cut would help a pleasant walk.

On the way to waterfall.

Sandakan & Kinabatangan River

2011-06-06T00:15:00.001-07:00

Was looking for some place to go earlier, during school holidays where my daughter shall join a church camp planned last year. I had a discussion with my wife and concluded that we will be going somewhere different from typical town we have been so far.

We checked the tour packages available in the market and later decided with Sandakan, a small city located at Sabah, East Malaysia. Not long after, we bought a package of 2 to Sandakan via AirAsia, and off we flew on June 2nd 2011.

Clouds and clouds outside air plane, this photo was snapped on our return flight. The sight of open blue sky always make me relax and peaceful.
The return journey was uneventful, except the landing impact that was extremely hard made the passengers, all of us, shocked. Some passengers even screamed after the hard impact and the airplane went on some wobble on the runway.

Hmmm...Now Everybody can got Scared!

My wife has a very old friend, Allan, that resides in Sandakan for some years. We met Allan for dinner on the day we arrived in Sandakan. In our last day we were invited to this noodle restaurant for breakfast.
The Restaurant is located at Sim Sim Road, built above sea waters near to the shore, with extended concrete bridge.
This place is clean, well, if you minus the rubbish underneath the platform that is.

The specialty; dumpling with century egg stuffing. Noodle was not bad too.

The signboard of the noodle restaurant. It reads "The 9th famous century egg dumpling".

Prices of noodle and stuffing are written on this white board. Price was ok.

The walkway to the noodle restaurant.

Snapped this photo when we walk to shop that sells frozen seafood. Not too hygience I think, where the sewage treatment is the sea tide.

I brought a "dummy" camera with me in this trip, and realized its has very limited to offer when come to zooming. This photo was taken when we were on river cruising and Proboscis monkey were at sight.

I zoom the max the camera could, and I guess this photo could only good for the game they call "Count How Many Monkey in the Picture", with no answer.

Krizman and Elizabetha, wife and me, taken outside Sabah Hotel after we finished our last activity in the tour.

Not bad, was quite near to this err ... perhaps a couple, and managed to snap a clear one.

I was told by tour guide that the round tummy is due to intake of excessive ripe fruit and it is the sugar that caused it.
Proboscis monkey is known as "monyet Belanda" locally, or Dutch monkey, for the extraordinary nose they have.

My very happy and excited wife, right after we boarded the boat for our "evening river cruise".

We spent more than 2 hours on Upper Kinabatangan River, looking for Proboscis monkey, horn bill and black tail monkey. Few foreign tourists were hoping to see pygmy elephant and were disappointed. Some were looking for crocodiles and of course they too were disappointed.

Took this photo not long after we left the jetty.

There were 11 tourists on that boat that day, only 2 were Malaysian. The rest are from Australia, New Zealand, United States and Slovenia.

I was made to understand by the tour guide that very little Malaysian tourist are insterested in visiting Sandakan.

Gamantong Cave.

This cave is tall, some 100meter or more I guess. The only thing is the picture is not able to display the "huge" effect.

This cage is known for its bird nest which scheduled to harvest every 4 months or so. Sure, this swift there got neighbours; bats, plenty of it, and you will never be able to ignore their existence for the smell of their droppings is so so strong in the cave.

Thought this plant is special and snap a photo of it.

At seafood steamboat restaurant, "Ocean Steamboat Restaurant" at Bandar Ramai-Ramai, in our second evening in Sandakan.

Sandakan is well known for its seafood, fresh and reasonably priced. My wife was impressed with how fresh and sweet the prawn there and taken few more then normal irresistibly.

Other than fresh prawn, fish balls, fish fillet, fish paste, oyster (huge one!) and many more were available.

The seafood was superbly fresh. I have no idea how expensive or cheap it is because this meal was included in the tour package.

Having teat time outside Keith House with other tourists. Only 2 of us are locals. The gentleman sitting next to me is from Berlin, Germany. He noticed the logo printed on my t-shirt (my ex-employer's logo) and started chatting with me about it.

Entry point to Keith House.

I read about this place, marked as one of the tourist points in Sandakan.

From the article I found nothing spectacular about it. In our 2nd day, the tour route include this place as one of the spots so we just explore the way.

Agnes Keith is a writer that came to Borneo during British time and she stayed there in Agnes Keith House. She wrote something and 2 or 3 of her books were published. She left Borneo to United States after that.

Couple of years back some locals renovated this house and make it a tourist spot. If you ask me what exactly is there to be appreciated in this place, I will tell you I don't know, except that there is a room facilitated with rows of seats and nicely air conditioned, the seat is comfortable as I had good rest there. Mind you, you are not allowed to take photo in Agnes Keith House.

St. Michael and All Angels Church in Sandakan.

This church was said to be 133 years old.
We were lead into the church and there was a nice lady explained to us how old the church was, which furniture in there was there since the first day the church put in service.

The caretaker told us the sound of this bell can be heard in whole Sandakan, even today after the town expanded so much since its inception.

An internal view of the church.

Fellow tourist were having short rest in it. From the height of the building and thickness of the wall, I thought it should be cooler.

Snapped this at hill top, Puu Jih Shih temple. One can see almost complete Sandakan from here.

Far on the left is Sulu Sea, well you can't see it from here. I thought the view of Sandakan is really nice here.

A lonely dunnowat bird in Labuk Bay.

Foreign tourists busy taking photos on orang utan in Sepilok Rehabilitation Center.

I always thought foreign tourists are very serious in the photographing. The number of lens, spare battery, bags and tripod these nice people carry with them is unbelievable. Weight? at least 6 or 7kg I guess.

Manage to snap a reasonable photo on orang utan using my dummy camera. I guess you wouldn't like them much just by looking at this 2-dimensions photo, because I feel the same way before I see them in real.

In real, they are lovely. They swing on rope like something you will admired and envied. They will look at the tourist with a style, looks more like they are there to watch the tourist rather then the other way round. I guess we human like the "free-ness" in them.

Entrance to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center.

You know what, they will charge you for bringing in camera into this premise. I could not understand why, but for the typical tourist mood we were in we just followed.
A view of "sea-sky one color" just outside SwissInn, the hotel we put up for 3 nights.I found the seawater, however, is dirty and man made wastes are plenty.

Sandakan Yatch Club.

Came to this quiet place after our dinner with Allan's family. For the boat lover I am, I walked around in the club and found no boats. Later then I realized almost all boats were taken out and keep at yard.

The GPS coordinates of Sandakan Yatch Club.

A view of dusk at Central Market, Sandakan. Sun gets down as early as 6 30pm here.

Had a walk inside bright, clean Central Market.

Snapped this view on our way back to jetty after our Kinabatangan River Cruise.

The sunshine on the trees made the riverside so nice. Color of the river looks green in the photo but in real it is actually a little yellowish. Well ... technology.

Krizman and Elizabetha at Central Market.

We met this very nice couple from Slovenia, and our interaction with them started right at the airport after our arrival at Sandakan. We were negotiating alone for better price for tour packages in tour company offices located in the airport. Thought that getting more tourist to make up the number for each package will pull the price down, my wife invited them to join us.

In our 4 days 3 nights in Sandakan, Krizman and Elizabetha were with us in all our tours.

Some saving tips for you if you are going Sandakan, the tour packages offerred in airport cost 2 times higher than what you can get in Sandakan town and hotels.

Sighted salted fish made from seven stars garoupa in central market of Sandakan.

I do know this fish worth RM 80/kg in Peninsular Malaysia and was really amazed how high value table fish is salted here and selling at RM 20/kg.

Photo of a live, swimming seven star garoupa.

The proper name of this fish in Square Tail Coral Trout. Square tail? errr...perhaps, I am not too agree with it though.

Will I Return to Sandakan once more? hmmm ... perhaps not.

I was expecting "wilder" Kinabatangan River before I came to this town. During the River Cruise we had, I noticed sun light of almost horizontal sunset could shine through the trees, indicating a rather thin forest is what actually left at riverside. I asked the tour guide and got it confirmed. Upon return to Kuala Lumpur I Google Earth the famous Kinabatangan River and realized how bad the nature forest in Sabah has been deforested. So the Proboscis monkey, the blacktail monkey, the hornbill and everything else we seen at riverside were there could probably because they have no forest to stay any further.

I asked Laura, our tour guide on our way back from River Cruise, that how actually do they as locals (she is a Kadazan) feel as forest after forest were cleared for logs and later palm oil trees were planted. Laura said over the years, their life style and spending power increased with the changed of economic models. Villagers that used to afford a bicycle are now driving cars, as an example. Expenses in daily life is getting more expensive but generally they are ok, she said.

I asked further, that the forest takes thousands of years to become the state it is today, would not it a too expensive process to lose the forest completely for 10 or 15 years of short term wealth. "ya, maybe you are right....." and Laura turned her face to elsewhere and the conversation stopped there.

The resources from the forest is abundant, it is like oil or minerals in a piece of land and these resources are owned by people of Sabah. Process of uncontrolled deforestation brought plenty of quick money to companies that trade the logs and very little is given to people and the State. When a Kadazan who drives a luxury car in future wishes to own a thick green fascinating forest, he or she will realize it is gone forever, and the forest could never be exchanged with any number of luxury car they would possibly owned.

I feel a little bit sad thinking about this fact.

Well, Good Bye Kinabatangan River!

Taiping (Maxwell Hill) Trip, Kuala Sepetang Seafood

2011-06-05T23:56:00.000-07:00

Was in Taiping on December 27th 2010 with family and spent a night in Cendana Hut, Maxwell Hill.

Found these photos in my laptop and thought why not do a brief trip photo and writeup so here it is.

Taiping Lake, heard about this lake when I was really young; 10 or 12 years of age? I could not remember. The Taiping Lake then was the favorite place my elder sisters and brothers will opt for school outing. Together with this Lake, haunted bungalows were what normally associated with Taiping then, but have not heard about those nowadays.

After 5 months, what I remember about Taiping Lake was completely "green" landscape. You will find very old trees at both side of the main road, and I mean really old, 100+ years or so, base on my wild guess.

My daughter snapped photos at almost every corner in the Lake area, ease my effort to choose few nice photos to post it here. A bamboo guarded walkway I picked, hmmm ... would be nicer if some green filter were used, I thought.

We made a short stop and walked around the World War II Memorial Park located along the way to Maxwell Hill. I bet you will not feel anything extraordinary looking at these photos now, but I remember my exact sentiment when I walked on the green grass and looked at the reasonably well-maintained park.

Names of soldiers, mostly resembles their Indian and British nationality, were engraved on the stones.

For reason they probably would never choose for second time, they came to this piece of land that is thousand of miles away from their home, and they died here. I felt grieve, and had some emotion that I never had in my holidays.

A quiet, peaceful walkway just outside Cendana Hut. The only vehicle available from visitors to reach bungalows area is jeep, facilitated by TNB.

We paid few Ringgit at the office for both ways and was briefed on the timing these jeeps will bring us down from Cendana Hut.

Visitors could choose to walk from Maxwell Hill to the accommodation area but the journey will take some 4 hours or so. With our luggage and a city-tuned stamina, that obviously was not possible to be considered.

Cendana Hut, place we put up for a night at Maxwell Hill. It has a wooden platform strategically built for an awesome view on Taiping town and Kuala Sepetang. The platform with wooden hand rail painted in white in the photo that is.

We stayed at the platform a little bit longer at dusk, after our simple dinner there, trying to appreciate the cold breeze, the enchanting moving clouds and the peaceful mood one will feel when you are viewing from highlands.

Naked feet.... I am on holidays :-)

View of Kuala Sepetang and further, Melaka Strait, from Cendana Hut during dusk.

The overnight experience in Cendana Hut, however, was not very comfortable; bed provided was worn and unwelcome noise, suspiciously by rats, kept us awake till dawn.

We had a walk in a garden that was quite ran down located just beside Cendana Hut. Tulip flowers that once imported from Netherland and display in it, was no more at sight.

Later we were made to understand that the business owner has stopped importing tulip flowers because it was economically not viable.

Otherwise, roses that were available in abundance in the garden, kept my daughter busy with her photographing.

We walked further up from Cendana Hut for some half an hour or so during morning of our second day there, and reached this bungalow that was not in stayable state.

Not long after that we checked out from Cendana Hut and heading to Kuala Sepetang, 40km west of Taiping, with agenda and expectation for good seafood, for our lunch.

Entrance of restaurant where we had our lunch in Kuala Sepetang. I was told by my friend the seafood porridge in Kuala Sepetang is something we should not miss. We made 2 rounds in the town area, trying to located a restaurant that offers seafood porridge. At the end the greed-for-food and time factor urged us to decide otherwise. Not a bad decision after all, we enjoyed our seafood lunch pretty much.

Jetty and mangrove trees outside the restaurant. Hope the tress will survive for many years to come, I hope.

A fisherman standing on his boat loaded with fishing nets.
Fishing nets in the photo is meant for catch in shallow waters. Depends on the net size, that catch could include high value fish like pomfret too.

Trawler fishing boats longsided at fishing village. The alphabet of "A", "B" & "C" as printed indicates the license class of boat to operate at shallow or deep water, with "C" as the deepest class.

I ordered fresh-swimming flower crabs, fresh-swimming mantis prawn (kept in bottle to avoid inter-specie fight anyway) and thick shell clams. We finished the seafood, paid a perhaps stolen price, and left to Kuala Lumpur after that.

Cancel My June & August Fishing Trips

2011-05-13T23:38:00.000-07:00

Got to call the skipper last week to cancel my trip booking. Got some family activities planned and fellow fishing friends did not feel like taking it up.

I cancel my August booking trip too.

I am getting myself to believe that job of trip organizer at volunteer basis is qualified to film in "Dirty Jobs" of Discovery.

Going Pekan next week instead.

April 22-24 2011 Sea Gull

2011-05-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

Wrap-up the 3d2n trip with decent result, overall trip score of 6.5/10.

The only catch of me that is worth posting is this 6kg grouper, caught on dead kembong bait that was soaked for 2 days in melted ice.

We did not do much jigging, at least there was no drift jigging at all. Fellow fishing buddies did jig for 10 minutes or so at few bottom spots, but no bite was registered.

I observed Seagull skipper likes to anchor at point that is very far from fishing spot e.g. shipwreck and use small sinker to let bait carried to the destinated spot. With leader of some 5m long, anglers at rear end got to drift their offering to the target seabed. Whereas anglers at front registered very rare bites.

Pekan here I come!!

2011-02-08T22:38:00.000-08:00

Planned a trip to Pekan Feb 18 ~ 19. Risks are there that I just sit at the shore waiting for winds to ease or stop. Heck!! Let's try it out!

Updated Feb 17, 2011 - Boatman called and advise to postpone the trip, due to choppy waters. Aduiiii ...

Updated Feb 28, 2011 - I came back from Pekan on February 27 after my 2 days fishing there. Topped with choppy waters, the catch on 1st day was very bad. However, the parrot fish frenzy at the 2nd day make up the overall catch and I thought it was a great trip after all.

Some fishing highlights ...

A 4kg-ish blackspot tusk fish (choerodon schoenleinii) or "parrot fish" as local called it, hauled from some secret spot of the fishing charter, ikan masin.

We have some twenties powerful pulls on the spots within 45 minutes, which was quite responsive.

I experienced the brutal power of parrot fish right at my first drop of bait. Before long, I had a strike and went into tug war with the parrot fish for 30 seconds or so, and lost the fish. My outfit was a PE4 rod with locked-drag Shimano 6000 reel, but each of my pump on the unseen parrot fish yield nothing but peeled lines. After 2 pumps and countless rounds of line been peeled, the parrot won the tug war.

The boatman too, got a hammer hit with his special hybrid bait, and the tug war last for half a minutes or so. We were sitting very near to him and witnessed how the humble, senior boatman being bullied. His 50lb bottom rod (with 80lb braids and locked-drag Ocea Jigger) went into a worrisome "n" curve, and all he could do was holding on the rod helplessly. The rod went on strong bowing for couple of times and the rod survive, so did the fish.

"I thought you are parrot fish champion?", jokingly I asked. The man, softly catching back his breath, stared blankly and didn't answer my joke at all.

My boatmate negotiating with a 9kg-ish cobia.

Shikari 20lb blank was put into serious test, with tip soaked into water few times when cobia tried to dive for escape.

Boatman with the cobia.

There were 3 cobias lurking around our boat, where 1 of them took my jig and the other taken my boatmate's. Both of us went setting the hook but managed to set 1 of them.

My boatmate having thrill with ebek (diamond trevally) with boatman standby to gaft.

He used small light green jig, with slow retrieval rhythm, when we were doing drift jigging crossing other 3 boats that were hauling ebek after ebek.

The fight with ebek started slowly and went sprinting after 4 or 5 seconds, right after my boatmate said "eh ... I think this one small fella la, not much power one ... eh ... eh ... eh ....wei ..." and the Bradia went screaming.

One of the boats hauled 14 ebeks during the frenzy with size ranged from 7kg to 3kg.

With Bradia 4000 and some 230m of PE3 line, he didn't took long to land the fish, though the first sprint peeled some 50m of his braids.

The angler with his proud diamond trevally, and with fast pulse, I believed.

I started coming to Pekan since 2006, to quest for my dream fish then, the diamond trevally on jig. It was after 4 years since then I got my dream fish on jig.

This was his 1st time to Pekan with catching an ebek on jig as his target, and he got it. You can't say there is no luck factor in fishing.

Total catch of 2nd day

Overall a good trip for us. For me, the satisfaction started even during our journey driving out from Kuala Lumpur.

I had a talk with the boatman about Pekan fishing before I left. I said, if there are Gods that fellow fishing charters in Pekan need to pray for the charter business to remain good, then the 1st God will be the weather, the 2nd God, is Ebek.

It's obvious, for the sake of continuous income among fishing charters, continuous and repeating anglers visits to Pekan, ebek stock in Pekan has to be sustained. For a specie that is migratory, the least of what the angling community can do is the practise of bag limit and Catch and Release, to prolong the heydays in this beautiful town.

Happy Fishing!

Farm Fishing

2010-09-27T21:25:00.001-07:00

Was invited many times by my friend who own a plantation cum fish farm to make a trip to his farm and decided to do that on September 24.

He built bungalows right in the middle of his farm (pic. attached) with 100% wood as the construction material.

Friends having fun with pond patin (pangas catfish) fishing. Hooked fish will just follow tamely when we reel the fish back. Upon sighting creature with limbs they will start sprinting.

Those are escaped patin from cage and we are supposed to transfer them back to cage.

I brought my Conolon 12lb for the fishing and got the rod tip guide ring broken by a 3 kg-ish patin.

The twinpower 3000 screamed for sure but for some reason, the thrill is entirely different with wild fishing.

Patin boiling for fish pellet during feeding. I was told that patin will never stop eating and the consequence of feeding them non stop would kill them.

A wild baung (asian redtail catfish) caught using live fish as bait. The owner has never stock any baung in the ponds so this fish came from the natural stream. In fact the owner was surprise with the first baung caught in the wild ponds. As for me, I was only thinking how it taste like when it is steamed.

We had soya sauce steamed patin as dinner. The fish has no "soil" smell and I was told that afloat cage-farm fish will have no soil smell because they are rear above the soil. Hmmm ... not sure how true or not it is ...

Preparing food at the barbecue hut. The bungalow was built with barbecue hut with huge oven, complete with electric motor that can accommodate a whole lamb. That night itself we had beef soup and free-range chicken with chinese herbs soup.

Rain came during night time and our plan to fish then was postponed till it stopped. We did some 1 hr fishing in the midnight but register no bite at all.

Haruan (snakehead) that caught using live bait fish. Overall, lure fishing is tough as the water in the wild pond is murky. Small fish and small prawn exist in abundance in the wild ponds which has made up a complete food chain within.

Sg. Tahan 3d2n Trip

2010-09-14T03:16:00.000-07:00

I slot in a fishing plan to Taman Negara on September 3rd to 5th. After the Thailand trip canceled, fellow fishing mates decided to have a freshwater trip within September itself so the trip was set.

We left Kuala Lumpur on dawn of Friday and after some wrong road we took, we reached Kuala Tahan approximately 7 30am.

I have heard about how great Kelah fishing was in Sg. Tahan and took the chance to see what when how who sort of exploration in the trip.

I have to say I like the freshwater spots and enjoy every moment when we were sitting at our camp, chatting, and fishing became second in priority.

The process to reach these fishing camp site, however, was quite tough physically for me. Our boatman will stop before rapids and anglers shall either took a short jungle walk or rapids walk.

Journey to the destinated camp site took us about 2 30hrs, with a prompt stop at Kelah Santuary. No long after Kelah Santuary, we changed from long boat to smaller, shallow boat and boatman will row whenever he could.

We did spoon casting along our way up and JT was awarded with couple of juvenile sebarau.

I got a good hit on my spoon in one of my casts but was unable to set the hook. Recheck on my rig setup, I guess perhaps the treble hook that came together with killer spoon ULTIMA was too small.

Thailand Hampala Barb September Fishing Trip Cancel !!!

2010-08-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

The long planned trip cancel today due to the local guide changed his mind to take us to his fishing ground; upper river in Kao Laem National Park.

What a disappointment!

Now plan for a new trip else where in Thailand or other South East Asia countries. The objective is to catch a 4kg Hampala Barb on line, and that is whole deal that make the planning of trip difficult and, interesting at the same time.

About My Dream to Own A Boat

2010-07-15T03:17:00.000-07:00

I could not be precisely sure since when I wish to own a boat. Perhaps it started about 4 years back, or 5? You know, the stage where a person gets older and start thinking about the Life Wish List kind of thing?

Earlier, the purpose to have a boat is, I just love to be on sea and I would love to do some fishing. The boat need not to be really spacious, a 50 footer would be sufficient.

August 13th to 15th 2010 - 3D2N Jarak Waters

2010-07-09T03:29:00.000-07:00

Hmmm ... these days fall on 4th of Chinese calender, nice current it is going to be.
We got back from the trip which supposed to be 4d3n and got shortened to 3d2n.
Overall, the weather was ok but bite rate was very low.

July 2nd to 5th 2010 - 4D3N Jarak Waters

2010-05-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

Time flies, the last time I went to Pulau Jarak waters was end of September, 2009.

I remember I called the skipper not long after I got back from the September trip, inquiring on possible dates of future fishing trips. I was told then weekends on January to May of 2010 were fully booked, and the earliest weekend I could consider was July 2-5 2010. Not long after that, my mum got consecutive strokes and I was not able to think about fishing.

The Chinese dates for July 2-5 2010 is 21st to 24th; it gonna be moving current but not fast. Current will dies down on 25th or 26th. In my September trip last year, catch stats of spots we visited were recorded; species and size, number of drifts made, including terrain of seabed. For this trip around, I shall omit visit to spots there were far from the route connecting group of spots for fuel saving reason. There are few spots that are far from Bagan Dato' to the north, further from Pantai Remis which registered as good grouper spots. Now I am hesitating to ask skipper Ah Ho to make a survey to there because of the distance.

Update on May 24 2010

The date is approaching and I texted Ah Ho last week to confirm my July trip. Earlier this morning I received reply from him saying the trip is confirmed. Seems that he is extremely busy with his schedule and could not find a slot to respond to my email to him asking about the route arrangement.

Does angler really needs to "reconfirm" their fishing trip? Absolutely yes. I experienced 3 fishing trips being canceled because skipper made double bookings on good current dates. All these badly managed trips bookings were booked on ... eh hemmmm ... 2 Lumut fishing charters and 1 from Sg. Besar.

Trip Report

We were hit by Northwest wind during the trip. In fact I was warned by the skipper couple of days before the trip, that the sea condition would not be friendly. We moved out from Jarak island on 2nd day morning, and sea was calmer. With low bite rates, after we did drift jigging on 2 spots, I knew our plan to test those spots with good bite record has to be changed.

We revisited Black Ditch for jigging, and got 6 bites in 5 drifts. Boat mates topped up the ice box with kerapu minyak, cobias, not including an escaped 4kg-ish mackerel. Not a bad catch, but no where comparable with the bite rates on the same spot 10 months ago.

Nevertheless, golden snapper frenzy in the 2nd night make up the trip pretty much, where total boat catch in 5 hours fishing is 18 ang chor, range from 3lb to 15lb, as read from the scaled lip grip.

Cheong with a 4kg-ish grouper

My 1st ang chor, follow by the 2nd bout half an hour after. A 11lb fella if I remember correctly. The current was moving but mild on the 2nd night, with sinker size 720 kept still in the sea.
We have 1 electric reel user and 2 manual reel users placed at the back. During the hot hours, all bites were registered only at the rear end offers.
We brought live mantis prawn from Tanjung Karang, as standby live bait should the bait fishes are not sufficient. The general observation was, bigger target fish will took live bait fish, with live mantis prawn offers are just placed side by side. Bait fishes were aplenty from nearby Fish Attraction Device, or "unjam" as local called it. We gotten bait fishes of indian mackerel, yellow tail scad, round scad and others. Hook size used were aproximately 25mm in hook opening, as the striking path upon hook setting will be wider with bigger hook opening. Hook body shall be slim, so as the liveliness of bait fish would be prolonged with a smaller wound. When an electric reel is used, the drag and speed of the reel shall be lowered, rightly sufficient to set the hook and hauled the fish up. Excessive strong drag and high speed setting will break the slim hook if you are lucky to set hook on a whooper, and lost the fish unskillfully with a broken hook.

Golden snapper has got no cutting teeth, I am fine with a standard 60 lb rated elcheapo mono as leader. A broken mono because of fish bites were normal, suspiciously barracuda came for my live bait. Perhaps a short length of wire would increase the chance revealing the real identity of the culprit.

My 2nd goldie. A 9lb I think.

I use 2 hooks on a bait fish, as I observe the favorite biting area of the golden snapper varies.

A 2kg-ish grouper on jig

A new outfit, first in use, and possesses some luck, obviously

A 15lb goldie, landed at the rear end.

A 12lb goldie.

Another golden snapper.

The tide changed at 4am on the second night, and fellow boatmate only got to fish till 5am after the skipper repark the boat, later which we were hit by strong Northwest and the skipper went for shelter behind Jarak island.

Angler CK with his ang chor.

Long Lost Photos

2010-04-27T02:35:00.000-07:00

I registered into facebook and my old friend AKH show me photos that he has kept from me few years back.

It was a trip summary photo to grouper spots located at Northeast of Pangkor island for 3d2n fishing.

Could not helped from recalling the scene how these groupers took our bait in the 2nd night. Hope the day will happen once more, I really hope so.

New Member in My Arsenal

2010-04-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

I ordered a St. Croix 20lb casting rod some months back and got it picked up from Derrick's place last week.

TIS66HF
6'6" heavy action
fast action
SC" graphite
12-25lb

I bent the rod to feel its restitution and thought it's a very stiff rod. With 12-25lb rating I would need a bigger lure to press the flex out.
The problem is I can only get to test the rod on September, that is 6 more months to wait.
Starting the getting-less day count now ...

Pekan Fishing March 5th - 6th 2010

2010-03-07T22:34:00.000-08:00

Just got back from 2 days fishing in Pekan with a somewhat above average catch rate.

On our 1st day out jigging, we got continuous takes on our jigs by ebek (diamond trevally) and decided to stop after couple of our attempts to release the beautiful specie lively ended up unsuccessful.

A yellow tail barracuda on jig by my collegue HP

A trip summary photo with my colleague and fishing buddy at boatman house

The skipper, Ah Boy, with a good size golden trevally

This cobia, estimated at 15kg, took a scratched pintail and got itself freed with a broken treble hook in its mouth

The negotiation with cobia took some 30mins. By the time the cobia was released, we were more than 500m from where we started

Ryan's custom rod was put under good test with the cobia

A double hookups ended with 2 happy anglers. We tried to release these 2 ebek but both turned up side down when it was soaked.

A perhaps 4kg ebek

Ryan with a 6kg golden trevally, or gerong belang as local name it

Hmmmm ... happy Ryan

Custom rod with United blank rating 8-17lb in test

Pump pump pump ... zeeeeeeeeeee ...

Skipper with his ebek

HP with a juvenile GT

Another ebek on elcheapo jig

On the second day we went jigging at FAD (unjam) and was rewarded with baby GT and couple of mackerels. I got a >15kg cobia on jig and freed itself with a broken kevlar. We tried jigging at few coral trout spots but register no bite at all. Juvenile barracuda were just too many at FAD waters; sabiki was seize and went disappeared before it reach the bottom consecutively 3 times!

Overall the trip was a good trip. I read from somewhere about excellent catch of Pekan ebek fishing and that was why the trip was arranged. Later I was made to understand there were trips where anglers got hit by ebek non-stop biting and some brought back 80 over ebeks. Puzzled I am, on what do they expect on ebek jigging in future if they continue taking everything home.

If you are interested in Pekan fishing, call skipper Ah Boy at +6 013 933 7455. If you speak no other language but english, leave your contact here and I shall get it arranged for you, freeeee service.

An isolated reservoir at Southern Thailand

2010-02-09T07:45:00.000-08:00

While searching and learning about Thailand, I noticed this reservoir located at Southern Thailand and could not help thinking; how is fishing at this mysterious reservoir, where not much information is available about it?

I guess I can reach this reservoir from Betong, one of the townships located at Northern Malaysia, or Southern Thailand.

Hmmm ... wondering, wondering, wondering ...

Updated on February 25th 2010 - Just checked and got the name of the reservoir, namely Banglang Dam.

My Mum Passed Away

2010-01-24T01:01:00.000-08:00

My mum who was attacked by stroke since September 8th 2009 passed away on Saturday, January 16th 2010.

She was 82 years old.

I do not believe in second world or life after death, but for the last few days I felt deep grieve when I am sitting in family hall and watching things that are related to her; the sofa cover, the leather incline chair that she has been using, the blanket she did for us ... many things.

Many say live goes on, sure that is, just that the feeling someone I have been staying with for last 16 years is now gone and the sadness facing this fact is unbearable.

One of my friends told me it took him 2 years to accept the fact that his dad is gone and for him to be normalized, well 2 years is a bit long for me.

I hope I can walk out from this grieve soon.

I talked to my sister who took care of my mum most of the time, about my thoughts to write down the experience and findings we have learned through the 4 months plus and put it on a log as sharings to others in the world who might need it. She thought it is a good idea and I shall take it up soon.

2010 Northen Thailand Hampala Barb (Sebarau) Trip - The Outfit

2009-11-22T20:32:00.001-08:00

Since the fishing is gonna be a lure casting trip, most likely I will prepare 3 outfits; 2 outfits with 20lb class (or thereabout) and 1 no. 25lb outfit.

Twinpower C3000

I have make not more than 100 times casting with bait caster in my life so far but got uncountable castings on spinning outfit. At the moment I have Shimano Stradic 3000 and a 16lb Procyon in my arsenal, meaning I need to get another outfit within the 20lb class. For that 20lb spinning reel I need to stock, the targeted reel is Shimano TwinPower C3000 loaded with YGK PE2 line, with 30lb good abrasive resistance mono as topshot. As for the rod, I am looking at a fast action G Loomis spinning rod. One of my fishing buddies proposed IMX SJR 722 to match with Shimano TP C3000 but I am yet to find time to have a visual check on it. However, I am skeptical about the rated poundage of SJR722 if it can withstand the brutal sprint of hampala.

The rod for hampala barb has to be fast action, so as to react faster with fish strike. For better castability, the rod has to be reasonably long with strong tip but compromise to the need of carry them to Thailand on airplane. For longer spinning endurance, you will need a lighter rod, obviously a graphite rod with little fibre mixture. My personal liking would need the rod to come in 1-piece, sensitive, with minimum number of guides and printed with "lok-chiak" if it is a custom rod.

Dec 4th, 2009
Ordered a St. Croix fishing rod just yesterday, type number: TIS66HF, you can have a look at the rod at http://www.stcroixrods.com/product/tidemaster-inshore. Yes, it is a saltwater fishing rod, I think american made freshwater fishing rod is cater more for sensitiveness and for saltwater fishing rod, the rod poundage is under-rated.

Collection shall be March, 2010.

As for the 25lb class outfit, it is meant for snakehead if we see them rising. I have no clear idea as yet on what outfit to prepare but would just grab me PE2.5 jigging rod with caldia kix 4000 if I am still running poor of idea till then.

2010 Northen Thailand Hampala Barb (Sebarau) Trip - The Lure Preparation

2009-11-22T20:31:00.001-08:00

2010 Northen Thailand Hampala Barb (Sebarau) Trip - About Hampala Barb and Reason Why The Target Fish

2009-11-22T20:28:00.001-08:00

Hampala Barb (大鱗裂峽魮) belongs to the family of Cyprinidae (if this word unable to give you any clue on what it is and you find problem on how to read it out, you are perfectly normal). Cyprinidae is a huge umbrella where lots of fishes we are familiar with are categorized in; such as Rohu, grass carp, gold fish and so on.

Cyprinidae is toothless and so is hampala barb. You will find hampala barb quite commonly in streams and dam waters in Southwest of China, Vietnam, Borneo and Sumatra of Indonesia, and Malaysia. The first time I have a hampala barb on my palm was a specimen about 500g, from a river approximately 15 ft width in Bahau, Negeri Sembilan of Malaysia. I had good look at it and was impressed then with the silverish body, the speed they swim and later, the way they take the bait. Official record size of hampala barb caught on rod and line is 70cm, with weight around 5kg or more. It is interesting to observed that female hampala barb is having wider body than male and therefore heavier when compare inch to inch.

I understand from web source that diet of hampala barb consists of insects, smaller fish, crustaceans and fresh water plants. Along with growth of its size, however, the diet habit with gradually transformed to mainly fish prey, and therefore more towards the habit of predator for an adult hampala barb.

Hampala Barb spawn around February of each year and research has found that the rains brought by monsoon plays an important role on deciding the timing of spawn. The size of hampala barb at sex maturity is 160cm and this fish swim upwards into river waters during spawn season.

So why Hampala Barb is the target fish?

I think each angler got their own preference on fish or fishes; as an example, I love the fighting style of mackerel and diamond trevally for the way they sprint and the speed they peeled the lines, particularly for diamond trevally.

Hampala barb is a fish with character, a fish that give any angler an impressive bait-taking. Often hampala barb will chase a moving lure, overtakes them, and make a fast U turn right after they snatched the lure in its mouth, and thus scream your reel and rush your adrenalin, all this happened just in fraction of second. In fact, the lure biting style of hampala barb is very much similar to mackerel.

Though without any teeth with them, an escape hampala barb sometimes gives an angler a shock with a curled hook, a straighten hook or a smashed lure.

Not a quality control issue here but another damaged lure by Hampala Barb

Though they are toothless creature, the palate of hampala barb is able to exert strong crushing power on prey in its mouth.

A smashed diving bib left after the escape Hampala Barb

Obviously, an U turn hampala barb hit the lure right at the diving lip

Straighten treble hook at the tummy

Dr. Kelvin with a beautiful Sebarau, the way Hampala Barb named in Malaysia

If you compare pound to pound, hampala barb fight much stronger than giant snakehead. What is impressive about the run is the explosive rush, follow by speed that is beyond proportionate with the size.

Hampala barb feed approximately every 12 hours but at times you will see free swimming hampala barb with a prey in its mouth, hinted so by exposing small portion of the prey's tail at its mouth. The feeding character is spontaneous, seize over for no obvious reason. It is a fish that you will respect and could not get enough with, a fish that you will laugh at your self when you loose in the game with them.

2010 Northen Thailand Hampala Barb (Sebarau) Trip - The Timing

2009-11-16T17:53:00.001-08:00

For some reason, sebarau bites actively when it is wet; meaning raining season and more so when the weather just entering wet season after long hot months. Perhaps the new cold stream water carries oxygen or food or whatever, need to learn sebarau language to know the reason behind.

Raindrop chart of Chiang Mai

I am therefore planning to make the trip at end of May 2010. I exchange my plan with Thai charters regarding the timing and was warned on the temperature during that time. I was also made to know that the rain will probably come late and bites during trips with 2 weeks gap could be different drastically. I checked on the temperature of Chiang Mai and gotten this nice chart:-

Now, I am hesitate on the end May timing. The graph shows temperature of approximate 34 deg C and that is not something angler can withstand happily. I am avoiding to have the trip on June because I have other plan on that time, which is where 2010 school holidays gonna fall in.

2010 Northen Thailand Hampala Barb (Sebarau) Trip - The Preparation I

2009-11-04T17:32:00.000-08:00

Hampala macrolepidota, Hampala Barb, or Sebarau as local call it (photos from fishbase)

Probably I heard too many stories about mama Sebarau that make an angler ecstatic, and I am making a trip to experience them on line.

There are considerable number of dam waters in Malaysia that you can find Sebarau; Temenggor, Bersia, Kenyir and so on. But all these areas share a similarity; an above 2kg specimen on rod and line is absolutely rare nowadays. I thought if getting them in Malaysia is difficult, then I shall move to where they present in abundance, or at least I think they are.

So where shall the quest of Sebarau heading?

I was informed that there are good spots for Sebarau in Kalimantan, Thailand and Vietnam. I set a target size of 4kg-ish Sebarau, or jungle perch as Thai called it, and start sending inquiries to fishing charters in Thailand and Indonesia. I consistently make my intention very clear; I want to get a 4kg-ish Sebarau on lure, even at the expense of longer travelling.

About a week later I got response from fishing charters from Thailand and Indonesia and it seems that a Sebarau at size of 4kg is not too illusive to pursue!

I went through the location and evaluate the logistic required for Indonesia and Thailand, and decided to make it to Northern Thailand.

So what is there in Thailand huh?

When I was checking the actual location of fishing spots in Thailand, I Google Earth them and along the process doing that, I was impressed with the potential of freshwater fishing in Thailand. There are considerable number of dam in Thailand with fishing charters offer great fishing trips, including a Hampala Barb trip.

Fishing spots primarily are dam waters, few of them are like;

Bhumipol Dam (since 1964), in Sam Ngao District, Tak Province

Tak Province, Thailand

Sirikit Dam (since 1973), Uttradit Province

Uttradit Province

Khao Laem Dam (in West Thailand)

Srinakarin Dam, Kanchanaburi Province, West Thailand

Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand

Cheow Lan Lake (or Chiao Lan) at South Thailand, came after Ratchaprapha Dam in 1986.

From photos and tourist writeup, Chiao Lan lake is very scenic spot, the not-to-be-missed tourist area.

What the Thai Charter got to say about chance of catching a 4kg-ish Sebarau on rod and line?

From the response of fishing charters, I came to understand that most sebarau catches in Northern Thailand are in the range of 1 to 3kg-ish, and a 4kg specimen is "inconsistent to come by". Nevertheless, one of the charters said this "we have spot for your target fish" and the other charter proposed to extend my fishing trip to 5 days, covering bigger area and fish for longer duration.

I got limitation on the logistic of reaching these fishing spots. The low cost carrier company in Malaysia namely AirAsia provides route to Chiangmai, and practically the fishing spots have to somehow reachable within few hours on the road from Chiangmai.

Location of Chiangmai, the landing point of AirAsia in Northern Thailand

Charters that promised to come back to me with a customized trip itinerary are yet to revert to me and I shall see how the program been worked out.

Pulau Berhala (off Pekan) - Brief Catch Report

2009-10-30T02:51:00.000-07:00

Since I am not gonna get out to sea for sometime, I will post some photos and report on recent trip of my fishing buddy to keep you visitor entertained.

Pulau Berhala is a small island located at approximately 20nm+ from rivermouth of Pekan. With typical cruising speed of 20knots on slim hull fiber boat, you can get there in 1hr+ on good weather from Pekan.

Skipper Ah Boy called me on Wednesday and told me there are schools of mackerel at Pekan waters, asking me if I want to test it out. I can't leave KL over the weekend and get angler Jimmy and guys to make it instead. The trip was then set on Oct 24 2009, Sunday.

I called Ah Boy again on Saturday and was told that cobia were found abundance in Pulau Berhala waters instead of Mackerel so he planned to go after them on that trip itself.

On the image above, the small wording at top left corner marked where Pekan is. Pulau Berhala (right next to the square) is one of the most visited fishing spots of Pekan recreational fishing charters.

Pulau Berhala from far

This rocks area is the place you should not miss if you are at Pulau Berhala area.

Other area around the island is full of "bubu" (fish trap) floats. Line been cut by the rope while fish fighting is common here. The trick is loosen the drag while the hook-set fish is rushing towards "free direction".

A good size kerapu minyak (hmmm ... they taste better than they looked)

Angler KK with his cobia.

KK returned to seafishing after couple of months on fishing curfew ... good for him!

Angler Jimmy with his cobia ... hmmmm ... slightly sub 10kg-ish I guess?

From the biting trend as observed, it seems that squid head was the preferred bait on that day, compared with jigs of all kind.

Total catch of a day out, on a 100qt. IGLOO ice box

Good size "green-eye", estimated at near 1kg

The ink from the squid if mixed with your fish catch, will make your fish flesh smell like one kind. I noticed fishing charters in Pekan waters will clean the squid (remove the ink bag in it) upon returned, but not charters in Rompin.

On the way heading South China Sea

I used to think what happen if a fishing charter make his trip out from Pekan with a larger wood boat, let's say some 60ft+ in length and 16ft+ in width, thus the choppy sea during monsoon would then be manageable. The fact is, rivermouth of Pekan is really shallow, some stretch even as shallow as 6 ft only during low tide.

Skipper Ah Boy telling something interesting

Fishing Trip Bookings for Year 2010

2009-10-23T03:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was texting Ah Ho for bookings of trip on his GT Chaser for 2010. You would never believe how many weekend with good moving tide are left in next year booking.
My trip for next year on GT Chaser have been scheduled on July 2nd to 5th and August 13th to 16th, 2010 ... ya ... correct ... today is Oct 23rd 2009 and the next trip is July 2nd 2010.

walao ... no joke ... "wiping sweat on my forehead"

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

2009-09-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

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.

New Members in My Arsenal

2009-08-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

I got myself a new jigging rod and a bottom rod yesterday.

The desire to have a new jigging rod risen since sometime back, as I feel the current PE3 rod I have does not have sufficient backbone for me to pump a hook-set fish effectively. I asked around and checked around, eventually thought that I shall try a Tenryu Jig-zam 6'3" PE2-5 rod and see what can I get from it.

I prefer a longer jigging rod as I need bigger rod displacement to swim the jig out. The current PE3 rod at the length of 5'6" has no problem to work out a typical 150g jig with typical length of 5", but when I need a 200g jig which is longer, I am not convince with that 5'6" rod, I can create a sufficient displacement to work out the jig.

After survey and opinion-asking, I think most likely I will pair it with a Twinpower 8000 PG, loaded with PE4 line.

(Sep 7'09 - I went to tackle shop namely Kepong last week and got a visual check and feel on one Twinpower 8000 PG. All I could say about the reel is, it is enormously huge. I have a look at old version STELLA 6000 but the line capacity is smaller than what I need. I am therefore still looking for something suitable to pair it with Tenryu 2-5.

Sep 19'09 - I search and compare, finally match the Tenryu 2-5 with a "enormously huge" Twinpower 8000 PG. Shall wait for a week or so to see how is the couple work together)

As for the new bottom rod, it is a custom rod built by the renown rod builder, Darul, on a SEEKER 30-80lb blank.

Months back, during one of the anglers chat, I told my fishing buddy Ryan that I still yet to experience the performance of a custom bottom rod. I use most factory rods from Shakepeare so far and I really don't know what is missing. Though I am generally satisfied with these bottom rods in my angchor and kuay kow fishing, it would be good if I can discover something new from a custom bottom rod. Ryan further told that he is going to bring in few SEEKER blanks and if I am interested, he will get Darul to wrap one for me.

"why not huh...?" I was so self-asked, and the custom rod deal was then set.

If I remember it correctly, it was set on May, 2009. Ryan proceed with the buying and logistics stuff obviously without telling much to me, and the next time we talked about this rod, it was 2 weeks ago and he said "your bottom rod will be ready in 1 or 2 weeks time".

So the bottom rod is now standing at the small corner in my home. 7' in length, AFTCO rod seat and the first impression I have while holding it was "it is heavy!!". There is no blink blink about the rod at all, guides were wrapped in a very simple and perhaps dull manner. Guides at tip portion were wrapped with orange color strings while black strings at the portion nearer to the butt. This is needed to give better visibility at the tip portion, when the background is dark.

Shall wait for approximately a month to see what these rods got to tell me ...

I brought the new 2 rods to my end September trip in Jarak waters. We did not do much night bottom fishing at whopper spot but rather at safe area near to Malaysia waters. Therefore there was no chance to test the limit of the seeker rod. As for the Tenryu 2-5, I got a blacktip who came for the elcheapo jig, and got some fun with it. Sweet rod, good lifting power, but I guess a 15kg-ish blacktip is yet to stress the rod to its limit.

Nov 27-29 Jarak Waters

2009-08-25T18:46:00.000-07:00

Got a trip planned on this date at GT Chaser, 8 persons with Tacklebox Nick Ooi as the organizer. My fishing buddy Ryan will be going too.

Added on Oct 20 2009:-

My mum got attacked by stroke and I have to give this trip a pass. I went to Tacklebox last week and told Nick to put my place to open. While I spent most of my time after work with her, hope she will get well soon and I shall return to sea.

July 4-5 - Pekan

2009-06-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

I took my colleague fishing some 2 months back and seems that they got hooked on it. Just few weeks back our office got awarded with a job in Saudi and I said we shall make another trip to Pekan before they mobilize to Saudi.

So the trip is now set with ikan masin and we gonna take the blue (bigger) boat, as that is the last boat remain vacant.

Update: 7 of us boarded charter kiam hu boat with skipper Mat as the captain. On the 1st day out we were targeting on squid and apollo (sabiki). We caught some 10kg of squid, mostly small size squid with typical weight around 200g each. Strange thing was the kembong fish were no where to be seen but the big eye kembong.

On 2nd day the renown skipper Azahar took us out and we went to unjam at some 20nm from shore. Probably because of the distance from shore, squid were bigger in size and obviously the youngsters on board got good time with the catch. We caught few chicken fishes (trigger fish) too for our dinner.

I did not do much fishing because of space constraint. Fishing generally were bad; we were hit by south wind and white cap waves at height of 1.5m were there, causing few newbies went flat and completely silent.

However, 7 of us had good time with flower crabs, local Pekan durian and chicken fish cooked at restaurant.

I was thinking then, 2 more weeks I shall come back to Pekan for a serious fishing trip.

July 17-18 - Pekan

2009-06-04T01:54:00.000-07:00

Got a fishing trip to Pekan planned on this date.
There gonna be 4 of us; Derrick, Kelvin, Ryan and the humble me going. Counting the getting-less days, start from now.

Update: Well, the trip was over and guys on board had fun, especially on the first day out. I shall wait till fellow boatmates have their catch photos sent to me, and I shall post the catch report.

One of my fishng buddies, Ryan, continue his fishing on Monday and Tuesday after our trip on Friday and Saturday. The 2nd team was rewarded with good size ebek (local name of diamond trevally). Ryan got his catch photos sent to me to be posted here.

Ryan with his 9.6kg diamond trevally

Most of the ebek were caught with live prawn and squid head baiting. Only 1 or 2 were caught on jigging.

Same fish with different posting I guess ...

Catches Display for 2 days

Coral grouper, or Kerapu Minyak as local call it.

Ryan passed few of these to me and it tastes simply awesome, served steam.

The group with their catches

Before the trip day, Derrick called me and saying we shall have another angler, Thum, that will join us. So 4 of us drove to Pekan and arrived around 1am. Ryan who was in Pekan earlier with his wife join us for late supper at the ikan bakar shop. I slept at 3am that night, after the usual angler chat about custom rod, reels and what not.

It was the most hardworking skipper Ah Boy who took us out on the 1st day.

We tried jigging at coral area but yield nothing significant. However, at one time, angler Ryan was rewarded with consecutive catch of emperor fish using prawn and squid slice on jig. I was waiting patiently with my crab bait but nothing came for it.

At that spot, Doctor Kelvin got his most handsome catch, a 1kg++ grouper.

A very nice size of kerapu minyak by Doctor Kelvin

We changed spots for few times and when we reached the spot which we knew will be our last chapter for the first day fishing, it was already late 4pm. The sea condition was not perfectly calm, with south wind rock the boat mildly. After about 30 minutes I worked on my elcheapo jig, something came for it ...

Me with a diamond trevally (ebek) on the other end

Cannot believe the size of this ebek when she was landed ... on steroid

After this ebek, we were hit by ebek about 7 times, on jigs and on live prawn.

It was Thum's turn after mine.

He was under a bit of fear factor as he got about 150m line in his spool, and line been stripped like they will stop only by tomorrow. Eventually he landed it and the whole boat went applause applause...

Thum with his 9++kg ebek ... look at the big grin ... hahaha

Kelvin Fire Tiger with ebek ON !!

Then, Kelvin Fire Tiger's turn, with about 230m of PE3 line, the RUN was stoppable finally.

Doctor Kelvin with his 10kg-ish ebek. Awesome ... awesome ... awesome ...

The most experience angler on the whole boat at Pekan waters, Ryan, hold the ebek and requested for a photo snap. He said it has been 2 years since his last ebek frenzy at Pekan waters.

Total catch on first day out

We went for dinner that night at restaurant sri pekan, and have very nice sea food.

Nyonya style steam trigger fish (or chicken fish as some call it) ... Yummy

Garlic Steam Parrot Fish

Oopps...broken teeth

On the second day uncle ikan masin took us out targeting at parrot fish. The usual spots that were productive did not seems to produce any bite. We changed few spots after that but situation was not improving at all. When the targeted fish did not response to our bait and jigs, we switched to squid and had some fun at unjam.

While fishing for squid, we saw school of trigger fish chased at squid that have been hooked and trigger fish rig then was sinked (4 pieces small and strong hooks tied as sabiki style and small little squid slice as bait). Guys on board had fun with trigger fish but not long after, we have too many trigger fishes who got away and the whole school swam into unjam structure.

When we got back to shore, we were informed that the spots that gave us good result on the day earlier was still productive. However, done is done and we drove back to KL after bath and dinner in Pekan.

Looking at my works schedule, I do not think so I will have time to return to Pekan this year. Until then, hope the ebek in Pekan remained !

Business Trip to Beijing / Harbin / Panjin / Anshan / Shenyang May 5 to 9, 2009

2009-05-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

I had a business trip to Northeast cities of China 2 weeks back and took some tens of photos with my camera for dummy photographer; OLYMPUS FE230.

I will upload these photos and will add the comment bit by bit, when I find slot to do so.

The Chinese words on the board can be translated as "Central Main Street".

This is a pedestrian walkway, no vehicle is allowed.

Parkson shopping centre

Chain shopping center originated from Malaysia, is at Harbin.

Memorial monument for Flood Mitigation Project in Harbin.

There were many visitors, young and old, at this area, even on weekday.

Nice boulevard beside the river.

The name ot it is "Stalin Boulevard" if I am not mistaken. Joseph Stalin? I have no idea.

Russian Church in Harbin

The color and design of this church-alike building gave me an impression that it is old, really old. From wikipedia you can get the information how old this church is :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Sophia_Cathedral_in_Harbin

Our early dinner in Harbin.

We had early dinner with end-client before our departure to Panjin. During that, we were served with over 10 types of Chinese dumplings (饺子）, with different stuffings. I was told dumpling is the most favorite food in Northeast. Great meals it was ... yummy!

Harbin

I always got the impression that Harbin is a very cold city, with temperature of probably minus 0 deg. C; and here it is, 28 deg. C, busy and dusty.

My survey comrades; GE & AT, at North Panjin Train Station

Those 4 at the back were local project partners.

My Sleeping place in the train I was in from Harbin to Panjin.

We have traveling schedule of leaving Harbin to Panjin on 7pm and reaching Panjin at 4 30am the next day. Meaning we need to get some sleep on the train. The sleeping was difficult, at least for me, as I think I slept for 2 hrs that night.

Train station in Panjin.

The time this photo was taken is 4 30am, kind of bright for me.

My breakfast in Panjin.

The local people told me this is typical Chinese breakfast; empty steam bread, stuffed steam bread, salted duck egg, salted vege and porridge. I miss a cup of milk tea in my breakfast then.

Petrochina oil terminal of Panjin.

I could only take photo from outside of oil terminals, as camera is not safe to be used in hazardous area.

Restaurant where we were treated by my client's project partner in China
This restaurant is completely roofed with glass or some transparent perspex. With concept of so called "Eco-restaurant", green plants and artificial streams are well kept in it and I would say it was creative.

The room where we had our lunch in Panjin.

It is a spacious room. The hospitality we received from my client's project partner in China was really awesome. Steam Mantis prawn was one of the dishes.

One of the dishes I had in Anshan.

My customer ordered this during our lunch in Anshan. It is obviously silk worms that were deliciously fried. I took few of these and it taste not bad at all, though this was never perceived as food in country I am from.

My room in JW Marriot, Beijing.
My client arranged my accommodation in Beijing in this very nice room, at the cost of RMB 1,600.00/night. I slept on this nice bed for 6 hours; left the hotel at 6 45am to catch my flight back to Kuala Lumpur.

Airport Terminal No. 3, Beijing.

The design of the roof resembles the scale of dragon, icon of China in tradition tales. Practically it serves the function of an opening to light up the huge terminal with nature sun light.

April 4-5 - Rompin

2009-03-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

I got an invitation from Derrick to fish at this date ... what can I say?

I got back from Rompin late last night. We had choppy waters during the 2 days fishing and below average fishing catch. Nevertheless, it was good revisit for me to Rompin after approximately 2 years. Will write more later when time allows.

We left KL during peak traffic hours where the going-back-home crowd coupled with some ching-beng crowd I guess, and it was after shower in KL. It was traffic jam everywhere as expected, but Derrick and his girl friend, Dave and myself drove in a car, inch by inch, we move out from KL and had a good dinner at a Chinese restaurant near Bukit Tinggi.

The journey to Rompin was smooth. We stopped by Pekan at ikan masin house as I need to pass some of Ah Boy fishing tools that my fellow collagues have packed his in my bags. Ikan masin asked me to chat for while when we met in his house and we took the chance to get some updates on the sea condition.

We move on from Pekan about 10 20pm, and reached Rompin at around 11 45pm.

Photo of sail fish statue in Rompin town.

We called the boatman Ah Pui and arrange to meet and get something to bite before we finish for the day. The accommodation that has been arranged in Ah Liang "hotel", a private house arranged with facility for anglers that is.

We started off on our fishing on the day after, and Derrick have his good-reading fishing report here:-

http://www.fishing.net.my/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17325&whichpage=1

Photo of around 2 years old new wooden jetty built for fishing charter only.

Restaurant built just next to the jetty. This restaurant supplies everything we need in our daily fishing trip; food, drinking water, even facilitated with fish cleaning table and washing area for fishing gears.

Our dinner after our first day out. We had fresh catch as our dinner and couple of vodka+lemon+tonic. Was refreshing.

This was how heavy the rain at the morning on the second day. I felt this photo was not able to capture the actual situation.

Another photo of the rains when we were on our way out to unjam, last from Rompin. With Derrick mackerel and sail fishes of others, the effort was worth while.

Rainbow in the sky after we passed through the rains.

The fishing in this trip was nothing spectacular for me. I understand from Derrick on his earlier trip there, catch of diamond trevally, or by local name, "ebek" was reported at one of the major coral area. Unfortunately they are not around this time when I was there.

March 21-22 - Pekan

2009-03-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

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!

Yan Revisit - March 14

2009-02-25T20:14:00.000-08:00

While having beer with Derrick last week, he asked me how it sounds like for a trip to Yan on March 14 2009, to finish our unaccomplished mission. I looked at my activity schedule and tell myself then, there is no reason for me to say no.

March 14 then was fix, and both of us gonna join the group from North for Yan revisit.

I am not exception from the global economic hit; my small business has not been easy since mid last year. Like I normally told many others including myself, if one soak himself in stress thinking or been bothered by problems, it is better she/he do something that they love doing, and get out from the square for short period. Yup ... with that thoughts, March 14 seems like a good date.

I received sms from fishing buddy Mahadzir telling me there has been update of mackerel biting in Yan waters, particularly on shipwreck area. That was some 2 weeks old news, but I think the friendly ever fishing group from North will keep us updated.

As much I am looking forward to have that trip take place right when I open my eyes tomorrow morning, I will keep the progress updated here.

Continue on March 17 2009

I travelled to North of peninsular on Friday evening, rushing, as I had a long quotation clarification and negotiation with vendors. I reached Derrick's place at 4 30pm and we shoot off to Sungai Petani (SP) at 5pm.

We reach SP at 8 45pm, meet up with Derrick buddy, Kelvin, and had our dinner followed by overnight in quarter where Kelvin is working.

The second day we leave the quarters as early as 4 50am. By the time we reached Sungai Yan, the sky was still dark and we load our gears and bags onto the boat.

Loading of gears and ice box on boat.

It was around 5 45am when we move out from the river mouth, and I steal a short sleep during that time.

We started jigging at the unjam around 6 30am, and yield no bite till approximately 9am. The boatmen decided to check their fish trap and we were rewarded with squid and "chicken fish" at the second trap. Roslan, the organizer, cook instant noodle with the squid as our lunch, it was simply yummy...

Photo of 1 of the 2 "chicken fish" from fish trap (local name"bubu").

Kelvin with his "kerisi", caught on bottom fishing.

The only mackerel we caught in the whole trip, by Roslan. This fish took dead bait fish (kembong), rigged with 3 hooks on it with 20lb wire leader. At the second half of the day, the boatman took us to an unjam and the bites at this unjam was obviously better. I remember there were about 3 or 4 takes on drifted and casted dead bait fish, but in total only one mackerel was landed.

As the target fish for both Derrick and yours truly who travelled from Kuala Lumpur to Yan is mackerel, obviously the catch of 1 mackerel through out the whole trip was unable to make us happy. On our journey back from North to KL, we were talking more on the great fishing companionship, the dinner we had, but not the bad catch. We did, however, concluded that Yan shall be temporally sealed for our attempt, as the entry barrier for KLers to hunt for Yan's Mackerel is considerable high; both time and cost wise.

The mackerel in Yan waters is highly migratory, with quantity that is reducing sharply and nobody is able to tell which Unjam these teethies going to move to in next week and how long they going to stay there, making each trip of KLers to Yan is more like a bet. This is topped with the fact that each unjam in Yan waters is sort of privately own, if a boatman knows the teethies are at an unjam that not belonged to him, then the anglers on his boat will not able to check that out.

A highly attractive waters for mackerel hunter nevertheless, I will return to Yan waters perhaps later this year. Fishing season in east coast going to start soon, and I predict I am going to pretty occupied with trips there.

As for the northern fishing buddies that I have met this trip; Roslan, Kelvin and Ah Boy, I have to say they are great fishing companion; always sharing information, rigs and offer themselves for the group activities. Would be just great if I can still fish with them in my Yan revisit.

~ End ~

Yan Trip - Dec 20-21

2008-12-27T07:04:00.000-08:00

I came back from Yan at KL last Sunday evening with my friend Derrick and another 2 fishing buddies. We only manage to fish at the tuas (local name of FAD) for the 1st day, and decided with support from the boatman, that we should cancel the 2nd day plan. We suffered from strong wind from north-east and fish was not biting. Details as follows ...

We pushed off from KL about 4:00pm and heading Penang. It was lucky for us that the traffic at Penang bridge was not as bad as we imagine when we reach the toll at 7 15pm. At 9pm, as Derrick arranged, we met fellow Roslan from Penang which will be also be fishing at the following day. With Roslan guidance we had our dinner at Northern part of Penang.

We started our journey to Yan on 4 15am, Dec 20. After our breakfast and collection of kembong bait as booked by Roslan, the boat left the fishing port at about 7 15am. The sea breeze during then was mild, but wind picked up after we were on the sea for about 30 mins. The boatman took a new "tuas" with him and intended to be "planted" in that trip. It was new experience for me to witness how a tuas looked like. Basically it is a long rope with top part of it tied to 3 length of bamboo, where the intermediate are tied with nipah leafs, with interval of about 1.5m. The bottom was a well-ring alike concrete structure and tied with lots of new leafs. I did not asked the boatman if different leafs would make any difference for the fish-attracting purpose though. How he positioned the tuas was, he brought his boat to front of the tuas and dropped those bamboo into the sea and let the boat drifted by the wind for a while, and sink the concrete approximately at the spot where other bamboos located.

New experience it was, but we lost about an hour of time on the sea, watching small size dorado playing with they prey chasing at the top part of the tuas.

I remember it was about 9am when we were able to sink our jigs into the sea and started working on it. There was another boat from Yan too was long sided on the same tuas as we did. The boatman tied his boat at the bamboo and as what we observed, the bait fishes and predators were active at the front area. I had a talk with Derrick about where we actually should be fishing and Derrick tried to request for same, but the boatman responded saying wind was strong and the anchor would not able to hold the boat at such condition.

Later we saw the other boat started hauling dorado, and none of them is doing jigging. The boatman assistant tried to cast dead kembong around but there was no taker.

I have prepared 2 types of feather lure with me for this trip. The first feather lure was tied by Nick the famous fly fishing guy from Tacklebox Subang Jaya. I tied a wire right in front of it with a weight added to increase the castability. I thought the soft feather from some birds would make the lure seems "swimming freely and cheerfully" and probably mackerel in Yan would like to try how it tastes like. Photo below is how the lure looks like.

The result? I jig-pause-jig-jig-jig-jig-paaaause-jig, changed from short to long pause, fast to slow twitch, long and short twitch, you could not say I was not hardworking enough then. The best attraction I successfully made was couple of times where a school of dorado with size of approximately 2ft followed the lure till about 6ft from the boat and puuuffff they made a smartass U-turn, comically showing me a middle finger when they did that.

The 2nd feather lure was bought by Derrick when he was in Penang tackle shop, and we put wire+hook to make it ready for mackerel nice clean teeth, I thought I was smarter but ... I tried this lure at later stage of our fishing, there was no dorado nor mackerel followed this lure to my sight but perhaps the waters during that was not conducive for fish bites. At a glance, this feather lure "swimming" action was not bad. The 4 nos. of longer feather seems soft and played lively when you twitch em.

At the time I try to look for the lure to snap a photo, I could not find in my luggage. I called Derrick and the other 2 friends if it was accidentally packed in their bag but the answers were negative. Looks like I have to leave the photo empty here.

While we were jigging on our boat, the boat near to ours was producing result. With live bait they got from sabiki and drift it out, they managed to haul a tenggiri at approximately 11am. From the distance I estimated that tenggiri would be a 6kg-ish. I thought that was not a bad catch, and Derrick started his effort to jig for bait fish at front part of the boat too but register no selar or kembong.

It was about noon then we drift our first live kembong with balloon. Meanwhile we tried pintail on top of our jigging and maintain the effort. Strong wind picked up around 2pm, coupled with the no bite condition, we decided to call it off for that day and heading to Yan's port.

We stopped at Pulau Song Song on our way and the boatman longsided his boat behind the wind, together with many other fishing boats. I could see anglers doing swimming, casting for squids or simply relaxing, and we end up doing easy casting with low expecation at that area too.

We returned at port at approximately 5pm, and we exchanged weather condition and the low bite rate with other anglers. The boatman suggested we make another trip to Yan on March where the wind is expected to subdue. From the conversation then, I understand max number of tenggiri they could haul per day at correct day is 60+ per boat. "That was not bad..." I was so thought. The boatman that supposed to take us out at the following day suggested us to retire for second day too as making it happen would be "wasting money". We obliged and make a tentative fishing dates with him next year.

Later, the group meet up with the other team where Roslan was and we had our dinner at a restaurant nearby.

We drove to Penang island later and convert our fishing trip to a Penang Food Hunt at the evening. I appreciate Derrick effort to drive us around in and out and to good food corners in Penang. The 2nd day we spend our day in "kakilai" paypond and got some fun with farmed siakap (barramundi) there. What I wish to write down here about kakilai pond is the very friendly and nice owners Ah Tong and his wife. At that time Ah Tong was telling kaki-lai pay pond will be re-open on January 1st of 2009 with new fee.

About the tenggiri in Yan, my next visit would need the following;

1) murky water

2) spinner with multiple hooks for kembong. Jigging would be nice, sure, but come to think about number of jig one need to contribute for a reasonable catch, you will think like what I think.

3) easy wind

4) dead fresh kembong, 15 to 20 per anglers

That ends my Yan's trip report of Dec 2008.

November gonna be a "fishless" month!

2008-11-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

Well ... time flies, it is now 3rd day of November 2008.

I was rather ambitious earlier this year to make or join fishing trips. I targeted 1 trip every month and I have made 7 trips till date. Out of which 3 trips were at west coast and 4 were at east coast of peninsular Malaysia. Out from that 4 trips in east coast, 1 was rather fishless and we ended up in a boat ride with boatman ikan masin of Pekan boats in March 2008. My fishing buddy Sharma made a report on the fishless trip as in http://crazyfisherman.blogspot.com/2008/03/fishless-in-pekan.html

So ... to be more precise, it was 6 trips that I have made huh?

(continue on Dec 5th 2008)

Due to circumstances that could not be improved, my wife stopped her employment and started her career as Unit Trust Consultant under Public Mutual. This move of hers has changed my fishing plan considerably.

With that I have decided to not fish at all in the month of November.

My fishing friend Ryan got a trip to Pulau Jarak waters on November 14-16 on GT Chaser. Ryan's plan earlier was I shall join him in that trip and we shall do more bottom fishing. To reduce the damage on his end, I managed to get another fishing friend to replace my seat. I was happy that they finally made it and came back with good catch. I have found a good photo for the catch summary, copied from report from other angler on board;

I met with Ryan after he came back from the trip. According to Ryan, the silver grunter at left side (just at the stomach of the junior big eye trevally) was hauled by Ah Ho, where only him and Ryan was doing bottom late in the midnight. Well, that is what I would like to see; Ah Ho fishing. Hahaha...

There were few remarkable GT hauled up in this trip, such as this, by my fishing friend PK. Base on my humble estimation should be around 10-12kg. Ah huh ... I notice he caught this with long jig, will ask him how did he work it out, I never got good success with long jigs.

Ryan with his GT, estimated at 8kg-ish.

Another photo with Allan in action, standing behind are skipper Ah Ho and Steven.

Angler Allan with a half fish, believed to be robbed by black tip shark in mid water. Hmmm .... looking at the bite mark, the size of black tip is believed to be >15kg. This make me think where to find a jig as big as the GT and ... you know what I mean.

A not bad size GT, angler unknown

The other thing that worth mention here is the "father & son" skippers from Pekan also joined in the trip; skipper ikan masin and his son Ah Boy travelled from Pekan and boarded on GT Chaser. It is really unfortunate that I could not find their photo on GT Chaser though I knew Ah Boy did snapped few photos on board. Will try to get it and post it here, let's see..

Well ... that ends the brief report on Ryan Nov 14-16 GT Chaser Trip.

What is there in December??

About 2 weeks back my friend Derrick asked me if I could make a trip to Yan, Kedah, on Dec 20-21 for 2 days jigging, hunting for mackerel (in local name, "tenggiri"). I made a quick check with my wife to see if there is any family activities planned on that time frame and within 10 seconds I confirmed with Derrick on the trip.

Yan located at Northern end of peninsular Malaysia, and the drive from Kuala Lumpur to Yan going to take at least 5 hours. Derrick briefed me on the fishing field of Yan, on how fisherman there make their "unjam" (FAD) and seems that each fisherman own his unjam. I thought perhaps it is good idea to explore on it.

Stay tuned for Yan fishing report.

October 17-19 at GT Chaser, Bagan Datoh

2008-10-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

I got a call from fishing friend, Ryan, on early last week, saying that one of Tacklebox bookings to Pulau Jarak (PJ) on GT Chaser (GTC) was having problem because of insufficient anglers and was asking me, or pushing rather, to join. With the idea that flashed in mind to try out the new spots that I newly know, I told Ryan I shall be tentatively on.

Friday, Oct 17, 5:55am, I was on my way to Tanjung Harapan with Ryan to pick up live octopus that Ryan has booked earlier. Both of us never have tried live octopus so we thought probably it is a good idea to offer them for our bottom fishing.

6:30am, we were on our way to Kapar. About 7:35am, we met other anglers at Tanjung Karang for breakfast. There were 6 anglers waiting for us at a kopitiam with name that I did not pay attention to remember. After some introduction and jokes, we had our food and left to Bagan Datuh at about 8am.

It has been some 8 months I have not board on GT Chaser, and I was happy to greet Ah Ho when we met on his boat. The boat was as clean as before, with obvious new painting has just done on the hull. I understand from Ryan that GT Chaser experience some gear box problem couple of weeks before that. Probably Ah Ho has took the opportunity to paint the hull while the boat was at dock, I thought.

Through out my deep sea fishing trips using charters from Hutan Melintang, Sg. Besar, Lumut, Pangkor, Kg Acheh, Paka, Rompin and Pekan, GT Chaser is the cleanest boat I have been. The skipper, commonly known as Ah Ho, has his new GT Chaser fabricated and put in charter business since June 2007, after using the first GT Chaser for approximately 7 years. With total construction cost of approximately RM 300,000, the boat has 2 x CUMMINS 160hp engines, runs with fuel consumption that is comparatively much lower than other fishing charters.

Our first fishing spot planned was Hutan Melintang Sea Mountain, so named because of the location is at direct west of Hutang Melintang. After the journey that took about 2hrs 30mins, we started to sink our jigs at about 2 30pm.

I could not precisely remember the frenzy started after how many drifts, but it was about 4pm I guess, when 7 jigs in the water were rewarded with 5 hook-ups, at the same time. The GT did not demand for specific similarities in color and shape of jigs used, as I observed. Neither was there any special rhytym required to attract the bites then.

As I was testing my new PE3 jigging rod, I was paying particular attention on the flex and lifting power of the rod. The jig retrieval was quite effortless with rhythm, I would say. However, upon fish strike and when I started cranking my line back, I noticed each full arm lift on the rod gave me shorter length of line, comparatively, not enough for 2 full crank of line-winding. That is to say, the vertical line displacement (reclaim) was less with each full arm lift using my new PE3 rod that is having higher flex.

With typical size of GT hauled was around 3kg to 5kg, I did not experience any difficulty in landing them. However there was one strike-and-fight ended with I lost the GT at mid water, due to braids snap at the middle. I was puzzled with the reason the SUFIX got snapped, at that point particularly. I believed the line must got injured or something during my earlier trips at that point that gave way.

During one of the drifts, I had a good take on my elcheapo jig. A self-declared "good timing" sentak was launched, and the thrill started. Within less than 1 second, the tug became heavy, and stationed. "&^%$% ... sangkut?" I asked myself. Ah Ho noticed my situation and asked me to hold on, "you put 2 hooks right? one of it is with fish and the other is with rocks" he said. True enough, I still can feel the thrilling tug-tug-tug, but pumping it yield nothing but dead drag screaming. I passed the rod to Ryan, with the intention to let him feel what is going on down there. Ryan pump for few cranks, and shake his head "Ah Ho is right". I released the bail arm after that, within seconds I got my jig back but of course the fish was gone.

Soon it was near dusk, skipper Ah Ho suggest to try for ang chor (golden snapper) at a spot not far away from the sea moutain, before we head to Pulau Jarak waters. I was having strong interest to observe how a seabed profile looks like at habitat of ang chor. In his cabin, Ah Ho pointed at seabed profile displayed at his KODEN sounder, and explained to me the uneven profiles with gap of 1m, estimated, are where ang chor and grouper would take the offering. Jigs were then sink, but no bite was registered.

On the 2nd day, Ah Ho came back to HMSM once more, as almost all anglers [me excepted... :-)] wanted to feel the GT power we had earlier day. We push off from Jarak island afternoon and reach HMSM about 2pm.

I jigged for about an hour, got tired and plain with typical size of GT below 5kg. During that time I think most anglers on board were rewarded with at least one GT except a newly met fishing buddy, Ziven. I understand from him that, the heaviest jig he brought was 150g, and he had only 2 or 3 pieces with him. He got with him few hula-hula too, a new octopus-alike-lure with beard, both his jig and hula2 were under weight for the current of 19th in Lunar calender. At one time Ziven got his line tangled with mine, while clearing the cha mee hoon, "something is pulling, something is pulling ... " Ziven said. At the same time the mess has cleared, I tried to hold the YGK braids, but it was a fish pulling! I sentak for 2 or 3 times then start cranking, and the fish is gone. Upon checking, my kevlar line was "cut". "A shark maybe?" I was so thought, while pressing blood from the cut at my finger caused by the rushing braids just seconds earlier.

Some time later Zevan shouting was heard, hahaha ... I followed the direction of the shout and was happy to see him holding his Shikari rod with C-curve, marking a hookup and fighting for his first fish-on- jig at front end of the boat. Minutes after he landed a GT with weight estimated at 4kg-ish. "Now everybody got fish!" I thought.

At about 6 30pm of the 2nd day, Ah Ho stop jigging at HMSM and heading to Pulau Sembilan. The journey took about 2 hrs and we reached Pulau Sembilan at 8 30pm. We were right at the transition time between 2 tides. I have had my bottom fishing setup prepared during the journey to Pulau Sembilan, and sink my bottom offer with mantis prawn. I understand from Ah Ho that there is a ditch right behind the boat. Sinker used was small, as I intend to let the current drift my offer into the ditch.

For initial 1st hour of the new tide, there was no take. First bite on the mantis prawn happened after the current was "aligned", about 9 30pm it was. I was chatting with Ryan and Ryan pointing at my rod and "fish biting!". The CX-4 with 80lb braids was effortless to surface the fish. I had a good look at the angchor, estimated about 3kg-ish. At that time there were about 7 anglers doing bottom at the boat and the first angchor did boost the spirit a bit.

The 2nd angchor took my bait, a recycled fresh sotong with head and body from 2 different squids, at approximately 11 30pm. It did not take long then the 4kg-ish angchor was on the board. I really love to see the natural color of golden snapper, red-ish and shining under the fluorescent light. The 2nd angchor was observed as having more round body compare with others, and fight like a 6kg-ish fish. Photo of my 2nd angchor, snapped by boatmate, Dron.

Right before the new tide finished, Ah Ho move GTC to a new spot, and get it longsided at a place, with the boat positioned for fishing at following tide that yet to be started. The spot is called "black rock", located not far from the Pulau Sembilan waters. It is the spot where almost all bottom anglers were rewarded with their angchor. Total number of angchor caught at this location was 6, weight from 1.5kg-ish to 3kg-ish. On top on this, there were few misses, some because of undersized leader went snapped, some due to broken undersized hooks.

The tough part was the correct tide started and the boat got aligned only by 2 30am. From that time onwards, there was only 2 rounds of frenzies, one during 4 30am and the other during 6 45am. There was no significant difference on preference of bait that angchor have took, both live squid and live mantis prawn were effective, at least during then.

I woke Ryan up on 5 20am, as I could observed, angchor have started biting and the dawn angchor frenzy that is typical at Pulau Sembilan waters, gonna start soon. Sea breeze was mild, and the boat was aligned with small angle with the current direction, "good orientation..." I was thinking. I was really keen to fish through the dawn frenzy, but mild headache brought me to bed at about 6 30am.

It was 9am when I woke up. I checked around and noticed only one anglers from the night shift was sleeping and the rest were active fishing already. I asked Ryan about the catch during the dawn, and Ryan was rewarded with one 3 kg-ish angchor. I was happy for him, as that marked the cheery popping of his new bottom setup; Mega-twin paired with Seeker 30-80lb rod.

After that Ah Ho tried on few others spots, but register no bites.

As all the boatmates were newly met except Ryan, I did not request Ah Ho to try the new spots as I wanted to. However I did bring the coordinates and discuss with Ah Ho, for whether there are any spots in there that were already in Ah Ho's collection of coordinates.

Well, this is not a real issue I guess, because "I shall return"

My Meetup with Ah Koon

2008-10-11T07:44:00.000-07:00

I took the opportunity of my trip back to my home town and call Ah Koon on Saturday. Prior to that I called him and my intention was briefly mentioned to him, and I would say his reponse was encouraging.

On the phone, Ah Koon cheerfully agreed to meet up at jetty of Sg. Pinang. Sep 28, Sunday morning it was, I left my father-in-law house at some 10 30am, and reached Pangkor around 11 15am.

Ah Koon was a skipper that have his boat sold some 4 years ago and stopped doing fishing charter completely since then. My last fishing trip on his boat was September of 2003. in that trip, the whole group of us consists of 7 anglers, brought 4 x 100 qt. and another 3 smaller ice boxes, have them filled fully on the 2nd night of a 3D2N fishing trip. What made me remembered on that trip was, I had 4 huge takes on my offering that were not landable.

Not long after that trip, I left my employment and ventured into some sort of own business, and my desire to experience the awesome fish power has to put on hold temporarily. For some reason I could not forget the scene where a 60lb bottom rod bowed till water surface and 50lb braids been peeled ferociously. The awesome fish power was simply unforgettable. I have been telling myself "I will be back".

I called Ah Koon number and guided from the conversation I walked to a local kopitiam, some 50 ft. away from the Sg. Pinang Jetty （吉灵丸码头）. There he was, a mid age, well-build Chinese, sitting in the kopitiam, wave his hand at me.

From the talking then, I understand Ah Koon is operating a primary school canteen since he sold his boat off. We talked about general catch of commercial fisherman in Pangkor island, population of Pangkor that is dropping and plenty of other stuff. I told him my intention to meet him in Pangkor was because of my desire to repeat my experience on his boat, at that particular spot 5 years ago. Should he is not doing fishing charter business any longer, I am prepared to exchange GPS coordinates number of that and few more other spots with some monetary appreciation. That I am a simple but serious angler, were also explained to him. His coordinates will be with me not for fishing charter business but fulfilment of my chase to experience the power of unknown (but suspiciously Grouper) fishes.

We talked general stuff about fishing after that, and Ah Koon took the opportunities to explain to me methods of getting boat long sided at different orientation with different wind and current direction. Observation of fish bites rate at different winds at specific months was also explained to me. I really don't know how much I could absorb at that time, as he is those sort of person where once he started talking and the pace is in, he will keep talking, described the factors to observe for good dates, from one spot to another. "Arhhhh...I need a recorder" I was so thought.

Among others, there were about 4 spots that Ah Koon mentioned I must go there and try. One of it was a spot where he and other anglers on board hauled up ang chor, generally over 6kg-ish and have had ice boxes fulled at late midnight of the 1st night out. The biggest ang chor caught on rod-line in his 15 years++ of fishing charter experience is 9kg+ was also caught on that same spot.

From in-depth conversation later, I was a bit disappointed because I came to know he did not write down the GPS coordinates of the spot which I experienced 5 years ago, in his personal diary. That coordinates were recorded in his GPS console which passed on to the new owner of his boat. He looked at me and tell me that spot is "dirty", as numbers of weird fishing incidents happened at that spot.

"Like what?" I asked. There were few times, he said, well build angler like him, took great effort to pump a fish up. Upon surfaced, the fish that appeared was in no way matching the power of the tug-fight. "a kerapu that weight less than a kg ... Kai, you tell me, shouldn't it be effortless?"

"Errr ... ok, perhaps it is good that you don't have that coordinates with you now" I said. But still, I was disappointed deep inside me.

After we had our lunch at a restaurant nearby, Ah Koon took me to his house in Pangkor.

In his home, he sat down at the biggest table facing the house entrance and slowly open the drawer underneath and take out a book, very much alike with exercise book used in primary school, and flip page by page.

Written beside rows of GPS coordinate numbers were rows of chinese abbreviation, such as "红皂“，”白皂“， “大过“，“龙尖“ and many others. These are local names and perhaps his own way or writing those fish species; golden snapper, silver grunter, giant grouper and emperor fish respectively.

(Post-posting note: the chinese name of golden snapper is 红槽 as referred by fishbase.)

"Heart blood of 10 over years huh?" I said. He looked at me and smiled, slowly shake his head. Together with the book is another stack of A4 papers, photocopied obviously, written with numbers and numbers. Ah Koon explained to me that those were from his friends working on trawler boats. Those numbers were recorded when the skipper noticed some unusual profile at the seabed, and were passed to him hopefully someday Ah Koon will make a trip there and come back probably with fishing tales.

"Those were spots that I never tried, here in this book are all that I have tried and recorded", he said. He put on his reading glasses and go through the number, line by line. He asked me to write down specific numbers when he recalled the catch results at those spots. "Na ... this is the spot I told you just now, my biggest ang chor was caught here".

There are spots where good catches were recorded, but he said those were flat seabed and it will be impossible for fish resource to remain there, with frequent visiting of trawler boats. Generally he only requested me to note down spots where low profile rocks, ditches and sea mountain were present, for the simple reason the resources could be possibly protected under the physical condition.

I spent about an hour and a half with him with the numbers. At a glance I have about 30 spots, some north of Pangkor, some east of Pangkor and some South of Pangkor. Spots at sea moutain of Hutang Melintang were not recorded, however, because the spots were visited frequently by fishing charters around central Perak like Sea Garden (Ah Heng), GT Chaser (Ah Ho) and Tuna (Ah Chong).

It was about 4 30pm then I am done with Ah Koon on the GPS coordinates thingy. He took me to his merbuk cages right next to his house. We spent about 30 mins beside the cages then I decided to make a leave. I requested him to take me to an ATM and withdraw some money as my appreciation to him and he obliged.

We spent sometime at Sg Pinang jetty after that. During then I was told the past stories how he started his charter business with Ah Tiong of Seagull and the other friend, and later how the business was split.

I left the jetty at about a quarter to six, with Ah Koon waving his hand to me as my last sight on Pangkor Island.

I shall visit those spots very soon...I thought so when I was in ferry. Few sms were sent to few of my fishing buddies and deep in me I really look forward to test the bite rate at these spots.

~ End ~

My First Posting

2008-10-11T07:32:00.001-07:00

Have been thinking to start my own blog since May I think. Was hesitate back then as I was not certain whether to do it on blogger webs or my own domain.

Anyway ... like the saying goes "a journey to a thousand miles start with the very first step"