April 4-5 - Rompin

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

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!