Pulau Berhala (off Pekan) - Brief Catch Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 !