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

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

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

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

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

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.