Taiping (Maxwell Hill) Trip, Kuala Sepetang Seafood

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

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

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!!

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

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

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 !!!

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.