Last Minute Fishing Trip to Jarak Waters

My fishing buddy called me and asked me if I want to join a jigging + bottom fishing trip to Jarak waters on a new boat that we have not charter before. I got few things arranged after I hanged up his phone and call him again to say we shall go ahead.

I met trip organizer 2 days after, and after he shown me the photo of the boat we are going to board, I realise the boat is not completely new to us as we used that boat some 4 years back, with a somewhat terrible catch. I remember the trip where 3 skippers were trying hard to park the boat correctly in order to have our baits drift to a shipwreck, without success. It was obvious the estimation of skippers then to settle at a point with compromise between wind and tide were never succeeded.

Later we were informed that the skippers that took us out few years back is not working for the new boat owner anymore and we thought we should just proceed.

We tried jigging at a coral area some 8nm South of Pangkor Island, and one of fellow fishing mates got awarded with a beautiful 4-kgish golden snapper. All other jigging anglers register no bite at all.

Got this small kerapu in one of the spots on fresh squid. Since catch is small size, I clean and cut it into 4 pieces for 4 servings ;-)

JT got this mama groupa at 4am I think, weight about 20+kg.

Comparison of GT Fishing in Oman and Seram Waters

Was checking with fishing charters in Seram Waters and Oman on fishing trip arrangements and got the information tabulated as below.

With the table, it is easier to see the difference between travelling time needed to reach the fishing ground of the two waters. Take Seram waters as an example, the flight route to reach Bandanaira would be KL-Jakarta-Ambon-Bandanaira, with one overnight in Ambon is needed due to flight departure time.

It is worth mentioning that the connecting flight from Ambon to Bandanaira is unscheduled and not fixed. Serve with small plane that can accommodate less than 20 passenger each time, the weight limit of luggage allow by each passenger is 10kg only, yes, 10kg. Additional luggage would be charged IDR 10,000 per kg which is still within reasonable range, I think.

The unsual thing is, there is no information available about this particular flight and one need to be physically presence there to get it booked. Meaning anglers could only book the itinery via the local fishing charter. Speedboats meant for sending tourist between Ambon and Bandanaira are available too, then again, not much information is available for one to plan a trip him or herself.

Bandanaira is located some 230km east of Ambon. While I check through information on the internet about Bandanaira, I got to know Bandanaira is a famous spot for diving too.

	Trip duration (day)	Total Cost in USD	Actual Fishing Day	Price base on Pax No.	Cost per Day Fishing USD	General Catch Rating	Specie	Option of Gear Provided
Oman	5	3,020	3	3	1,000	4/5	GT & YFT	Yes
Seram	7	1,755	3.5	4	500	3/5	GT	No

Dishes of Home Birthday Dinner

A dinner was planned at home couple of weeks back, for celebration of my sister birthday. My wife and sister cooked some awesome food for that dinner and would post it here for my apetide induction.

Steam deboned chicken in chinese wine.

My wife read about this dish from recipe magazine somewhere and opted for it as one of the main dishes that evening. The preparation involves deboning the chicken, tie it up with strings to hold its shape and marinate in Chinese herbs and after that got it steamed, follow by marinate it in Chinese wine for couple of hours before serving it.

This dish was impressive with the combined taste of chicken and chinese wine that blended very well. Though the level of saltiness is a bit insufficient in my liking but the thick aroma came out from a mouthfull chew was really good.

Stew pig-skin in sweet-and-spicy pineapple curry

The process of stewing this crunchy pig skin in the curry made it absorbed with pineapple aroma, and when you chew it they flood your mouth with rich good taste. Very appetizing and made me taking it irresistibly!

My sister favorite; gravy of stew pork and innards.

This dish was cooked as gravy for "mee-sua" (fine dry noodle), and it has been a tradition to add chicken eggs for giving longevity to the birthday person. Dip-fried lard is added to add rich flavor of it. Nice Chinese food but one could not take it much for it is too "riching"!

A steamed sweetlip.

Told my sister that the taste of this specie is rather plain and perhaps she can do something about it. She put oyster sauce on it and kept it aside for sometime before got it steamed. The outcome was not bad; taste better with some MSG from the oyster sauce I believed. A brilliantly fresh fish nevertheless.

Another Pekan Trip

Just realised I got some nice fishing trip photos in my lappy and thought why not get it posted here. The trip was made with skipper recommendation to test one of coral spots that has not been visited for years.

Skipper Ah Boy with his blackspot tusky; the biggest among all and estimated at 4.5kg.

We caught 5 tuskies ranged from 2kg-ish to 4.5, not a bad spot I would say.

I witnessed the brutal pull of this tusky as I was right beside Ah Boy with catch net in my palm. The fellow went into tug war and the situation stayed 50:50 for 30 seconds or so, as each crank Ah Boy successfully made, follow by the line got peeled for few rounds.

Derrick with his tusky.

HP and GO chill out while we were on our way out.

A new nice boat at Pekan jetty, wondering who is the owner.

We did drift bottom fishing at few spots and were awarded with different species of squid and some white tail grouper too.

We brought one of the rather big size tuskies to the usual restaurant we have our dinner, and told the chef to prepare it in "mix servings", and it shall completely up to him on how to cook it. We waited for 30 minutes and this was how the fish turn up as; assam steam and ginger steam, loooove it!

Working on a fishing trip in the waters of Seram Island, Indonesia

Location of Seram Waters

My fishing buddy and me have been talking about fishing in Seram Island and some information about the schedule of fishing in Seram waters are listed below;

Flight Route of heading to fishing ground; KLIA-Jakarta (Int.)-Jakarta (Dom.)-Ambon-Bandanaira, with total traveling hours of approximately 48 hours to reach Bandanaira and overnight in Ambon because of early flight from Ambon to Bandanaira

Flight Route of returning to Malaysia; Ambon-Bandanaira-Jakarta (Dom.)-Jakarta (Int.)-KLIA, with total traveling hours of slightly less than 48 hours, with overnight in Bandanaira.

With the above traveling, fishing duration will be 3 1/2 full day fishing.

Beautiful Sungai Chiling

Visited Sungai Chiling sometimes back; beautiful river with thick trees and fishes swimming within.

My skin felt the breeze of forest when I was there.

My brother putting up tripod and trying to capture a "cotton feel" of flowing river.

Butterflies at river bank of Sungai Chiling

The photo of a "flowing" Sungai Chiling with longer exposure from my brother's camera.

And an ugly burnt rubbish site; with cockle shells, glass debris, napkins and many others.

Come on city folks, you came here for the wild river and of course you will hope to see the river in the same beautiful state when you return!

Another snapped on one of the waterfalls along our way back from Frazer Hill.

Pekan Fishing, Seafood & Durian Makan Trip - July 7th 2012

I have been planning to take my old friends out fishing for many years and eventually got that trip done on July 7th 2012. It was supposed to be a 2 days trip but got it shorten to 1 as guys on board could not take the heat.

Ordered curry wild boar, fried sweet potatoes vege, venison fried with black pepper and Chinese wine-with-clamp soup. The curry wild boar was soft, with good and not overly curry aroma. The other dish worth remarking was the soup; clamps were fresh, with Chinese rice wine and blended brilliantly well along with cooling mountain breeze around; overall I scored the meal at 7/10.

With a large guiness stout added, the total price came up to RM 100+, not too expensive but can't say it was cheap either.

We left Puchong at approximately 6pm and jammed our way through for 2 and a half hours via Middle Ring Road 2. Reached Bukit Tinggi around 8 30pm and opt for the usual restaurant I normally stop by for dinner on my way to east coast for fishing.

Late dinner but guys were happy and in complete chatting mood.

Pekan jetty in 8am-ish of sun light. The sky was quite cloudy that time and I got my worries on choppy sea. After we got out to open sea I realised that wave was like 1m or so, calmed down pretty much after noon time.

Typical tourist-anglers behaviour when they are out on a fishing trip, particularly when they just got boarded is, to snap photo; on people on water on whathaveyou along the riverside at the sky, and guys were not exceptional.

When camera pointed at the skipper, he shied away from it; that he is, the skipper Ah Boy, pretending busy looking at GPS that was not switched on.

Kuala Pahang fisherman Jetty at riverside.

A happy angler with sotong jarum, some call it rocket, some call it bullet squid.

Squids were aplenty at unjam area; in total we hauled over 60 of them in 1 day fishing. We focused on squids and coral fishes and did not try tusky or mackerel at all.

Steam Flower Crab with egg and Chinese rice wine, yummy!!

Opt for the usual Sri Pekan Restaurant to have our dinner. Other than the flower crab, the rest were our catch.

The speciality of Sri Pekan Restaurant; deep fried squid.

Crunchy, sweetness-from-the-sea and aroma from dunnowat spices are what you feel when you chew these. The restaurant served special sauce meant to compliment the fried squid too. Basically a spicy and sour sauce, you taste bud will be overwhelmed with tastes of all then.

This is what uncles do when they are contented; taking photos, beer and chat about everything and anything.

Our dinner before the plain steam fish served; assam steam leather jacket (or trigger fish as some likes to call it) and white tail grouper, chili padi + chinese rice wine steam squid, deep fried squid, steam flower crab & vege.

Plain steam kerisi (Threadfin Bream)

First time trying kerisi cooked this way. I like it cooked in deep fried or stew in bean paste better I guess.

Gutting and cleaning fish

Our big task on the second day was to clean our catch. Spent some an hour and half cleaning fish and clear the mess we created in boatman house. Left Pekan on 12 30 noon and heading West for home. Half way during the journey I remembered 1 restaurant in Karak that serve good sui yu (fresh water turtle) stew with Chinese herbs and decided we shall have our lunch there.

We finally found the restaurant (阿水饭店）and had our lunch there, however not too happy with the steam red tail asian cat fish that the owner claimed was from river, as the flesh is soft and come with heavy soil taste, so bad so that I had asked for additional chinese hua diao wine and poured on the fish, trying to subdue the soil taste.

Paid RM64 for that fish, hmmmm .... not impressed with it.

Durian displayed in stall in Karak.

We have some serious durian lovers with us; eaten durian in Pekan before our departure, follow by another round in Karak.

A close up photo on Mao San Wong (Raja Musang)

Stalls at Karak selling this at RM 28 per kg, and it was much expensive than price in Petaling Jaya area of RM 23. However, mood was good and we bought 2 of these at RM 99. Very strong and dominant taste.

See also you know it is nice already!