It has been a while since i last gone fishing due to busy work schedule and lost of interest really in fishing. You know after a few outings which ended up in zero catch you can lose interest as you grew tired of it all and really needed a break. But being an angler you cannot really stop fishing indefinitely and after a while you will miss it.
So i thought i would check out one of the nearest beaches to Kuala Lumpur which is quite popular to tourists which is the Sepang Gold Coast in Bagan Lalang, Selangor. It is roughly 45 minutes drive via highway. If you want to go there you can take the highway toward KLIA, exit the junction near the Sepang F1 Circuit toward Bandar Ernstek, then turn right at the traffic light. From there you go straight toward Sepang Town, and then Sungai Pelek town, straight again and turn right toward Klang. The junction to the Sepang Gold Coast is on the left about 500meters after that. You will drive through palm estates which lead you to the beach.
The beach is quite flat for hundreds of meters and quite suitable for wading and fishing other than beach activities. There is a new resort on stilts that goes far into the sea for about 700meters from the beach. However, i feel the rate for overnight stay is quite expensive per night(RM550-850!!). I usually go to this beach to take my kids to play in the sand, a bit of fishing(nothing serious) and for the infamous sea food at a few restaurants along the beach. The seafood are fresh and the price is not that expensive.
Most people fish for Whiting (Bebolos), Stingray (Pari) or Barramundi (Siakap) here. You can catch the Whiting and Stingray straight away from the beach during the oncoming tide, while the Barramundi are caught at the mouth of Sungai Sepang Kecil that connect to this beach, and Sungai Sepang Besar on the opposite end of the beach which is about a mile away.
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| Sungai Sepang Kecil river mouth |
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| Sungai Sepang Kecil |
A popular method of catching the Barramundi is trolling with Rapalas or using live shrimps, while squid, peeled prawn or pumpun (beach worms?) are popular to catch Whiting, Stingray or Gelama (Croakers). Another popular way to catch fish is to fish from kelongs (timber houses built on stilts far away at sea). You can pay a reasonable rate per person per night and fish from the platform at kelongs. The owner will ferry you and your equipments to his kelong early in the morning and pick you up the next day. One of the popular one is Kelong Nazri which you can look up the next time you go there if you are interested.
Me, i like to fish from the beach because it is not practical to take my whole family to the kelong especially i have a five year old, kind of dangerous to have her running around the deck, i would not have a piece of mind fishing if you know what i mean. At beach, they can do their thing and i can do a bit of fishing without worrying too much. The water is shallow and there are a lot of people around in case something bad happens.
On 15 September 2014 (two days ago), i thought i would try my luck trying to catch a Barra on lures. The day before i bought some artificial shrimps after watching videos of Captain Blair Wiggins of Addictive Fishing on the net. I was impressed on how easy he caught good size Snooks, Sea Trout, Red Fish on soft plastic shrimps, so i thought i would give a go with Malaysian Barramundi (Siakap). Besides, Snook (which i fished before in Miami,Florida during my uni days) and Barramundi are very similar in shape and behaviour, they are practically cousins!!
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| O Pass Smart Shrimps - looks very real! RM27.50 a pack. |
So, there i was at the Sungai Sepang Kecil river mouth around 2.30pm, the weather was clear and warm, very warm and the tide was outgoing which i thought was good as the water level was low and the chance was high for the Barras to find my new soft shrimps. I was using an 8-16lb MaxKarra Bluefish rod , an Abu Garcia C3 round baitcaster with 20lb Fins braid line.
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| lets give this shrimp a go |
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| looks very real in the water |
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| my gear - Abu Garcia C3 with 20lb Fins braid & MaxKarra Bluefish 8-16lb light rod |
So i fished, cast after cast, slow retrieve, stop go jerk, fast retrieve, for one and half hour , no strike. Malaysian Barra not interested in soft plastic shrimps or what? Wrong time? Wrong place? Cannot be, because i heard from the locals and anglers that there are a lot of Barra around here. Are they finicky or lures shy? Hmmm...so i thought why not change lure?
So i took out my favorite deep diver, maybe they are down there deep since the day is so warm. Out go my Halco RMG 4inch deep diver, maybe i will have a better luck i thought to myself.
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| my Halco RMG 4 inch deep diver |
Again not strike after half an hour. It is harder than i thought. Maybe i need Captain Blair Wiggin's expertise to outsmart these Barras. So i changed to 3 inch light jig but retrieve horizontally. Tried it for 20 minutes, still no strike, duhh! So i thought maybe these Barras are already smart and prefer live bait - mullets or shrimps.
So i went to a nearby fish market and bought a few dead shrimps, peeled the skin off and fish with a rig of two hooks about a foot apart. I also changed my rod to a light jig road(0.5-1.5PE) with Abu Garcia Revo 03 SX baitcaster reel and 10lb Power Pro braided line. If there are no strike from the Barras maybe i will get strikes from the Whitings, Croakers or Stingrays.
After 10 minutes i got a nibble which i thought most probably from Whitings. Boom i strike! The fish pulled hard, went sideway and jumped out of the water! Whitting jumped out of the water? Cannot be, i thought. After a few run it turned out to be a bay Barra ha ha ha! So that was what they wanted, a peeled shrimp bait?
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| Barra on peeled shrimp bait! |
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| catch and release a must for the small ones for future stock |
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| yeaa....i got to live for another day |
I continued fishing after letting go the first fish at the same spot. I got another strike, this time more powerful until my 10lb Power pro snapped! It must have been the mother of the earlier fish angry at me for catching her baby! Damn! Had i known i would have used a stronger set up 20 or 30lb braid line maybe. After that the action died down except for a few nibble until sunset.
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| beautiful sunset |
All in all it was a fun day at the beach with light fishing for Barra, could have been perfect had i landed the second and bigger Barra, but it is enough for me to go back with a smiling face.
Till next time, happy fishing.
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