WHITING OR BEBOLOS FISHING

Ikan Bebolos or Buluh (as they are known in the East Coast of Malaysia) or Putung Damar(Northern states) is one of my favorite small saltwater inshore target fishes ever since i was a kid. They are fun to catch and quite tasty to eat especially deep-fried.The English name is Whiting in the Sillaginidae family which the King George Whiting of Australia, Japanese Whiting, Northern Whiting, Sand Whiting and School Whiting belong to, not to be mistaken with the European Whiting or Merlangius Merlangus which is more of cod family found in the Mediterranean and Europe. This Whiting distribution covers the Indo-Pacific areas from the west coast of Africa, to Taiwan and Japan, and  up to the New Caledonia and Pacific Ocean.(Wikipedia source) In Australia, the King George Whiting are giant compared to the ones found in Malaysia. They grow up to around 5kg and over 70cm in length and can be caught using micro lures over flat area, whereas the ones in Malaysia hardly reach half a kg and 30cm in length and can be only be caught mostly on cut bait and Apollo rig!

Bebolos or Whiting in Malaysia can be found in shallow waters 10 to 30meters along the shore with sandy bottom where they like to congregate looking for small crabs, sand worms or tiny shell fish. Fishing for them is best using light tackle 6 to 10lb soft rods and around 6lb mono-filament line with a small running sinker and one or two small hooks with a short red tube before the hooks to attract them to take the bait. The red plastic tube can be replaced with tiny red beads as long as the color is red to simulate sand worms color which is one of their main diets. Below is a picture of my normal setup for Bebolos fishing:

My main whiting rod - #7 fly Sierra rod with an Abu Stealth 2000 spinning reel and 10lb braided main line

My whiting rig - a running ball sinker, 10lb fluorocarbon leader with two hooks and red plastic tubes

I like to use small cuts of fresh prawn without skin or cut squid which last longer because whiting love to nibble and steal the bait, so holding your rod and be alert is a must. Some locals like to use what they call Pumpun or sand worms that live in harden mud shell which can be found in muddy areas along the mangrove shore line. This worm is red in color and can be cut in small pieces as bait for the whiting and they really love it. I for one do not like to use it as they are a bit messy to handle, so as a replacement i use the red plastic tubes before the hooks to make the whiting think that i use the worms as bait. When fishing for the Bebolos or whiting it is best done just before high tide because based on my experience they are less active during low tide or move to deeper water. Finding a depression or Beruh (in local dialect) in the sandy bottom next to sand bar will be productive because they like to hang around there waiting for food to pass by for easy meal. One of the ways to find them is to slowly dragging your bait on the bottom until you get a bite, when you find one you will have to remember the spot for the next cast, chances of finding more whiting is high as they are a schooling fish. Whiting fighting energy relative to their size is quite amazing on light tackle and can give you a lot of fun when the action is hot during their season which October to April in the west coast and after the monsoon season in the east coast. They are still found along the shores during off season but not that many. Whiting share their habitat with some small inshore species like croakers, sea catfish,cowfish and pufferfish. So they sometime took the bait meant for the whiting which can be quite a nuisance.

whiting aka Bebolos and cowfish

Bebolos or Whiting can also be found in deeper water from the shore

Bebolos or whiting is  a great fish to start your kids getting hooked on fishing as i did with my son in the picture above. You should give it a try as the eating is good too. Happy fishing.

Cheers.

OFF KUALA PERLIS FISHING

Last July 9th i went fishing off Kuala Perlis with my son, father in-law and two relatives after almost two years absence from sea fishing. Two years is like an eternity for anglers! Actually i had a trip planned a year before but after spending some money to buy some gears for the trip, it was called off due to bad weather.  I had done some fishing inland, like canals, river mouth and from beaches before this trip but nothing beats fishing at sea. The problem with arranging for a trip to sea is that you got to have all the pieces together i.e your fishing buddies are free, the boatman is not busy for the chosen date and the weather must be right.

Jetty area in Kuala Perlis

Our boat - about 24foot long fibreglass boat

So for this trip we were going to target either Golden Snappers or Groupers fishing over man-made reef mostly made of concrete blocks. The water was not deep averaging 8 to 10 meters. The fishing strategy for this trip was bottom fishing using light tackles 10-20lb spinning, baitcaster and jigging rods, braided lines 10-20lb Power-Pro, about a meter fluorocarbon leader 30lb, running round sinkers,round hooks with cut fish bait, squid and live prawns. I wanted to try micro jigging but the water was too shallow.

Yours truly holding an action cam

The boatman guiding the boat through the river

My son Amin's second trip to sea

An array of fishing tackle ready for action

A lot of birds along the river

A White-collar Kingfisher

Fishing boats lining up the river

Loading pier for fishermen catch

Jetty for Langkawi Island ferries

A floating mosque during low tide

our fishing ground between Kuala Perlis and P.Langkawi

We started to move out of the pier around 7.30am and started fishing around 8.00am. The fishing was slow for the first two hours while looking for the right spots. The boat that was supposed to deliver the live prawns came late around 10.30am. Only after using the live prawns we started to see action with two nice size Croakers.

The first good size croaker aka Gelama

The second croaker aka Gelama

Then a small baby ray took the bait meant for the grouper.

A baby stingray or Tuka

We had to try a few more spots before the first grouper was caught. 

Amin's first ever grouper using live shrimp

A happy dude!

My son did not catch a single fish until he got his first good size grouper. Actually that was his first ever grouper it was a lot bigger that i have ever caught in my whole life, i was happy for him.

Romzi posing with the biggest grouper of the day

The biggest grouper was caught a few minutes after my son got his grouper by the boatman using hand line. It was almost 3 Kg in size. After around 3.00pm the wind started to pick up speed and the water became very choppy. We could not even stand up without falling over! We continued fishing until 5.00pm without catching anything. We decided to call it a day as the fish was not biting at all.

I was not very happy at all with this trip because i did not catch a single fish despite using the same gear, technique and bait, i could not believe my luck, never ever happened before in my whole fishing history!! Well, i have to accept it, it was their day not mine. There will be the next time i am sure, and it will be soon i promise you, you will see in my next post!

That big grouper ended up as sweet and sour fish dish for dinner

Well, for your info i am planning for the second trip in September, same spots but this time i want to try some popping and jigging, lets see if could catch any fish or not. Until next time, happy fishing guys.

Cheers.