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.

PEACOCK BASS FISHING

One of the greatest freshwater game fishes that has generated the fishing industries world wide is Bass. Popular in the USA the Bass -Bigmouth and Small-mouth Bass are icon game fish that inspire yearly Bass Fishing Tournament in the USA. Eventually Bass was also introduced into Japan and the Bass fever also spreads there and inspire the production of many rods, reels, lures and organized tournaments there too. These tackles eventually were exported to other countries that have Bass population and those that do not have any Bass at all. You know what they say the tackles are not designed just to catch fish but also anglers as the recreational fishing industry generates hundred of millions dollars annually.

But what about Malaysia? Do we have any Bass here because there are plenty of tackles meant for Bass found in our tackle shops all over the country? Did anybody smuggle Bass fry into the country undetected? The answer is yes and no.

There is a species of Bass and its variations found all over the country mostly in the West coast of the Peninsular of Malaysia, however, they are not Bigmouth or Small-mouth Bass like the ones found in Japan or the USA. Disappointed? Naaahh...you should not be because the ones that are swimming around in our ex-mining ponds, lakes, and canals are as aggressive, vicious and would give a tough fight when hooked just like their cousins in Japan and the USA. They are no other than the Peacock Bass originated from the Amazon in South America.

Peacock Bass are Chiclids not basses. They live in tropical areas from the Amazon Basin in South America up to Panama, Venezuela, Florida, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the US Virgin Island. So how in the world they end up in Malaysian waters? Look no further than those who imported them from the South American countries to be sold in the aquarium shops scattered across the country. They are quite colorful when they are small in the aquariums but they need to be kept in large aquariums as they grow very fast in high temperature water on the tropics. When they grow too large for the aquariums some owners will discard them in the lakes, ponds and canals. Then there are aqua-cultured Peacock Bass in many ponds got released into the surrounding during flood. This is how the Peacock Bass got introduced in our country. Due to the hardy nature of the Peacock Bass, their hunting habits and vicious appetite where there are abundance of local species, their population grew very fast at the expense of the extinction of some indigenous species. They dominate mining ponds and lakes and compete with the bigger species like Toman and Haruan(both are snakeheads). They are also known to eat their own species once the supply of local fishes run out. Since these fish (which is locally known as Ikan Raja) are not popular as table fish their population growth continue upward as most fish caught were thrown back into the water to live another day. This worries the naturalists who feel that the Peacock Bass will hunt most of the local species to extinction. However, for anglers who look for the gamefish like the Bass in Japan and the USA which are not available here, the Peacock Bass are god-send! In Florida peacock bass were introduced the 80's to control other non-native species and to provide sport fishing for the recreational anglers and it is illegal to kill or possess speckled peacock bass as they are protected by law. I did not encounter peacock bass when i lived in Miami, Florida in the 80's as they were only introduced there starting 1984. Their population did not spread North as they cannot tolerate the cold temperature at the end of the year. But, in Malaysia the average temperature did not vary much from the South to the North so they have no problem spreading which is a cause for concern.

Anyway, fishing wise in Malaysia butterfly peacock bass are mostly found in ex-mining pond and lakes where the water is calm. I have never heard of them being found in flowing river the same with where Sebarau can be found. My main fishing ground for peacock bass is mainly in the state of Perak especially ex-mining ponds around Batu Gajah, Malim Nawar and Kota Baru. I know of a few places in Selangor ponds and lakes that hold this species like in Batu Yam, Rawang and Subang but the success rate is not as good as in Perak. I also heard some spots in Negeri Sembilan that have this species but i have never tried. Perak seems to have more of this species maybe to the fact that a lot of aquaculture farms for the aquarium business are in Perak, and a lot of peacock bass escaped during flooding season.

My main method of catching the peacock bass is by casting lures and sometimes fly, i only use live bait like the Seluang when everything else failed. The type of lures, colors and sizes should be close to the baitfish found  in the pond that i was fishing. Using 2-3inches or 50-75mm long lures with silver color works wonders as most baitfish called Seluang by the locals found in ponds are around this size and color, match the hatch they say. Sometimes i used bright color lures with green, orange or white colors to trigger strikes. I use deep divers during a hot day as the fish stay in the deeper column of water and then i change to shallow divers, pencil baits or poppers in the late afternoon when the sun is less intense. I like to use a light rod 8-16lb with 10lb or 15lb line with a 20lb fluorocarbon leader to get more fun from this fish. Sometimes i use my converted #7 fly rod with a spinning reel as shown in the photo above to get the maximum fight from this fish. Nothing is more thrilling than seeing this fish jump in the air shaking its head in order to dislodge the hooks during the fight. Most fights last just five minutes as the average size is just around a kilogram, i have yet to catch anything approaching 2kilogram but i am sure i will one day, it is just a matter of finding a right spot and a bit of luck. I released all the peacock bass that i caught even though the naturalists in Malaysia might not agree because i think all lives are precious and are there for a reason. If i do not want to eat them why should i kill them? Nature will eventually find the right balance as it has done for so long. I do not think wiping out the peacock bass population is a good idea as it will put the native freshwater species like Sebarau, Tengas, Kelah, Toman and Haruan under intense fishing pressure as there are no other alternative for freshwater sport fishing available. Eventually the peacock bass will be accepted as one of the native species, after all how do we know the ones that are called native are truly native as they could have migrated or introduced long ago before record or studies even started, you never know?

Amy and his Peacock Bass aka Ikan Raja

Catch n release eventhough it is an evasive species

I too released my catch, if you dont want to eat them,just let them go to fight another day

For those of you who have not tried fishing peacock bass, it is time to give it a try as it is quite thrilling and addictive. Happy fishing.

RAYA 2014 SNAKEHEAD FISHING

Last Aidil Fitri Raya(Eid Celebration) was unforgettable! Nat King Cole? Naahhhh...it was because it took me a f*#king 19 hours drive just to reach my wife's hometown Kangar which normally took me a bit over 5 hours on a normal day via NKVE!

What happened you might ask? On that day(Saturday before Eid)1.6 million residents of Kuala Lumpur decided to leave the city at the same time going in three different directions - North, East and South!! I started my journey at 7.45am on Saturday thinking everybody had left the city the previous days, boy was i wrong! From Duta Toll it took my one hour to reach Sungai Buloh Jejantas(normal 5 minutes) and 10 hours to reach Ipoh(normal 2 hours)!! I reached Kangar at 2.30am Sunday morning exhausted!

The next day was recuperating day before more exhausting Eid celebration of visiting relatives one hour drive away. After that free and easy to do some birding( i am a birder if you must know) and a bit of fishing of course.

Perlis the state has a lot of padi fields, canals and lakes apart from the sea in between Langkawi and Kuala Perlis. But since the wind at sea was quite strong and late afternoon storm was regular during the week of Eid celebration, i did not have the chance to fish at sea.

So, snakehead fishing it is then. The closest good spot from the house is Lake Timoh Tasuh, a manmade lake for water supply to the whole state. On the northern side is Thailand. Not all of the lake shore hold snakehead. You need to look for pockets of water where the water is calm with grass line and floating Lotus plants. The spot we chose was at the dead end of road behind a some sort of a camp/chalet/resort, not sure exactly. But the road used to go across where the lake is now. So the dead end is the part which is submerged into the lake, can be used as a ramp to launch your boat really. We do not have a boat so we fished on the roadside. My previous trip there produced a few snakeheads.

My buddy man fished with live frogs while i like to use artificial lure like a spinner bait, i just do not like to handle live frogs because they are slimy. After about 30 minutes none of us get any strike. There was a light rain afterwards. Man took my advice to try yellow plastic frog with weedless hook which turn upward. After a few casts he got a strike just at the end of the retrieve. It was a quite good size snakehead (Haruan) as you can see from the video below:

To watch HD version of this video you can go to this link:
http://youtu.be/BStrXfHPKNQ

It was my buddy's day that day as i did not catch a single snakehead at the lake.  The only positive was the frog lure he was using was from my collection, at least i know that it was an effective lure to use the next time i go fishing for snakehead whenever i go back to Perlis for a vacation.

Till the next time, happy fishing.

BAGAN LALANG FISHING - PART TWO

In Part One i talked about the Barra fishing at the Bagan Lalang beach. This Part Two is to show other species you can catch here.

Other than Barra other species you can find here are Whitings(Bebolos/Puting Damar/Buluh), Gelama(Croakers), Sembilang, Stingrays(Pari) and sometimes small Gerut-Gerut(Grunt) or Golden Snapper(Jenahak). The other ones like catfish(Belukang) and Pufferfish(Buntal) are not worth mentioning because they are a nuisance.

These species above are mainly caught using deadbaits - shrimp, cut fish, squid, Pumpun(beach worm) or crabs. You can use a knocker rig with  a small round sinker free slide to your hook on a 20lb fluorocarbon leader about two feet long and number 4 or 5 long shank hooks. I like to use peeled shrimp or cut squid as it lasts longer against nibbling type fish.

On this beach you need to fish at the beginning of the high tide. If you fish during low tide you would have to wade at least one hundred meters away from the beach to get to the knee depth where you can find the fish.

There is a rock line near the newly completed resort on stilts called Aviana Resort. During high tide you can fish from the top of this rock line where you can cast away toward the stilt areas where the fish go to look for food. Sembilang(sea catfish) loves to roam this area from my past experience fishing for them in my hometown Kuala Terengganu. In my last year fishing trip i managed to catch a few good size Gelama(Croaker) and Sembilang with my buddies.

Here are some photos for viewing:

My fishing buddies Amy & Man

Yours truly with a good size Gelama(Croaker). Take note of Aviana Resort in the background.

Beautiful silvery Gelama (Croaker) caught on peeled shrimp.

Amy with his Gelama (Croaker)

Yours truly with a Sembilang (Sea catfish). Take note my belly has shrunk significantly since then..ha ha ha!

The Aviana Resort extends 700meters into the sea. You can fish from the balcony if you stay there

The action was fast and furious during high tide!(not the movie). Be careful with the rocks, they are sharp!

Amy and his Sembilang

The rock line was quite productive during high tide. Give it a try, you will be surprised.

Well, that is all i got to share this time, happy fishing.

BAGAN LALANG FISHING - PART ONE

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. 

Sungai Sepang Kecil river mouth

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!!

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.

lets give this shrimp a go

looks very real in the water

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.

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?

Barra on peeled shrimp bait!

catch and release a must for the small ones for future stock

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.

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.

A NEW ADDITION - ABU GARCIA C3 4601 ROUND BAITCASTER REEL

 

You know us anglers have one problem, that is if we cannot go fishing after a period of time we start to feel itchy, you know like a seven year itch ha ha! You know what i am talking about. We start to play with our gears, clean them up, open them up, put them back together, change set ups, read fishing magazines, watch fishing videos etc just to get us in touch with the world of fishing but short of going fishing. Eventually we end up in a tackle shop just to see what are the latest gears hit the counter and so on. Then we start to drool when we see some new sexy reels with new technology, materials or colors we wish we could own but stop short of buying due to the astronomical price tags attached to the reels. That sort of thing happened to me all the times. Most of the times i tried to resist and kept telling myself that i have more than enough after so many years of collecting fishing tackles to the point that the room that i use to store my tackles look like a tackle shop, no joking!

I already have 6 low profile and 3 round baitcaster reels of which three are low profile Abu Garcia reels, but i do not have an Abu Garcia round baitcaster reel. I have a very good Shimano Culcutta TE GT 101 round baitcaster reel which performed well in my previous fishing trips but it is so beautiful in gold color that i do not have the heart to make it my workhorse and end up scratching all over it. My Okuma round reel did not last very long and start to make a grinding sound when reeling the line while my Tica Caiman is too big for casting and light jigging. What i need is a robust and well designed reel with quality and yet affordable and a proven performer.

After doing some research and reading a lot of reviews from anglers i decided to go Abu Garcia way instead of Shimano or Daiwa or other high end brands because they are more affordable than those guys and not to mention their experience and tradition in designing high quality reels which last very long and easy to maintain. Abu Garcia produces top round reels of which the Record, C4 and C3 round reels are their best sellers. These reels go way back with the Record being one of the earliest round reel produced by Abu Garcia and they have kept the tradition and original design largely intact. Some people say why buy these reels as they are old school but i could not be bothered as i think there is value in good old things especially if they still last this long and still selling well.

So, on last Saturday i went to my favorite local tackle shop in Kuala Lumpur with an intention to buy three reels actually( did i say three reels? ha ha), a Pflueger Patriarch low profile baitcaster reel because of its awesome chrome finish, an Abu Garcia C4 and C3 round reels. Unfortunately( or is it fortunately ?) only the C3 was in stock for a left hand model. Of the three models available - 4600,5500 and 6600, i do not like the 5500 as the thumb knob is missing and was replaced with stainless steel switch on the side which is awkward. The 6600 model can hold more line but is too big and heavy for casting all day long, so i decided on the 4601 model which is for the left hand version. It is not expensive as it only cost RM410 (US128). Compare this to the Shimano Culcutta TE GT101 which i paid RM1050 the C3 4601 is a steal! I intend to put a Stren 10lb fluorocarbon lines and match it with 12-25lb medium heavy baitcasting rod that i have for the purpose of casting lures and light jigging and see how it goes.

Abu Garcia gave three stainless steel bearings for smooth operation of the reel during casting and retrieving. The C3 4601 has a 5.3:1 gear ratio for a slow retrieve of lure ( 65cm retrieve per turn) at the mid to bottom level and comes with a 7kg or 15lb of drag which is better than some bigger and more expensive reels out there in the market. Most of the reviews i read mentioned the drag as being very smooth and strong which handled big fish quite well. The reel is not that heavy at 265gram or 9.3oz but is heavier than my latest Abu Garcia Revo 03SX low profile reel at 6.66oz. It can hold 195yards of 10lb mono line or 155yards of 30lb braid or more if you use a 10lb braid.

The reel was supplied with  a bottle of Abu Garcia lube oil to help keep the reel in tip top condition. Other items are the warranty card, instruction manual on brake settings and the other usual stuffs.

The C3 4601 reel is made in Sweden instead of the third world countries as OEM which is common nowadays due to the cheaper production cost compared to the cost in Europe. So the quality of the reel is assured and the reel feels very solid. The reel has only one control knob for casting located next to the star drag. That means it is simpler to use unlike the new reels which have the control knob plus either a magnetic brake knob or centrifugal brake adjustment or all of them. I like the reel metallic hairline steel finish because eventhough it is an old model it still looks high-tech.

Synchronized level wind system

I like the design of the side plate with the royal crest making it look elite among the round reels out there. The satin stainless steel finish adds to the quality of the reel making it  a must-have collector's item in any anglers arsenal.

I am very excited to try this reel in the next fishing trip and hopefully i got good story to tell in my next post along with photos of my catch to show. Until then, happy fishing.