4 day Malaysia [Ipoh] fishing Expedition

Date: 13th Feb 08 - 15th Feb 08

Location: Malaysia
FishingKakis: Richard, Ah Ong, Darren and myself

On 12th Feb08, Darren and I drove up to Perak for our Chinese New Year visit as both our partners are from the same town called Bidor. The trip from Singapore to Bidor took us nearly 5hrs to reach our destination. For this trip, we had bring along our fishing gear as we hope to have a chance to try out freshwater fishing while we are able to have some free time during our stay in Bidor.

Freshwater Fishing in Malaysia was just a dream for Darren and me after reading all the awesome catch report from the Malaysia fishing magazine. However, our dream finally came true when we received a called from our friendly fishing-kaki, Richard Yap or the infamous Captain Richard Sparrow who had made a 3 day fishing arrangement for both of us. Really appreciated to our hardworking planner as well as tour guide who helped us fulfilled our dreams and most importantly giving up his time to accompany his girlfriend just to join us for this trip.

Our Itinerary for the 1st day was to go Batu Gajah, Kampong Pisang ;which is a private duck rearing pond where only the owner’s friend are allowed to fish in his pond. In the afternoon after our lunch, we will be fishing at some potential quarry. Second day, we will be heading to Tronoh, a town which is also quite near to Batu Gajah where there are many quarry in that area and for the last day trip, we will be trying out the saltwater pay-pond Siakap fishing at Tanjung Rambutan.

On the 13th Feb08, Darren and I woke up at 0500 in order to meet Richard at our meeting point at 0630. Traveling up from Bidor to the meeting point need approximately 45 minutes of driving which was rather tiring at such hours. From the meeting point, Richard will then guide us to park our car at his sis’s placed near to Menglembu (Need to do it for the 3 days) and from there; we will set off to our fishing destination. Luckily, waking up at 0500 is just for the 1st day trip whereby the following days, we need not wake up at such early hours or else it will be extremely tough for both of us.

The Private Duck Pond

Ah Ong and Captain Richard walking to the Haruan Spot

With the help from Richard’s friend Ah Ong, we are able to reach our fishing spot easily as Ah Ong drove a 4WD Nissan Terrano which is excellent to counter all the potholes due to the uneven road. Fishing at private duck pond was the first for both Darren and I and our fishing ground looks really potential. By the time we have reached the pond, the golden timing for catching Snakeheads has already passed. Nevertheless, we still wanna try out our fishing luck at this spot.

Candidate for the first Cast- Pencil lure

The Haruan hideout

After luring for almost 2 hours with a few miss using my minnow lures, I have already surrendered myself to the hot weather no doubt it is about time to go for our lunch. Richard, who had a strong determination, kept on doing his luring. Eventually, he got a bite and everyone was able to hear his Shimano Aernos XT reel was screaming and line was peeling off at a fast pace. Without delay, I throw my fishing gear on the ground and took out my Panasonic Semi-pro camera and ran towards Richard. After fighting for a couple of minutes, a 2kg snakehead (Haruan) finally surfaced. Nowadays, catching such big size Haruan are not that easy and it’s a very precious chance to get a shot on this fish as well as the Hero of the day.

Captain Richard Sparrow with a 2kg Haruan





Aunty earning RM3K per month just to dig earthworm



The Malaysia fruits Rojak

Knife fish spot

A juvenile Knife fish




Darren with his Indian Carp





Tilapia nightmare or maybe "Daymare"




So in love with Tilapia




Total catch for the 1st day fishing



Juvenile Peacock Bass spotted



Another promising spot

After our sumptuous lunch at this town called Pusing which is nearby our fishing area, we went to another Quarry to try our luck but only managed to catch a few small Knife fish which we have released it. Seeing such poor result, we decided to change to another spot. This time round, we decided to try out fishing with fish food mixture using the Carp hook. Within 5 minutes, Darren’s 6lbs line was peeling off from his Ryobi reel and eventually, a almost 1.5kg Rohu (Indian Carp) was landed after a good fight using light tackle. After landed the Rohu, nothing was biting except other than the small Tilapia which is kind of nuisance to every freshwater anglers.

A very promising snakehead fishing spot





Time to have some cold drinks

Freshwater paypond at Menglembu

Big fat Pacu




Preparing the fish food mixture Bomb



Surface action




Pathetic Baby toman frenzy



A cooling fishing spot

As for the 2nd day fishing, we started off in the afternoon at the Quarry area at Tronoh which was a pretty bad fishing day where nothing big was caught for the whole afternoon other than luring the bunch of Toman Fries which is too small for our liking.

The 3rd Day, we went to a Siakap (Barramundi) Paypond at Tanjung Rambutan which was RM30 for 4hours per rod. Both Darren and I was not pretty sure whether our hook is poisonous or our setup is being curse or whatever as for the whole afternoon both of us got a big Dinosaur egg in a paypond full of Siakap. Anglers fishing beside us keep landing fish but not our line. Our setup was almost the same but still unsure what’s happening. Anyway, Richard got a bite but the fish managed to escape during the fight.

Eventually, all of us ended our fishing trip with disappointment. Luckily, for the past few days, we managed to find some good food which made this trip back to Malaysia pretty worthwhile. Every fishing ground which we had visited has sceneries which we Singaporean seldom come across and there are many potential fishing grounds are yet to be explored. Hence, it is a very good and fruitful experience for me.

Prawn sale at the Siakap Paypond




The view of the paypond



The water filter in the paypond





Our Firework on Chinese New Year




The famous and yummy Chicken Craypot Rice at Kampar





Old-Style cooking of Claypot Rice






Good food at Pasir Pinji......Yummy!!!






Pasir Pinji new "Under the Tree" Foodcenter




Cows having a cool bath under the hot sun

My very 1st Prawn Fishing

The Hunt for Giant Freshwater Prawn


The tired Giant prawn after a good fight

Date: 18th Jan 2008
Venue: Bottle Tree Park
Time: 9:30-12:00 noon

I have never done Prawn Fishing before but after this trip with Darren and LuCong who are my Prawn fishing guide, it seems to be quite fun after all comparing to fish-fishing.The main challenge of prawn fishing is the tackle used. All you need is just the Prawn rod and for this type of rod, the rod tip is really fine and thin comparing to fishing rod which is much thicker at the rod tip. In order to know if the prawn is feeding on your bait, one can easily tell it from looking at the float movement and immediately follow with a strike to set the hook. When a big freshwater prawn was caught, it will give you a really good fight and landing it needs some technique. Frankly speaking, bring up the prawn is not that simple at all and getting it in big quantity within a limited time frame need some technique and skill and of course luck played a part as well. The strength to counter the resistance of the prawn must not be too strong or too light as either one will ended up losing your catch. Lu Cong who had did his prawn fishing 2 weeks ago had caught around 70 over pieces within 2.5hrs which is tremendously good result for himself. However, this time round his catch rate is less than half of what he had caught previously. The main reason for the poor result is mainly due to the hot weather which resulted of the prawn's poor appetite. At the end of our 2.5hr time frame, out total catch is around 70 pieces for the 3 of us which i personally felt it is already good enough. After the Prawn Fishing trip, i ended up going down to Beach Road to purchase my SGD$30 7ft Prawn Fishing rod and accessories...Hohohoooo, another one more tackle added into my collection.

Beautiful male Prawn

My first Prawn caught

A good fight with this Giant

LuCong with his catch

Another one caught

A good sized Prawn for dinner

My kakis on Prawn fishing

Is this enough for you?

The Opening offshore trip in Yr 2008

First Punggol Offshore Trip with Ah Koh Boat
Date:16th Jan 2008 (Wednesday)
Chinese Calender: 十二月初九

Tide:
16Jan08 0416 2.8
16Jan08 1037 1.1
16Jan08 1648 2.5
16Jan08 2233 1.3

My 1st offshore in 2008 and the weather was perfectly good and the folks on board was superb. Everyone on this trip manage to land up some fishes. Kelvin landed the first ray of the day and he is indeed one funny guy who really made our day. The couple, Desley and Daphne had a busy day landing the Gelama and Crimson Snapper aka "Red Chicken". Sulin, who was pretty lucky on this trip managed to catch a big Gu-hook, John Snapper and a big catfish at the same spot within half an hour. Winson also caught a decent size John Snapper and a few Gelama but was sort of busy on his mobile due to his work. CiCi also caught a big Ah Seng which had given him a good fight. Michael caught a few Gelama as well. As for me, the first half of the day was not my day landing a few small fishes and only at around 4pm, i finally had some action. As i'm using my light bait-casting setup it was quite a tiring fight. My 25lbs mono line was peeling off from my Abu 4500CS Pro-Rocket and my Shakespear Contender rod was illustrating a Alphabet 'C' during the fight. It was not a comfortable fight as my rod butt was too short and positioning the rod and reeling the fish back was not a simple job. Luckily, after roughly 10-15minutes of "Tug of war", the big prata surrendered to me. Ah Koh, the boatman landed a 1kg plus Gu-hook using "Sarong worm" which he emphasized that it is very much better than using live prawns.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with my first offshore trip in 2008 and hoping that i will have better luck to land some big fish on my next offshore trip.




Nice view at Punggol Marina




Happy Anglers Gathering



Preparing the deadly bait for Snapper



One-two-three ..say cheers!




Hey look, i landed my first fish



Another fish for Kelvin



Arrh..Oh no...i got a "Sangkot" fish




1st half of the day catch

A good fight with this ray




Desley with his "Red Chicken"




The "Ang Kuei" couple



Cici with his Ah Seng



Kelvin with "Jaws"



Ah Koh landed his big Gu-hook

Ah Koh's boat

All our catch for this trip

Monsoon Season Kelong Fishing

December Ah Ngan Kelong trip

Tide:
20th Dec 07 0037 1.3
20th Dec 07 0705 2.7
20th Dec 07 1346 0.9
20th Dec 07 2022 2.4
21th Dec 07 0154 1.5
21th Dec 07 0754 2.8
21th Dec 07 1445 0.6
21th Dec 07 2146 2.6

Chinese Calender: 十一月十一，十一月十二

December, the Monsoon period whereby the weather is pretty unpredictable and heavy downpour is common during this month. However, it is worth the risk as we have heard from some anglers saying that there are many bait fish at the Kelong which attracted big fish and hence, chances of landing a big one is pretty high. And so, despite of the weather, my kakis intended to give it a try hoping to have some serious fight with the biggy.

At 0600, we met at the Kranji MRT and by 0630 we have cleared the custom check point and reached our favorite Coffeeshop at Pelangi to have our Wanton Noodle. On this trip, there are total of 6 anglers. Darren, Marcus and our so call “Organizer”, Captain Richard Sparrow managed to gather another 2 new kakis, Bryan and Tien Siang. After our breakfast, we were to pick up Tien Siang who is staying in JB. Every fishing trip to JB we are sure to have some delay in our schedule and this time, Marcus who is also driving could not catch up with Darren and my car at the checkpoint and Darren who had already ordered his breakfast at the coffeeshop had to drive back to the Malaysia checkpoint to direct Marcus to our breakfast location. Hahahahaa....Another miscommunication happened again and this time, we had roughly only 1.5hrs to reach Tg Leman. In fact, I was quite worry of the delay as the Kelong in-charge informed me that due to the low tide in the morning, we had to reach the jetty by 0900 as the tide could hinder the boat from ferrying us from the Jetty and hence, my traveling speed have to be slightly faster despite of the poor weather.

Contact of Sibu Kelong and faciities




New Kakis and familiar faces



Red Flag-Monsoon Warning

Along the way, the weather was not favorable to us as we could see thick dark clouds hanging over our head. However, the rain last around 30 minutes and upon reaching the Jetty, the downpour has already ceased and we are just in time to reach the Jetty before 0900. All of us board the boat at around 0920 and the tide was not really that bad as what we were told. The sea was fairly choppy and upon reaching the Kelong, it started to rain. The sea was murky due to the raining season and all of us hope that the rain will ceased during our stay. After we were directed to our beds, Darren and I wander around the Kelong and saw some guys preparing to clean up their catch. I was surprised to see an 80qt coolman box was filled with many bait fish of all sizes. This indeed had given me some motivation as there were bait fish around sure there will be some biggy lurking around. The rain stopped at around 1100 and we started to jig for our bait fish. Although water is murky, landing bait fish is utterly easy. Ikan Tamban landed during this season is much bigger than those caught at Bedok Jetty.

Other than baitfish such as Tamban, Selar and Kunning, there is also some big eye trevelly lurking under the Kelong which will strike on live Tamban. Using light tackle on this fish is really exciting as one can really have a good fight. Bryan was lucky to caught one big eye trevelly. During the day, there wasn’t much big fish and it was pretty boring. Captain Richard was bored too and so, he decided to try out fishing Todak. Getting todak is pretty easy, but getting the big ones are quite difficult as the small ones seems to be much more hungry in snatching off the bait.

Oh no, we board the same boat on the last offshore

A must to wear the warm and uncomfortable life jacket

Our handsome Captain Richard Sparrow

Raining days reaching Kelong

Wow..big Eyes..our target

Full box of bait fish

During evening time after dinner, Darren decided to try out squid jigging and was awarded a big cuttlefish which weighs more than a kg. However, the cuttlefish managed to escape after struggling in the water for a couple of minutes as Darren was not keen in pulling up the cuttlefish as he was scared of the ink. Initally, I wanted to gaff up the big cuttlefish but the Kelong uncle told me not to use it and so off goes the big cuttlefish. During the struggle of the cuttlefish, Darren’s Shakespear rod tip was broken as well. Not his luck. After 30mins later, Darren’s try out his Yozuri Shrimp hunter and had caught his first big green eye of the day but the squid managed to escape when he pull up the line. Another squid disappeared in front of him. As for me, I have no luck for squid and had lost a fish which bite my Yamashita while i was pulling my squid jig. The fish which bite my squid jig seems to be either a belt fish or Parang. Throughout the night, I caught nothing. I have even tried out luring using 10 over different types of lures but it seems useless. It was the worst night fishing I ever had in my Kelong fishing experience not even getting a small squid. Therefore I decided to change my strategies by going fishing in my dreamland which is very much better than I expected.....hohohoooo!

The first catch from Bryan and Richard

Small Selar...how to answer to my wife?

Our delicious Lunch

Bryan's one and only big eyes



Slipper fish caught by Richard

Captain Richard doing his summon Fishing Rituals

Dancing no fish, then sing for fish lor

Captain Richard highly recommended

Finally a squid for Darren

Ah Xiang with his first Kelong Todak



Captain showing off a bigger Todak

Make love with my Emperor

Save water...save the world!!!

Overall, this fishing trip is a disaster where I did not even want to bring back any Selar or tamban fish back to Singapore. No fish and no luck at all. Will wait till the monsoon is over and by then will decided on my next Kelong offshore trip.