sunday surprises at kiong's!!!

the 14 ft pole that was left unattended for a split second, took a dive into the pond!!!

the haruan was slightly over 1ft long. i rated it at around 1kg

the 2nd marble goby that took live shrimp bait. it's weighs about 500g

the small and fiesty peacock bass. weighs around 100g i presume. good fight on ultra light tackle

one of the other 3 PBs caught yesterday. they are all about the same size

a 600g marble goby to start the day! the BBD hardly ever fails to deliver

it's sunday. plans were made earlier during the week to go back to kiong's pond to say "hello" to the inhabitants there. as usual... john was again late. however, i could forgive him because the weather was wet and cloudy. anybody in their right mind would have just stayed in bed!!! save for us anglers.

we headed straight for batu kawa old town for breakfast with the delicious meat & fish ball soup. once our stomach were stuffed, it was a short drive to kiong's. he was already up and as john went to give kiong some mooncakes, i headed straight for the pond. it was still drizzling and the water in the pond was murky. immediately i took to casting while john played catching up. 15 minutes passed and yet i had nothing to show for my casting. john was still setting up his tackle and kiong was saying something "the leihu have turned vegetarian. now the only take bread." i continued blind casting and while retrieving, suddenly my trusty berkley blade dancer (BBD) was taken with a burst of force. the fish swam hard and strong but the fight was brief. i had thought it was a haruan, but to everyone's surprise, it was a 600g marble goby (MG). considering that john released a couple of MG almost 2 years ago, we had never seen any MG since, that is until today!!! well, it was a good way to start the fishing session.

as we berley the area with bread, we could see at least a dozen haruans, both big and small, cruising around the area and munching on the offering. we tried to entice the haruans with lures, namely, BBD, but to no avail. what kiong said earlier was true. the haruans have completely changed their diet. my personal deduction was that due to our practice of catch and release, the haruans have actually "learned" that BBDs are dangerous and are keeping their distance.

soon, we switched to bait fishing instead. we set up one tackle each for the grass carps which could be seen cruising around in the distance. i had also managed to scoop up some live shrimp and seluang (bait fish) to be used. john had moved to the other side of the pond to try to improve his luck. i set up a 14ft pole to target the haruans. some time passed before john registered a strike and managed to land a small peacock bass (PB). while he was walking back to me with his catch... suddenly, there was a take on my 14ft pole. however, it was unattended and the fish managed to pull it into the pond. we had a hard time retrieving the pole but by that time, the fish had already got away. john and kiong sure had a good laugh at me. knn!!!

a while after that incident, it was my turn again to catch a fish. i had just rebaited my grass carp setup with fresh bread and cast it far to a weedy patch. i then placed the rod on a rod holder and tended to my 14ft pole. it was less than a minute when i saw the grass carp setup bend. i threw down my 14ft pole and ran to the grass carp setup and gave it a strike. there was a brief fight and then the whole thing was stuck. my thinking was that the float had got stuck in the weeds and the fish had gone. so i pulled in the line with a bunch of weed stuck at the end. as the weed approach the bank, suddenly i felt another tug. the fish was still there. i then used a net to scoop up the whole weedy mess. i thought that i had already had the fish in the net before i realised that the fish was still in the water and trashing about trying to gain its freedom. quickly i reached for the 10lb leader and try to haul up the fish. as the fish came out of the water, the line broke, however, luck was on my side as the fish landed on dry land instead of back into the pond. it was a 1kg haruan and it had taken the bread bait meant for the grass carps.

after that, there was no more takes on my grass carp setup even though i periodically rebaited the hooks with fresh bait. however, luck came to my 14ft pole. i caught another fish that i had never caught before... a PB with live shrimp as bait. the size was the same as the PB john caught earlier, around 100g. not long after that, i caught another PB of the same size from the same area. looks like i had found the lair of school of juvenile PBs. i was hoping to catch more PBs at the same area so i continued to fish around the same spot. then my bait had a soft take. the float submerged but it didn't move. i waited a few seconds before i struck and immediately, the unknown fish turned on its turbo power. because my 14ft rod was super soft, there was no way i could stop the fish run. it had gotten stuck in some weed. i tried to pull in the fish and weed but to no avail. i decided to loosen the pressure. i could feel the fish trying to make a second escape, but this time, i was ready. i pulled it in and was rewarded with a 500g MG. after that, we decided to call it a day. all fish were photographed and released.