it was a foggy morning. steady streams of participants walking to the registration place
the pond where we decide to try our luck at
open up now!!!
the most successful lure that day, by eupro
my first haruan for the day!!!
that's 1foot long and about 1kg in weight
you've heard of dances with the wolf, that's me running with the haruan!!!
another 1kg+ haruan in the bag
posing with the 1.55kg haruan, that won me 2nd prize!!! woohoo!!!
that's over 60cm in length!!!
another pix of the champion fish. 2.30kg haruan
ok!!! one last take of the champion fish!!! what a fat belly!!!
commotion at the weighing area
ooos!!! and aaahs!!! could be heard during the weighing of the heavyweights
prize giving ceremony!!! now i got an electric oven, all i need are recipes for bbq haruan.Sunday, 18th November 2007, as early as 5.15am, I was already wide awake. Took the time between then and 6am, to get ready for my second fishing competition of the year. The first, being the Sarawak State Library Competition which was rained out and the result was a one to forget. This time around it was the Kuching Golf Club Family Day Fishing Competition. My Dad had registered me, Chen and himself for the competition.
6am sharp, Chen was outside the gate of my house. We proceeded to my Dad's place and from there we transfered our gears to his car and proceeded to KGS, detour-ring along the way for breakfast at Mr Brown. 7am, we reached KGS and confirmed our registration before proceeding to one of the 4 ponds that was opened for competition. The time of the competition was quite short, from 7.15am to 9.30am. Without much haste, we proceeded to one of the potential looking pond. What we had as weapons were baitcasters and spinning sets. The night before, I had also bought some live seluangs and shrimps as bait for bottom fishing.
Opening the account between the 3 of us was Chen. He had caught a sizeable haruan with his eupro lure that he bought recently. Throughout the competition, he only used that top water lure and he also landed the most haruans between us. He must have caught at least 10 haruans... and 6-7 of them were above the 1kg mark, with his biggest 1.35kg. I was the second person to land a fish, a haruan of 800-900g. I had used the berkley blade dancer. And once again, it showed that it is one deadly lure. I caught a couple more haruans before I changed to the yozuri banana boat (YBB) lure. The lure proved effective when we were fishing at the CM's park pond so I brought it out for testing. Eventually, the banana boat proved it's worth when I managed to land my biggest haruan to date with it... a whopper weighing 1.55kg. I was casting blindly from then pond bank when I spotted the fella about 20m away, using my polaroid glasses. Without much ado, I cast the YBB lure to it's direction but missed. I retrieved and recast as many as 5 times as my aim was not great. Finally one cast landed just over the haruan. Thankfully it was not spooked. I played the YBB by twitching the rod tip. The YBB moved from side to side. The action as they called it is Walking The Dog. As the YBB passed a foot in front of the haruan, it began to follow the YBB, but it didn't strike. I stopped the YBB's action and the haruan got closer. Then I retrieved the lure again. And that haruan became agitated and followed at a faster pace. I stopped the lure again. And now, the haruan was practically an inch or two from the lure. Within a split second, WHAM!!! the haruan whacked the lure and tried to swim into the weeds for cover. I reacted by striking the rod and held the rod tip high. Although the haruan was big, it didn't fight nasty. It trashed a bit and when it tires itself I quickly retrieve the line. It was basically hauling dead weight of fish and weeds. When I managed to get the fish to the pond bank, I quickly realised that I need a net to haul up the fella. My Dad, who was watching all the action quickly ran to get the scoop net. The first attempt to scoop the fella, it jumped 2ft and landed further away. Thankfully, the second attempt to scoop the fella, was successful, and as the fish trashed in the net, the YBB came off!!! A closer inspection of the trebles showed that they had opened!!! As for my Dad, he tried casting but the lines kept entangled, until he gave up. He continued with bottom fishing and caught a whole lot of tilapia and flowerhorn. He could have caught more fish, if only I had provided him with right-handed spinning reels, as he is a left hander. I promised to get him one of those for next year's competition. Among the other lures that I tried were bushwhacker, but it brought it weeds and no fish at all. By 9am, I had decided to call it quits. Chen and my Dad kept on fishing and hauled up more haruans and tilapia respectively.
9.30am, we packed up and went to the registration area to weigh our catch. All in all, we had about 10 fish above the 1.0kg mark. Chen's biggest was 1.35kg and mine was 1.55kg. Things were looking great, I was leading the score board with my catch. The joy didn't last long. As more and more anglers came back with their catch. One haruan that was brought back was HUGE... and I mean, it overshadowed even my 1.55kg tiny fella. When it was put on the scale, the pointer stopped at 2.30kg!!! KNN!!! That is a freaking godzilla of a haruan!!! I was bundled to 2nd spot. More big fish came, but when weighted, they all came in at 1.4+kg. Chen was out of the top 5, and there were only prizes for the top 5 heaviest fish. When the result was final, I was still at 2nd spot, even though there was another haruan which weighs 1.55kg.
10.30am. I went up to stage to received my 2nd place prize, which was a electric oven!!! It was the first time ever that I have won anything in a fishing competition. Truly a memorable day for me. Mainly because I was able to spend quality time with my Dad and friend... and winning 2nd place was icing to top off a great day.
