Tarpons and Grouper

the first tarpon

a better view of the same tarpon

the biggest tarpon of the day. put up quite a good fight. quite an acrobat

6" was the average size of the tarpons there

the surprise of the day. a Grade A Grouper from the upstream of the barrage

as memory serves me right, every time i go fishing with Chen at the barrage or any place near that area, my result would always be lousier than his. however, that was the past and this is now. last sunday (18 may) i went fishing with Chen. we set off mighty early. i woke up at 5.45am. reached Chen's by 6.30am and we proceeded to our destination, the bako causeway. a quick detour to get some live prawns ended up in our dissapointment and the next best thing was to get some fish from the market at pending to be used as baits for our prawn trap. upon reaching the coastway, we found a suitable location and started casting away. splashes can be seen here and there and some were so tentalizingly close, within casting distance. i had used a bakau shad lure and my first was was met with a tap on the lure, however there was no hook-up.

an hour had passed and still no prawns were caught in Chen's trap. casting also yielded nothing even after several types of lures were used. after loosing my bakau shad, i decided to switch to 7 eyes lures aka appollo. within no time i had landed a 6" tarpon. i asked Chen to switch to 7 eyes also but he kept on using hard bodied lures. soon i was landing tarpon after tarpon. eventually chen got tired of taking the photos, but i counted the number of tarpon landed at 8. they varied in sizes... from as small as 4" to 8". not bad for a couple of hour's haul.

when the tarpon's bite tapered off, we decided to move to the barrage. over there, Chen was able to catch some live shrimp with his shrimp trap. i used one of the shrimp and tried bottom fishing. while waiting for the fish to bite, we talked and i even had a chance to play some game on Chen's PSP. quite a nifty device, the PSP.

there was hardly any action when i decided to reel in my line to check if the bait was still there. when i pulled, i felt a weight at the end of the line. when i started to pump the rod, i felt a tug. fish ON. over at the barrage, when one gets a reaction like that, it usually means a marble goby is at the end of the line. when the fish broke surface, Chen and I were surprised that it was a grouper... a Grade "A" grouper!!! woohoo! this must be my lucky day. to get a Grade "A" grouper at the upstream of the barrage is simply unheard of... (at least to me).

About an hour passed, before we called it a day. The day was getting hotter and I had some errands to run.

Cruelty to animals?!?

a friend emailed me these pictures. he had seen someone selling these soft shell turtles at petanak market recently. i too have seen such senario along central road. i believe it is by the same seller. anyways... soft shell turtles are considered a delicacy however, i am not sure if it is a protected species of wildlife. my point of putting this up on my blog is... can't the seller find a better way to sell these animals, instead of dangling them alive, by their shell by the roadside?

first blood, with a small gopeng

noel with an even smaller gopeng

picture perfect sunset

one of the only 2 angkay that night

the cuttlefish that was caught by chen

me and my leopard ray

last weekend, i went fishing with john, chen and noel. hashim, our regular boatman at sematan had called john telling him that some other anglers have cancelled their bookings. since we had out trip cancelled on april 19th, we all agreed to take up the hashim's empty boat.

upon reaching sematan, hashim's dad aka obiwan told me that results have not been encouraging the night before, however, we were determined to go out nonetheless.

around 4.30pm we set off to our first location. 45 minutes later, we reached the area. using prawns brought from the market, i managed to draw first blood with a small gopeng. then it was noel's turn.

the bites were far and few in between, so we took the opportunity to enjoy the sunset. for the first time, i saw dolphins frolicking in the sea of sematan. terns were also flying abouts and on occasion doing nosedive into the ocean. i presume they were attacking the school of anchovies that were hovering just below the surface of the water. hashim said that ebeks were around also... but none of the ebeks took our bait.

night fall and we moved to many spots, guided by hashim, using his Garmin GPS and also fish finder. we moved to many many spots throughout the night as results were not encouraging. the sea was rolling and noel slept most of the trip. john slept about half the trip. chen and i only napped when we were on the move.

we did get some huge bites that night... but the end result were only rays. my rod caught 2 rays and so did chen's. the biggest ray was on my rod, a leopard ray of at least 4.5kg. the other were normal rays which were between the 1-2kg range. the best catch of the night was a 1kg MJ by hashim. other species caught were angcho, pekcho, angkay, gt and other coral species... but the size and quantity were almost 1 species 1 fish.

i attributed the results were due to unfavorable water conditions. fresh water from the river systems had flushed into the sea, making it less salty and full of debris.

anyway, what's fishing without the ups and downs. we shall be back again to sematan, in the near future.

p/s: sotong were aplenty that night... but the surprised catch was a 1kg+ cuttlefish by chen.

spontaneous Labour's Day muffin

mashed the banana

add the oil to the brown sugar

beat the eggs with the mixture

adding a little flour and the mashed banana to the mixture

add the rest of the flour, oats, mashed banana and raisins into the mixture. lastly add the vanilla essence

mix the ingredients until you get a consistent texture

fill the paper cup to 2/3 full

bake in oven at 220 degrees Celcius for 15 minutes

checking if the muffin is done

the recipe is enough to make more than a dozen medium size muffins

close-up of the muffin

yummy!?!

during the labour's day holiday recently, i had the inspiration to do some baking. actually, i had been thinking to do some baking about a week earlier and had already did some searching on the internet for some muffin recipes. in the end, i settled for the banana, raisins and oats muffin.

after morning breakfast on labour's day morning, me, vivienne, belinda (my sista) and my mom went to boulevard to do some groceries shopping. after that, we adjourned home to bake.

the following is the recipe for the banana, raisins and oats muffin.

1.5 cups of oats
1.5 cups of normal flour
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate soda
2 teaspoon of baking powder
0.5 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs
0.5 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essece
0.25 cup of milk
0.25 cup of corn or olive oil
2-3 large ripe bananas (to be mashed)
1 cup of raisins