Charles & Kat Fishing (27 July 2008)

biggest toman to date by charles

proud owner of a fiesty toman

great job charles

kat's catch close-up. ain't she a beauty

kat's catch

another of charles's catch close-up

nice toman

Received this email from Charles recently. Thought I'd publish it here.

Am hoping to land a 10 KG over Toman in a few years time... :)
Went fishing with Kat recently. Kat haven't fish for ages and she did very well after a long break. Enjoy the photos.

Went fishing this morning with one of my friend at a private lake (similar to Batu Kawa pond in Kch) except it's infested with toman. Average size is more than 1 KG and the biggest I heard is 7 KG!!! Saw a lot of toman action (toman frenzy + toman whacking small fishes = one excited and curious angler). Started casting Kat's pink colour soft pencil and about 10 - 15 mins of casting, one of the toman whacked the lure but missed. The impact of the whack tramautized me for a minute. Decided to continue using the pink colour and after 20 mins of nothing, changed to fire tiger soft pencil and started casting. About 20 minutes into casting, my lure got whacked. The fight with the toman was intense. Imagine the haruan you caught at Batu Kawa on steroid and red bull doing a 100 meter sprint towards the other direction. Towards the end of the fight, i lost the fish due to line slack and not setting the hook properly. After that, i decided to try jig + patiently casting = 1.2KG - 1.3KG toman. This time, the fight was hard and strong compared to my first toman. Landed the fish safetly and took 3 photos with it. My friend's friend had a pocket weight so decided to weigh the toman and it's at 1.2 KG to 1.3 KG due to the toman moving around. Not long after that, one of the security guard ask us not to fish there coz it's a private lake. So we packed our stuff and decided to call it a day. The moral to the story is, you should try fishing for toman. They put up a good fight and i'm talking about toman around 2 to 3 KG. Anything more than 10 KG you need a rod that's big enough to whack someone on the head with. Will be starting classes next month and I don't think i'll be fishing for another 4 months. My next fishing will be around Dec or Jan. Enjoy the photos and until then, see you around.... Hope you enjoy the dvd!!!!

Sematan Fishing (26th July 2008)

On 26 July 2008, I fishing at Sematan. John had extended an invitation, asking me if I wanted to join him, and I said yes. He would have gone by himself if I could not make it, but I decided to go mainly because I haven't been fishing in a while and my blog seriously need some fishing entries being that it is a fishing blog.

Anyway, our journey started later than usual. We departed for Sematan around 5pm. We reached Sematan around 6.15pm. We boarded the boat by 6.45pm, but could not leave until it was 7pm because of the low tide. Almost 1 hour journey and we reached our first fishing spot. It was there that I caught 3 small angcho aka snapper aka tanda in succession. I thought to myself, this would be a good trip. I was at the back of the boat the whole time, so when I didn't hear to much commotion coming from the front, I looked to the front and saw John lying on the deck. There were some uneven waves which malay calls alun hitting the boat. I did feel a bit dizzy, but I kept myself busy by re-baiting my hooks. Then the anchor of the boat became loose and by the time Hashim moved back to the fishing spot, there were no more bites registered.

By that time, the waves aka alun was getting stronger by 10pm, I was floored too. Thus, left Hashim and the anchor man fishing. I woke up from time to time due to lightning and thunder. Around midnite, Hashim decided to head for a river nearby. My guess was a storm was closing in. When we arrived at the river, there were some 6-7 boats already parked. Then a few more boats joined us. Then it started to rain and we all tried to sleep.

It was 2.30am when one of the boat started its engine to go out once again. Hashim followed suit but when we got out to open sea, the waves were still there. Me and John continue to sleep, whereas Hashim and the anchorman fished. Try as Hashim may, there were little to show the next morning, save for a 3 small kerapu aka grouper, 2 small snappers and 2 small nurse shark and John had zero catch.

It was my worst trip ever from Sematan. However, I accept the fact that fishing has been unpredictable lately, especially in Sematan. I have one more Sematan trip coming up end of August. Hopefully, it will be a much better trip.

No pictures were taken during this trip as none of us took our camera. Besides, there was nothing much to take pictures off anyway.

St Thomas School 160th Anniversary & Class of 1988 Reunion

We even bumped into Nasha Aziz

on the 19th of July 2008, St. Thomas's School celebrated it's 160th anniversary. in conjunction with the historical event, there were special programs being organised. among them were St. Thomas's School open day and also the Old Thomian Dinner.

one dedicated Thomian, Alex Lim (my school mate), took the opportunity to organised a mini reunion of sorts for the class of 1988. i applaud Alex for being so hard working in gathering everyone to meet each other again. many of us have not seen each other for 20 odd (or is that even) years. i for one am not a big fan of gatherings, thus i actually opted not to go, until i was threatened by another buddy, Bernard Yii. he said, if you don't go for the dinner gathering, i will delete you from my phone list. Bernard being a taiko of sorts, i succumbed to his threat.

but actually, the reason i went was because many of buddies, including Bernard had flown back to Kuching just for this event, so in many ways, i felt ashamed. Others that flown back just for this event were Abdul Halim, Colin Patrick. Others drove for hours to attended the event. Buddies like Stanley Stewart, Milton Ng, Nixon Idal and Vincent Mambu.

all in all, the class of 1988 gathering was fun and fruitful. emails and contacts were passed around that night and thus, there is no reason why we won't be able to keep in touch in the future. there were talks of another gathering in 5 years time. i sure am looking forward to that day.

Charles's Catch

these snakeheads may be small, but they got guts!

charles must have stumbled upon a school of juvenile tomans

toman siblings caught

according to charles, this fella was the biggest caught that day. almost 1kg

definitely more than 1ft long

recently i received a sms from my friend, Charles. he asked me if i been fishing lately. "No." was my reply. he on the other hand had been fishing and with his permission, i would like to share those pictures with you. good job charles and thank you.

what's next?

the present from Henry

first and foremost, to my regular blog readers, i apologize for not updating my blog often enough. june had come and gone and i had only fished twice. the 2nd time, i did not bring my camera with me thus i was unable to capture the moment i caught a healthy 800g snakehead at a place that i had not visited for a couple of months.

25th may, i received a great news. arrived home and saw a few letters in the post box. one of the letter had my written on it. a familiar logo was on the envelope. it was my exams result. a few months back, i had sat for my professional interview exam with the institute of engineers, malaysia. i had been waiting for the results for what seemed like ages and now, the result was in my hand. so, without much ado, i opened the enveloped, with much anticipation.

(drum roll please)... and the result was that i had passed my iem exams.

i shared my joy with those closest to me and in turned they congratulated me. i thank you all for the congratulatory messages.

the following day, at the office, my colleague Henry presented me with a gift. it was a bottle of wine. thanx Henry. i hope you get your Ar soon.