ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

slightly more than 2 months before 2008. seas are rough, so sematan trips are for me are practically over. the weather is also unpredictable so, fishing would be considerably be less in the coming months. thus, there is a high chance i will be blogging on other things besides fishing.

kpg chupak - sg serin

scarecrow... sarawak style

common barb

pipi merah. they sure like live shrimp

another pipi merah. this fish is suitable to be kept in aquarium because of their vibrant color

ikan batuk aka ikan puyu. it is understood that keeping one in the house would ward off evil spell

sg serin. due to overnight rain, the water condition was slightly unfavorable

fishing from the bridge. now that i think of it, it was very foolish idea, with vehicles zooming by every now an then

on 20th october 2007, chen and i decided to pay a visit to kpg chupak again. chen had gone there a couple of weeks earlier and reported that he saw some fish which he taught were sebaraus.

well, the following were our catch. nothing to shout about but still fun to be in the outdoors nonetheless.

are these fishes, the same species?

caught these fishes from the same pond. was told that they are of the same species, aka chow hu, grass carp or scientifically know as ctenopharyngodon idella.

however, by my observation, the fish looks very different, especially the coloration. someone mind shedding some light on this matter? thank you.

by the way, points update...

91.25 + 10 = 101.25
________________________________

estimated weight of the grass carp i caught is 5kg.

thus,
5 x 2 x 1 = 10

watching astro with that???

proud owner of a 1kg+ aron, noel's FIL

lucky evening. seems like u got some ink on ur face uncle!!!

overall catch. among them yu bodoh, angkay, angcho, pisang, kerapu, sea kbl and kacang

one final pose before the big feast

recently, one of my fishing buddy, noel went fishing to sematan with his father-in-law. he shared his catch photos with me, with his permission, i am sharing the photos with the viewers of this blog.

the ITCH!!!

the grass carp safely in the net!!! look at the bend on the net ring, it was pretty heavy

the length of the grass carp as compare to my adidas shoe which measures 30cm

the POND!!!

zero action on my float. :-(

the pond is really weedy. was planning to use some surface lures but i changed my mind

all anglers would identify with me when i say “THE ITCH”. it is basically the primal urge to go fishing. TO WET THE LINE.

anyway, over the weekend, i had that URGE. i tried to resist the temptation on Saturday but came Sunday, i couldn’t help myself anymore. by 7.30am, i was already awake, unassisted by my alarm, and by 8.15am, i was ready for some action. it was either fishing at ah kiong’s or at the bako coastway. i chose the former mainly because it was closer and also it was safer.

safer in a way because i would be fishing alone as my regular fishing buddies were unavailable. john was away on business and noel & chen were at sematan, paying a visit to the arons, which will remain as another story.

around 8.40am, i arrived at ah kiong to find him just getting up from bed. after a brief chat with him and also getting his permission, i headed to the pond, prepared all my rig and started fishing. second thing i did was to catch some bait. a couple of scoops near the weedy bank resulted in a few live shrimp to be used as bait for float fishing. after rigging the float tackle, i cast it to a fishy looking spot and proceeded with lure casting using my trusty Berkley blade dancer.

some time passed without any action. then kiong came with a couple of pieces of. With one piece of the bread, he berley the surrounding area. my float rig and my BBD were still fishless after half an hour. however, huge grass carps could be seen cruising around the bread berley area and munching on them, as if i was invinsible to them.

feeling GERAM, i rigged a bread bait and offered to the unwary grass carp. one big fella took the bait almost immediately. i waited for a few seconds before I gave a good strike with my rod. it was then that all hell broke loose. my Shimano Slade 2500 sang the sweetest tune to any angler’s ear, “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!!!”. and my Ryobi Silver Stik rod bent double. thankfully, i had adjusted the drag of my Slade. the fish fought dirty and swam into the weeds. i risk breaking my 12lb mono, if i chose to play tug of war with the big fella., but it was a chance i had to take. luckily, kiong was around and he helped me clear most of the weeds and when the tired fish was close to the bank, he also help netted it.

yahoo!!! it was a good catch indeed. by my estimate, the grass carp was at least 5kg in weight and it was 3ft long. after taking a couple of pictures with the grass carp, it was released safely back into the pond. later, it could be seen cruising around in the centre of the pond. i could easily identify the fella because it has a slightly darker color as compared to the other grass carps in the pond.

after that, all was quiet. the fishes must have been spooked. no matter what i tried, it didn’t work. actually, i had another take on one of my float rig, but i lost the fish because i struck too early. around 12 noon, i decided to call it a day. to Kiong’s pond inhabitants, “I’ll be back!!!”

crocodile sighting!!!

7.30am: resident croc (RC) can be seen sunbathing at the right side river bank

RC eyeballing myself and theflyingdutchman

RC decided to move off to the middle part of the river

RC with it's head, body and tail surfacing. is it a sign of intimidation?

squatter residents are either oblivious to the presence of RC or are they fed up to see RC already?

went fishing at the bako coastway earlier today with theflyingducthman (an angler that came out of retirement). brought 2 setups, i.e. bottom fishing setup and casting setup. also brought along my dad's kodak dx7590 digital camera (with 10x zoom)... hoping to capture my catch if any. at the back of my mind, i knew of a resident croc that has been around the area and was hoping to immortalize the fella in digital format.

upon reaching the spot, i went to scan the horizon for the bugger. then my eye caught a glimpse of something on the far right river bank, which water was receding fast due to low tide. as the sun was not really up yet, i had to settle for a guess that the "log" i spotted was the resident croc. i took a few snaps of photograph nonetheless. we moved to the fishing spot. rigged our gear and waited. as the water recede and the sun rose, it became clear that it was indeed the resident croc, having a sunbath. it was about 50m or so away, so theflyingdutchman and myself weren't that worried, so we continued to fish away.

an hour into fishing, the resident croc decided to wakeup. it slid slowly into the water and started swimming at our directions. we were on our toes by then. it then decided to keep a distance of approximately 30m and stated swimming parallel to the shore that we were standing at. it just kept it's head up and eyeballed us for a few minutes before swimming further to the middle of the river. soon it was hovering in the middle of the river but this time, it's head, body and tail broke surface as well. i didn't know what it was up to? maybe it was trying to show aggression, maybe it was sunbathing i will never know.

now that the resident croc moved further away from us but nearer to a squatters settlement. we continued to fish but we never took our eyes of the fella. then suddenly it dived into the murky depths. just as that happened, we could see much further away... maybe 200m away, 4 people from the squatters were walking/swimming in chest high water to their boat, anchored far from shore so as not to get stuck during low tide. i must have mumbled something like "those people got balls ooo!!!"

anyway, after that a few more anglers came to fish around the area. there were hardly any action beside the sole eel that i caught. we decided to call it a day at around 10am.

mangrooveDan vs 1.2kg parrotfish

during the last sematan fishing trip, john managed to take a short video while i was busy fighting a parrotfish. i have since obtained the video from john and upload it onto youtube.com for all to watch...



or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfXg302dPbI