KFC - Tiram Fishing Resort

Since the last positive trip to Rakit Atan, a trip was planned for 31st Jan to do a group visit here. After some planning, the turnout was quite good and on that day, 3 other cars joined mine, making a total of 4 cars to meet at my block downstairs, starting off for a trip to Rakit Atan aka Tiram Fishing resort. For this trip, I would be meeting Patrick and Marcus for the first time, who were new to the group. XN & family came too as well as Roy, all who were new to this fishing thing. ZW entire family also came along too for this trip.

The checkpoint was a breeze that day and we cleared the checkpoint with ease. But the 4 cars convoy fell apart just coming through the checkpoint and Marcus's car went missing and didn't turn up at the designated meetup area. After some frantic calls, we located Marcus at the nearby stadium a short distance away from the shell station. I wasn't too sure where the stadium was, but was lucky to have found the place fairly easy. After picking them up, we set out on our way to Masai to have our breakfast there.

We had to wade on the beach to get up the boat

When the boat sped up, the ride was thrilling

Breakfast was a rowdy affair as we were a fairly big group,which made for a confusing order of pratas with and without eggs. But we filled our stomachs and were ready for the day of fishing. We were soon at the fishing village for the boat ride across. For some reason, the place was rather crowded with lots of cars. Being a big group, the rakit sent a big boat that was able to fit all of us. The boat was a powerful one, and the children all enjoyed the ride immensely.

Innovative DIY floats

Whee!

Feeding fishes

Reaching there, the children all began to have fun at the hammocks, which I noticed to be an instant attraction to all new visitors here. Certainly, it was a perfect setup for a lazy timeout here.

First tiny Queenie

Those who were here for fishing immediately setup their gears. Given that the tide would be low, I setup a bottom rig for targeting Gelamas. However, there was totally no bites at all from the bottom. In fact for the entire trip, no Gelamas were caught at all, much to my surprise. I next changed to a sabiki and went about the rakit looking where the fishes might be hiding. I needed to break the egg to show the newbies how to go about getting their first fish. With some luck, I managed to get a little tiny queenie on the jigs, much to the delights of the children.

Warm up catches by Roy

My Papa caught one. He very clever

ZW went on to try out to see if mr todaks were around. Within half an hour, he brought in a small specimen establishing their presence in the water. Seeing the fairly good hit rate, I encouraged all the newbies to try their hands at todak fishing. XN and Roy managed to get some bites but were unsuccessful in connecting them. That continued for the morning, with all the todaks getting away with our free meals. However, the todaks did keep the newbies interested in fishing and the morning saw them trying and trying.

I was speechless. The Kurau was caught using Tamban Jig with live glass fish

Patrick caught the todak with his bare hands

His girl was afraid of getting close to mr sharp teeth

Patrick was first to hit a good fish of a Kurau that was of a good size. I was startled and impressed that he and his family did seem to know how to fish. :). He was also skilled at todak fishing and soon got one for the family album.

Yay! Todak fishing is SO fun!

This is for assam curry fish head tomorrow

Wah..so big

Even the children knew to put their foot to take fish pictures! hehe

Mrs Zhao aka Emmy also tried her hands at todak fishing and was grinning ear to ear when one was caught on her own. Now she knew why Mr Zhao loves to fish todak and was always bringing it back for dinner. :O. To her extra credit, she also brought back a new fish this time, an Assam fish. I myself only caught it 3x in my life. No mean feat :)

I also know how to fish

Step 1: First, pick the fish you like

Step 2: And then, catch it

The children all had their own fun of fishing as well and managed to catch some small fishes which was already very exciting for them.

Whole morning of trying and finally!

Family with todak photo

Wah, this is harder than programming

No no..easy as restarting server

Seeing the situation, I changed tactics and asked them to change the hook size to a smaller one. I wasn't too sure about it but when XN finally managed to get his first todak, that was confirmed to be the reason why mr todaks were all getting away. After that, Roy too broke his todak-less history and hauled up a decent specimen for some photo taking. At the end of the day, XN was to score 2 todaks, and Roy surpassed it with 3, ending with the largest todak of his life ever.

Strange looking prawn (Mantis prawn)

Yahoo! My first Tenggiri on lure

Now, I love crystal minnow

I gave power to my Papa one

ZW and I did some luring. I noticed Patrick was also luring but he was away from us in another corner and I wasn't sure how he was doing. But ZW and I did manage to get some bites, although it was far and in between. We took the opportunity to be test out our less frequently used lures. I was just teasing him that he was so lucky not to have even lost one lure after so long when he tossed out his newly acquired x-rap and the braided line broke and lure went flying into Sg Layang forever. Must be my unlucky mouth :P.

ZW got lucky and his red head crystal minnow got a hit and I saw the line going deep. That was a good sign as it certainly wasn't another todak. When the fish surfaced, it was a tenggiri. Seemed that Tengirris are fairly common here and they were a joy to be gotten on lure.

Their 2nd todaks

To wrap it up, the champion of them all. Don't play play

Children playing fish. *poor fishes*

Ok. Wash your hands, then we go play fish doctor

Setting up the timer for the camera

Group pic of the trip

Marcus was doing his own thing and I didn't quite check on him as he was already a seasoned angler having been to some boat trips and sibu kelongs and all. I realized that I had kind of forgotten about him when I realized that I didn't even have a good photo shot of him at the Rakit. Sorry Marcus :P On the way back, we huddled for a group photo luckily and managed to have a small pic of his face. :))

I checked the icebox and found LIVE fishes swimming in the plastic container

The culprit who was trying to "smuggle" live fishes back to Singapore

Another exciting boat ride

Driven by this little boy!

We fished till about 5pm and started packing to return to the mainland for dinner and shopping. To our shock, the boat ferrying us was to be driven by a small 10-12 yrs old boy. But he handled the craft deftly and we landed safely back at the jetty to return to our cars.

Can we stay here overnite?

Wah, lots of cars

Food at Bukit Indah

And toilet breaks!

From there, I led the group to the newly opened Jusco at Bukit Indah. Dinner was a simple meal at the foodcourt and then to some shopping. On the way out, we lost Roy whose car automatically headed for Sg Petani, where his in-laws were. After some worried wait, Roy managed to relocate us and regroup. We headed then to the final SHELL station for refueling before parting ways and going back via 2nd link. The way was entirely smooth was no jam whatsoever.

Certainly a "fruitful" fishing trip with almost everyone getting a fish or two. I noticed that the rakit had mostly smaller specimens being at the tip of the river system. But it was fairly consistent in terms of the chances of getting some fishes, although there were hardly any tambans here. Not a bad trip and I did think that all enjoyed it one way or the other. The children certainly had lots of fun playing fish today.

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