KFC - Kelong Pontian

In all my years of kelong fishing, I had never heard of a kelong in the waters at Pontian. It was only by a chanced web browsing that I discovered the whiff of it's existance. Being the nosy Kelong explorer that I am, we decided to pay it a visit this Labour day.

A clean beach that was devoid of rubbish (rare find in Malaysia)

Getting there was easy, but finding where to board the boat to the Kelong wasn't. Equipped with our trusty navigational tools, we found our way to a possible boarding area. The beach looked clean but it wasn't the correct place. Only after some calls to our contact, we finally managed to find ourselves at the right places.

Gangster lizard says cannot pass!

When we arrived there and was walking to the Jetty, a humongous monitor lizard came slithering out of the bushes and blocked our way down the stairs. Luckily, he was heading for another kelong and went off shortly. Otherwise, our this recce trip would need to be postponed to another "lizardless" day.

The ride was a short 10 minutes ride and we soon were in view of the Kelong. From the distance, it was way beyond my expectation. I had thought it would be smallish and dirty old kelong. But boy, I was wrong. In fact, it looked on par with the ones at Sibu in terms of size and facilities.

Kelong flyer (guarantee won't jam)

Lots of green to the brown and blue here

We settled under a shelter that was thoughtfully placed around the kelong. The kelong had a longish extension further into the sea, and the area for fishing was abundant. We started fishing and found that the fishing here was not that easy. Most of the bait fishes that we got occasionally were rather smallish and not suitable for use as bait. However on the surface of the water, there plentiful of fishes which were at first thought were todaks. However, we confirmed them to be half beaks. Seemed like this was a half beak paradise.

Sip your tea and enjoy the island view

At the far end of the extension, one could see Palau Pisang. Something tells me that there would be plenty of monkey business on the island. The kelong was still undergoing upgrading works. It looked to be better and bigger in the future.

Float rig

ZW first half beak

Anchrovies on Jig

Beautiful half beaks (with a pinkish tint)

Lots of these which got irritating after a while

Tiny todaks here

Selar Papan

The half beaks could be gotten on tambans jigs, as well as throwing out a float with a small hook baited with some fish meat. There were some todaks too, but small ones. As they mix in with the half beaks, they all looked alike.

My lure got chomped into two by huge monster (aka, the kelong plank...hehe)

ZW tyring out the lasso rig

I think plenty of these here

The fishing was generally slow and no one was getting big catches or anything. Gelamas were evidently around when we saw some people fishing for them with sarong worms.

The happy boy with his surprised catch

Around 4+pm just as the tide was coming up, the fishing got a little better. Our neighbour had a seemingly stucked line. They did some "guitar twanging" with the lines and managed to loosen it. As the guy was reeling in, out came a decent sized grouper. First sign that this place could yield some surprises after all.

this guy is cool and frequent visitor to Ah Fatt

Good table size Kurau

Next, our malay neighbour saw his rod twitching and went on to engage the fish. Without much commotion or anything, he reeled up a Kg+ kurau. We were like "wow!". His rod was rather heavy and there wasn't much fight at all.

Another tick for fishes caught for him

Size 8 Kurau

My rod got some disturbances but alas, I couldn't connect with anything. However, ZW got lucky and he too pulled up a fair sized Kurau. Another first for him at this kelong, along with his catches of half beaks.

This view very much like the one in Labrador Park

Kelong in the Sunset

Another Singapore car behind mine!

We left the place around 6+ just as the sun was going down. While waiting for the boat, we had a friendly chat with a group of girls (family) who incidentally were from Singapore. Quite an unusual sight to see Singaporeans here, and a all woman fishing group somemore.

Fishing in the Kelong was generally slow but showed promises of some big catches if one is patient enough. Not a bad recce and another addition to our long list of future kelong visits.

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