KFC - 18 Pounder Mama Toman

Early this morning, ZW and I woke up during the wee hours to do some lure fishing at the reservoir. This is the golden hour that fishes tend to feed. So depriving ourselves from our warm beds, we gathered our fishing barangs and off we went.

Reaching the ground, it was not yet light as we setup up our rods in the dark. But the day break came around 6.40am and soon we could see fish activities all over. ZW was on his favourite Avis 3 hook lure, and I was using my pink K-ten. After casting for about 20 mins, I got the first hit of a small but fiesty toman that put up one hell of a splashy fight. I released it and went back to luring.

ZW was not hitting anything this time perhaps due to his darker colored lure. Previously, it was able to get quite a number of hits successfully. But this morning, the color perhaps wasn't that conducive for the current lighting.

I went back to casting and in another 15 mins, I got an electrifying take. The thing that got my lure set off with it with the lines peeling off my reel efforlessly on my right. That went on for about 30 secs, till I got worried about running out of lines. But the fish stopped after a while and I managed to start to able to nudge it slowly back to my side. There was some see-sawing of me getting the lines back and then it took off again pulling out what I put back. But eventually, I sensed the fish tiring out and I was able to get the upper hand. I was pretty careful as I was just on a 10lb line on my 8-15lb blackrose. The lure was set pretty well and the fish wasn't able to shake it off.

I was struggling to hold it

From the feel, it was definitely a big one. I quickly called for ZW to get the boga in my back. As I pulled the fish near to the banks, it finally surfaced and did a couple more thrashes. ZW and I were shocked at the size and the broadnest of it's mouth. For a moment, we both thought it was a cat fish. But as soon as we got it on the banks, we could see from the whitish side that it was a mummy toman.

It gulped the whole lure into its mouth

Final pose to show the full extent of the body before releasing it

The fish was exhausted and didn't put up any fight when we were holding it for photos and all. I couldn't hold it properly from the sheer weight and the slippery body. Carefully, I plied open the lure from it's powerful jaws. Good thing I had my boga with me, else it would have been tough to handle it. We then released it back to the water. For a while, it was topsy turvey, but it soon recovered and righted itself and quickly swam away.

My lure after that couldn't swim well anymore. When I examined it at home, I discovered that the toman had punctured it with it's teeth and that water was seeping into the lure internal. No wonder it wasn't able to swim properly after that. Testament to how powerful a bite from a toman is. With this catch, I have set a new record for myself. A day to remember and quite worth the lack of sleep with results like this. :)

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