Rakit PL - Queenie attack

This week, Eric was keen to try out the Rakit and so off we go again to visit what that had come to be my regular haunt. We reached the Rakit about 9am, with the tide turning to come up in a few hours.

The morning started well with nice cool weather. The water seemed alright to me and I was habouring high hopes of a fruitful catch. But we soon learnt that the fishing was quite tough with hardly any catches from jigging. The tambans were simply nowhere to be found. Eric got lucky and caught the one and only tamban for the trip.

Unlikely star of the day


Kal-Kar-ying


Waiting for the bell


Good rod bending fight


A Duri


But one thing that was plentiful, was the humble glassfish. Seeing that we hardly got any live bait, Eric experimented with sending out a glassfish drifting in the water. He was fishing at a certain spot with a certain chair, and that was the lucky spot for the day. His bell on the the rod kept ringing and the first catch of a Duri that put up a good fight came on board. Duri was caught on dead prawn meat.

A group doing boat fishing (rentable from the rakit)


This is better than the playground swing


Kitty enjoying a glass fish meal


Fishing for food for Kitty


The children had fun playing happy family with the resident baby cat. They took turns caring for it and fishing for fishes for it to eat. :)

Sweet success! Second Kurau for Eric, which almost dropped back into the sea


Close up




Though Duri wasn't particularly a good one, it was a good prelude to better things to come. Eric's lucky spot soon had the bell ringing again. The fish put up a very good fight and when it surfaced, we thought it another Duri. But on closer inspection, it turned up to be the prizest catch of a Threadfin! A Threadfin at the Rakit was the least expected fish as I had never seen anyone catching it so far. So it was a beaming Eric with the Threadfin snapping pictures all the way to the icebox.

I wasn't doing that well and the only actions that I had was some takes by todaks disturbing my live prawns. But my hooks were too large and they would throw out the hook very quickly.

Todaks kept us entertained


Eric's long awaited Queen fish! Pretty big too




Eric's lucky spot did the magic again, and he was soon the proud owner of another first, a Queen for him! This trip, it was certainly a record breaking one. At the end of the day, he was to have two Queenies under his belt, a Duri, a Kurau(Threadfin), along with some four or five todaks.

D "picked" up this juvenile Cobia from somewhere. We released it :P


Desperate for glass fish bait. Fishing from the hole


Era fishing for glass fish (our supplier)


Holy smoke. Another queen for Eric


Finally! A queen for me too


Happy family


My second queen! :))


I did a hook change to a smaller one, and did manage to catch my first todak for the year, after a long dry spell of going todakless. I also was quite happy when a Queen, similar to Eric's, went for our glassfishy bait dinner. It was a great discovery that the what we used to think of as pest glassfish turned out to be such an effective bait. At the end of the trip, I had another lucky catch of a Queen that fiestily took my tamban jig when it was almost at the surface.

So it did turn out a be a fruitful trip indeed, despite the poor catches of baitfish. We now would never look at the glass fish as a nuisance. It really did save what might had been a fishless day.

Rakit PL - Salleh

The infamous jam


I had been running to the Rakit frequently these days. Part reason was that it is cheap and promising, and usually not so crowded. Another part reason was bringing some of my fishing friends there. Today, Andrew popped over to JB for some car servicing. Jeck Meng tagged along to look see, and was planning to head for Belumut later in the afternoon.

Hey, there is a kiddy ride in the workshop


Familiar hilly road


Servicing was done and over rather quickly. We joined up with TC and wifey and off we headed for the rakit around 1pm. Since wifey was coming along, we decided on the better creature comfort rakit. So it was back to Salleh's rakit for some short fishing fun.

Checking out the other Salleh's Rakit. Nope, not so comfortable


How to get to Belumut?


We asked the boat"boy" to bring us to the other Salleh's rakit for a looksee. But it wasn't so nicely constructed and we gave it a miss. We were told that that was the original rakit. The one that we went to, was the newly renovated one.

My first Queen!


How big it was


Jessie's fish


This fish so heavy. (Cencaru)


Reaching there, while I was still busy setting up, TC got very lucky and landed a small queenie on the first cast. I was like jaw dropping and couldn't believe my eyes. Thereafter, everyone excitement was pushed up one notch. Jessie (TC wifey) also wanted to fish, and she did catch some goodies along the way. D too got a Cencaru. They are good fighters.

My biggest fish!


Close up


Jeck Meng also managed to get the first fish since dunno when. It was a good size Assam fish. (But, they dont fight) So it was rounds of picture for good memory, and to show off to you know who. Shortly after that, he got bored with the silly activity of holding a rod and waiting and decide to run off into the great unknown, in search of Belumut mountain. At time of writing, I do not know if he is alive or not.

The fishing kind of tapered off gradually and we did not see the good catches that was at the beginning. Must be due to the changing tide, and water current was slow. I threw out a float and did have some fun with todaks. But lately, I had been quite unsuccessful in getting them. They always managed to throw out the hook by the time I was in position. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to use circle hook for them. But hack, I wasn't even targetting todaks and was hoping for a sailfish. However surface fishes seemed to be only them pesky sharp nose.

This is mine! Meeow!


Don't come any closer


Got any wasabi?


There was an interesting incident when I just landed an Assam fish (mistakenly thot to be giant tambans :P). The resident fat furry cat pounced on the flapping fish to my utter surprise and took off with it while the fish was still hooked to my lines. I was dead worried that the cat would swallow the hooks and tried to pull the fish away. But cat was adamant and wouldn't let go of it's dinner. Luckily, my tamban hooks tore from the fish mouth and managed to leave cat with fish intact. Cat then took fish to one corner to feast on it.

Rain also can fish


Expanding


Clever use for weights


My new friend


The rain clouds came over and it poured suddenly, and rather heavily. Luckily, the rakit was well equipped and had covers to roll down from the shelter. So, we were kept pretty dry. Some fishing was possible at the internal well. But nothing was biting.

Andrew had to leave early and we needed to cut short the fishing session. Nevertheless, it was a good outing. I am thinking to do an overniter in the near future. Should be fun.