It had been a while since my last trip to JB lately due to A having lessons on Sat, and D having swimming classes on Sun. But today, A didn't have any classes, and it looked good to run into JB in the morning. Actually, I didn't have any plans, and was driving around aimlessly after crossing the checkpoint at 6am. Seeing that I had not visited the Rakit for a long time already, we decided to head over there for some morning fishing. D could do some revision there as it was usually quite clean and quiet in the day.
Not surprisingly, we were one of the two groups there that morning. The earlier group left shortly, probably one of the overniters. The tide was at the lowest around 7.30am, and the timing was just right for us to wait for the upcoming tide.
Low tech fishing
Caught on my 20lb handline with live prawn
Yeah, my second Kurau for the year
The fishing was quite dismal, as nothing was biting. I was throwing out live prawns but nothing quite touched it until the todaks arrived around 11am. Seeing the poor fishing, I used my leaders to do some handlining as well. That got me some luck, and I managed to pull up a small Kurau on handline. There was 0 fight as I didn't even know that the Kurau was caught until I pull up the line to check. As for the rods, it was totally quiet. A todak struck on the prawns on my handline that I floated out on the surface. But it was impossible to get todaks on handline as they would release immediately upon feeling any resistence.
I did some luring, but it only got the attention of the todaks. But they would chase it for a short distance and turned away upon seeing me. Very cautious fellows they are. I was hoping to have a first with todak on lure, but that still seemed to elude me so far. It really is not easy to fool them with their keen eyesight.
Dragonflies like to rest on tips of fishing rods. Dunno why
It had been a long long while since I had gone in Malaysia for anything, not to mention fishing. But there was a sudden window of opportunity this labour day, and it was timely for some rest and relaxation.
Jess and Shawn had asked me a few times to go Rakit, since Shawn's sudden craze for fishing. Fortunately, everyone seemed to be free that day. So some quick coordination, and off we went for the Rakit.
We met at the usual Danga and after a hearty breakfast, left for Rakit around 8am. Shawn brought along a friend, Alvin, who just started out fishing as well. This hobby is indeed contagious. :).
Hole that Jess's car got stuck on
We had to park here
Reaching there, we were shocked to find the entire parking grounds, jammed packed with cars. We made the mistake of driving down the undulating narrow and sloping sandy road full of potholes. Some other cars needed to get out, and the only way for us to allow that was to reverse our 2 cars back up the difficult terrain. Jess ran into some problems when her wheels got stuck in one of the many potholes. Some folks came over to help push the car to enable it to come unstuck. I too had to manoveur the car carefully to avoid doing the same mistake. It was certainly an advanced driving challenge. We finally managed to come out of the messy spot and decided to just park along the main road.
Jess draw first blood
This fellow was a good fisherman too
Too much flying can be tiring. Need a rest here
Is this a prawn or a lobster?
The rakit we were going to was the most comfortable one at Salleh. D was excited to be seeing her cats again. Reaching there, we setup and started fishing. From the water surface, we could see many glassfish, and we went on to collect them for baits.
Playful cat
That's the way to hold a cat
Alvin with his biggest catch
But other than glassfish, the fishing was very disappointing. No todaks, no tambans. But Alvin was having a good time, as even catching glass fish was something for a newbie. He got lucky and somehow managed to catch a Scat without using any bait.
My small tengirri
Shawn with his not easy to catch Selar
I did toss out some drifting rig with glassfish, with which we had such great success with Eric in some previous trip. But for this trip, it was totally useless. I did some bottom as well with glassfish, but it didn't help too. Desperate, I rigged up an apollo with small hooks and used prawn meat. Even that wasn't too effective. The best I did was to score a smaller Scat, and then a tiny tenggiri. Shawn was doing rather well with some good catches of Selar and Mackerals. He certainly has a good fishing touch. The afternoon was burning hot, and we were all drained and sapped of our energy under the scorching sun.
Sudden commotion!
A child had fallen through this hole
He is alive and gurgling out water
Safe in mother's arms
Around 2pm, there was a sudden commotion. At the far end, there was suddenly a lot of shouting, and people running around. All curious, we walked over to see what it was all about. To our horrors, we found that a little boy (around 2) had fallen into the water under a small opening. The trouble is, once under water, the entire stretch was covered up by some structure, and it wasn't accessible. The mother was wailing and crying away, while some boys were frantically trying to find where the boy was drifting to under the strong current. Some of them jumped into the water to try to get hold of the boy. After some 1 or 2 minute, they finally found the boy and pulled him out of the water. He was clearly alive and conscious. Thank God that all turned out alright. The owner of the rakit was also visibly relieved that the boy was ok.
That certainly taught D a valuable lesson as she was always running around and being out of sight. One should learn to be careful with children around the water.
Original plan was to head for Rakit today with Jess as hubby wanted to get a rod and reel combo. RT said to come along with family. Coincidentally, TC also called me to do a return to Rakit. So, all the stars were aligned with the plan.
But came Sat, and I was the blur head that didn't set my alarm properly. I woke up at 6.50am, and saw a missed message from RT. Looking at my phone clock, I realized that I had overslept. There was no way that I could make it over before 7, so no choice and had to put a OPC coupon. Luckily for me, I had 1 left. Crossing the singapore custom at 7.20am, the police asked to look at my displayed coupon and made a thorough check. He was all eager to fine me $10k for not displaying OPC coupon. So this OPC coupon matter, don't play play.
I regrouped with the rest at Danga coffeeshop, just slightly further up from the usual meeting place at the food court. Not a bad place to gather, and it shall be our meeting point in future. There we met Elyn's mother and P2. This trip shall be the first to the Rakit for them.
The fishing kakis
Promising spot beside the jetty
Where are we going again?
This is fun! Wooo...
We reached the Rakit around 9+am and waited a while for the boat to settle the logistic of getting us over. P2 was all eager and excited to be taking his first boat ride. We headed for Reiza since the facilities were better, and more child safe, in our opinion.
First "big" fish of the day
Die todak die!
Wah, so heavy
Soon to be hero of the day
Since I no more rods, resort to handlining for bait fish
Wah, this fish bigger than my hand! Yay!
Father and son and fish
First hour of fishing, we quickly realized that this was yet another tambanless trip. Nothing we were catching with our feathered jigs. We sent out bottom rigs and from that, some action. I was first to break the egg with a surprise catch of a puffer. There were some small fishes on baited hooks. P2 got his first feel of a rod and line with a fish. However he didn't seemed to understand much about the thrill of fishing yet.
I tried out luring for a while, but nothing was biting. There were some todaks doing the usual follow closely but don't bite routine. Behind the Rakit, the water was full of bait fishes (glass fish mainly) and surface action. But nothing. I gave up and went back to park the rods. I finally caught a small todak. Lately, I had been finding them trickly to get at the Rakit. They would bite, and throw the hook most times.
Papa, your grouper very big hor!
P2 feet
RT broke my "biggest" fish catch of the day, when he hauled out a good size grouper from the inner well. That showed some promise for quite a not so good fishing day. And then it was my turn. I saw my bottom rod twitching and held it for a while. I felt some bites and decided to open the bail for whatever to take my prawn and run. And ran it did. Good thing that I had tighten the drag and when I closed the bail, fish was struck and hooked for good.
Got my "difficult" to catch todak
Alamak, stuck!
Can see the fish stucked on the rope 5 ft away
Operation "recover Kurau"
My biggest kurau (actually, only one)
This is my day!
What Mr Kurau did to my lines (apollo rig)
The fish fought quite well, although it wasn't big enough to spool my lines. But it ran under a rope on my left and I realized that I was running the risk of being snagged. In the commotion, I took a risk and tried to guide the fish under the rope. But instead it went too close the rope and made a few turns, snagging it for good. By then, it was already near the surface and we could see that it was a Kurau! I finally got my Kurau but I couldn't bring it up.
Curly hair Rakit indian man came to the rescue and offered to dive into the water to recover my prize catch. And luckily for him, Kurau landed on my feet, to a delighted me. I was a happy man and tipped him handsomely for taking the initiative to get my Kurau.
Thereafter, Andrew landed another grouper. An equally good sized one. He was getting to be the grouper man for the trip. TC was quite fishless until he managed a todak finally on his famous giant bomb weight. Wife Jessie was quite unable to get any fish since tambans and all their friends not around that day.
Beauty and the beast
What sharp teeth you have
Thank you heaven for this fish!
The tide came up around 12pm, and I saw quite a few big splashes in the water. Switching back to luring again, I took out my unused redhead crystal minnow and toss a few times. To my utter delight, I got a very fierce strike and fish was a good fighter. I spent a minute of two trying to guide the fish away from the ropes. At first I thot it a todak, but from the way it fought, not quite. It didn't do the signature acrobatic jump and mostly went deep. When it got near to the surface, it was a beautiful bullet shape fish. I then thot queenie, but when I lifted it out of the water, what landed on my deck was a thing of beauty, a Tengerri! WAhoo! I finally broke my tengerri-less fishing history. For that matter, as well as my Kurau-less fishing history. :))
One of TC few todaks
So finally, TC was now convinced that "fish do eat plastics". Thereafter, he took out his lure and started luring too. But less than five cast later, he gave up. Luring was hard work and he went back to his todak fishing. After my tengerri, I didn't get any more hits despite trying out most of the lures in my lure box.
The afternoon came and the current got quite strong. Fishing wasn't that good and all were mostly restless by then. We decided to pack around 4pm, and then made our way back to the city for some air conditioning cum shopping.
RT catches. It's grouper for dinner
When I grow up, I want to drive a boat!
This is long lining, said RT
Lots of things to think about after a hard day of fishing
When we returned, the custom was usually smooth at around 8.30pm. Might be due to the assessment period for schooling students.
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.
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