POLE-NET FISHING

This article was published in the August 2004 issue of Rod and Line Fishing Magazine.

Whenever I was free during the rainy seasons, I would be surveying around rivers and streams, on the lookout for sebaraus hunting for food. They would normally hang around lubuks, eddies or any place that offer them some shelters from the fast water current, to lie in wait for the unsuspecting small fishes.

During one of my rainy season forays, I came across a group of fishermen, lined up along the bank of the swollen Kinta River fishing with long poles. My curiosity was immediately aroused as I wondered how these people could do pole fishing in such swift current.

Here all the fishermen were lined up along the swollen Kinta River. The river to the left actually was part of the Kinta River that broke its bank nd flowed into a former mining pond.

That normally shallow river where one could wade during the dry season was almost like the Niagara River just before the Niagara Fall. The poles they were using were of 4 meters to five meters in length. The funny thing was all of them dipped the tips of the poles into the water. My! This was something new to me. Judging from the number of fish they had in their keep nets, their method was definitely successful.

How could any fish escape the nets when they were lifted up

Suddenly one of them lifted up his pole and only then did I realize that they were having nets attached to the ends of their poles. In the net was a lomar fish of very presentable size. Now, this was something I must learn, I told myself. Walking over and putting on the most presentable smile, I introduced myself. A few minutes of pleasant talking, I was examining their contraptions.

The loop reopened for the next victim. See how successful this method could be by the catch of Pak Cik in the background.

What an imaginative and innovative way to catch fish. Instead of hooks, lines and sinkers, a piece of flexible spring wire of about 4mm in diameter and up to 2 meters in length was tied to the tip of the pole. The other end of the wire was looped back to the wire and wound about five times round it so that it could slide along itself thus forming a loop of variable diameter. A net of 2 cm mesh was the strung across the loop.

4A: A diagram of the whole pole net contraption. 4B: The fish swimming furiously in the fast current hits the net and got itself entangled. 4C: When the pole was lifted up, the loop slid close and the fish was trapped in the net.

 

To use this device, the loop was lowered into the slower moving part of the fast flowing river. Whenever a fish (most fish moving up stream would travel through the part of the river with the slowest current) hit the net, it would get entangled in the mesh. When the net was lifted up, the loop 

This jelawat was caught in a pond fed by the Kinta River.

would close and the fish trapped in the net. After the fish was removed, the loop was reopened and then lowered back into the river for the next victim.

For this device to work the river must be swollen with rain water. Most of the fish caught that day were lomars as the water was muddy. Whenever the water was less turbid, lampams would constitute most of the catch, my new friends told me. Mind you, some can be as big as 1kg to 2 kg in size.

This net full of lampams were also caught here.

The following weekend, I made another trip to the same place. By now, the water level had subsided considerably. In the place of the pole fishermen, I found many anglers with the normal arsenals fishing. Using oil palm seeds, their catches now consisted of jelawats and lampams, Instead of fishing in the main Kinta River, they were fishing in the pond where the river broke its bank (hint, hint). Sigh! If only the stretch of the Kinta River flowing through Ipoh City can be that productive.

SATURDAY NIGHT PRAWN FEVER

This article was published in the July 2004 issue of Rod and Line Fishing Magazine.

While having our after fishing dinner at Chenderong one evening, I was distracted by a group of boisterous and noisy anglers walking in. From their behaviors and body languages, one need not be a psychologist to deduce that they had a successful fishing day. Suddenly, my eyes locked onto a tall dark handsome guy walking in. He was none other than my friend Seng Ha Lek.

One of my prawns caught on the first trip.

Putting on my most innocent look, I went over to inquire about their outing. Soon the lid of their icebox was opened showing scores of “lam kongs” (blue pincers). The level of the melting ice water began to rise with my dripping saliva. Telling myself to keep calm (must not show that you are too eager), I congratulated them on their good harvest.

Engaging my ‘bodeking’ gears into overdrive, I subtly began to ask for more information. After securing a promise from Ha Lek to take me prawning in the near future, I happily rejoined my group. Well, there was more dripping saliva, Ha Lek and his friends were served their steaming hot prawns.

The greatest insult to an angler was when you got to beg your kakis to accompany you to go prawning. That was what I faced when the day neared my prawning trip. As there was no more room in Ha Lek’s boat I had to bring my own.

Most of my regular fishing friends were either not interested in prawning or were not free. In the end, Foong, one of my regular prawning kaki took pity on me and agreed to go (bribed with fried koay teow). His favorite time to do prawning was at night, but my source was going in the daytime, hence the bribe.

This 'Tom Thumb' made me a laughing stock.

Tagging along closely to Ha Lek’s car we negotiated along a winding and pothole filled gravel road for what seemed like hours, before we stopped at a pond. Soon, we were slowly cruising out to a part of the pond where a small stream was flowing into it. As we were new to that place, we had to follow them closely. Quite similar to the remora and the shark. If you cannot imagine it in your mind.

The morning calm was suddenly broken by whoops of delight from the other boat. One by one they were seen struggling with tiny bent rods, with tip jerking up and down from the frantic prawns.

For those not into prawning yet, you can be forgiven for thinking that fishing for prawns with rod and line is like eating ‘tow foo far’. In actual fact, the opposite is true. One had to employ ‘tai chi’ or kungfu techniques to subdue the prawns.

I had to suffer mosquito bites, cold and sleepless night to catch prawns this size

Most of the time the prawns were hooked in their mouths. Sometimes they got entangled on their legs or the pincers too. Any hard pull would cause the hook to pull out from the mouth and you would get an empty hook back. As a consolation you might a leg or a pincer attached to your hook.

Ha Lek and his gang were pulling up prawns after prawns, while we were sitting there getting more desperate by the minutes. Though we tried to change the position of the boat using oars to move around, we were still not getting any pull. By the time we had circumnavigated their boat and still not getting any bite, we decided to move off to another spot.

One of my rods started to dip. I held my breath, and waited and waited (boy, it was hell). When I could not bear the suspense any more I slowly lifted up my rod and (s_ _t) there I was, holding up the smallest prawn landed on hook and line in the world (hoping to get into the Guinness Book of Record).

Chan Chong Kit proudly showing off some of his 'blue pincers'.

From then on my luck began changed. At least I started to land prawns. After lifting up my fourth prawn, I loudly declared that it was my FORTH prawn. Poor Foong had to suffer my jibes in complete silence (of course he had to grin to appear civil).

A day before, he had declared confidently that I should not buy his share of earthworms as he had his secret baits. “The prawns would queue up to get my baits,” was his confident declaration.

Well, result spoke louder than words. I was not surprised when he meekly asked for a packet of earthworms. I prided myself in my bargaining skills; he was given a packet of earthworms only on condition that he agreed to throw his secret baits away.

Whew, thank God, for Foong’s secret bait was brine soaked saltwater prawns. In the hot sun, those baits stunk to high heaven.

From left to right: Chong Koor Gie, Gary Tan Kok Suan and Seng Ha Lek posing their biggest 'lam kongs'.

All in we managed to land only about fifteen prawns between us. Of course after deducting the ‘Tom Thumbs’ and egg laden females. When shown to Ha Lek and friends, their sniggers were the most unbearable insults we had to endure. They being regulars here, of course had another bountiful harvest.

Foong had to throw away his secret bait first before he caught his first prawn with my earth worms.

On the next trip, Foong got his way, as I had no choice but to agree to night prawning. Our plan was to launch our boat at 6.00pm. Saturday evening and fish throughout the night to Sunday morning. According to Foong, night prawning produces the best result this side of the planet (period).

Good harvest was one thing; getting drained off your life sustaining blood was another. The mosquito menace in Tanjung Tualang was the worst kind in Perak. Those pesky pests possessed the longest and hardest proboscis. They could easily punch through your clothing and skin to feed on you.

One of our pastimes during the dull prawning sessions was to swipe at those blood sucking pests with electronic rackets. You know those that give off a crackling sound when you hit your target. These sounds did not compensate for the horribly painful itches those flying syringes did to us. but they sure gave us a sense of revenge

Cruising out to the middle of the pond around 6.00pm, we settled down to our nocturnal prawning session. In the glare of the fluorescent light, I could see one of my rod tips dancing away. Gingerly reaching over, I lifted up a terbol. Next to be released was a small baung. After the fifth baung, I shook every fish I landed in front of Foong’s face. He got the message alright and started giving some lame excuses as to why the prawns were not biting.

By 2.00am, I pulled up a small prawn that would be holding thanks giving kenduri the next day. Foong then landed two very presentable ‘lam kongs’. What really irritated me was the way he would laugh like a hyena (with emphasis on the ‘heee, heee, heee’) every time he pulled up a big one.

Luckily for me he could only laugh twice, for around 3.00am the fluorescent light began to dim. Even though he swore that he had charged the battery that morning, I still gave him a mouthful (how else to let go the pent up frustration of a prawn less night?).

At least Foong's prawn was very presentable.

When you could not see you could not fish, so we headed to the bank slowly. Just in time though for the sky opened up and we scurried into my car to sleep. Slowly we drifted off to dreamland even those pests were droning around our ears.

It was already light when we readied the boat to continue the morning session. Before we could push off, a group of ten noisy men came carrying tire tubes and casting nets. Thinking to myself that they could not sit on the tubes and do casting, I was wrong.

Straddling on their folded tubes, they paddled themselves forward with their legs and cast out the nets at regular intervals. No wonder our catches were getting from bad to worst as they traversed the pond shoulder to shoulder casting out their nets just like the carpet bombing of World War Two.

How could anything, I mean ANYTHING escapes from their nets? Outnumbered ten to two, we had no choice but to pack up cursing under our breath (as softly as possible, so as not to get pulverized).

One thing I learnt was, prawning in ponds was a different piece of cake to river prawning. In the river, whenever your rod tip started to dance, the prawn was as good as yours. Prawns dwelling in the ponds were more wary. Even if your rod tip had bent down for more than 15 seconds, the chances of a solid hock up was still not assured.

The cause of our almost 'pak kor' trip.

Foong and I hypothesized that the river prawns, facing more competition for food from all sorts of creatures had the habit of ‘eat first and think later’. Those living in ponds were the more leisure feeding type. Maybe, they carefully examined the food (with hooks) held in their pincers first before putting in their mouths.

With due respect, Foong’s secret actually was a very poor substitute for the usual worms that we used. For it to work, they must be used in brackish water. Maybe the prawns in fresh water are not used to smelly bait.

ROLEX IGFA LABUAN INTERNATIONAL FISHING TOURNAMENT 2004

This article was published in the June 2004 issue of Rod and Line Fishing magazine.

This year’s Rolex IGFA Labuan International tournament held from 2^nd to 8^th May 2004, attracted 166 participants from six countries, the best turnout since it was started several years ago. It is also now part of the yearly colorful Labuan International Sea Challenge.

Team Wahoo with a 45kig Dogtooth Tuna. The team won 3rd placing in the tournament's team event.

The fishing tournament consisted of two categories, i.e., the team and the individual events. Every team is allowed a maximum of six members. And each member was entitled to put up one fish for the team event. The winning team was decided by the heaviest total weight of all six fishes. Team members were allowed to enter another fish each for the individual event.

Fully armoured Billion Chang engaged in a tough battle with a whooper.

A cash prize of RM1000 would be awarded to the heaviest Marlin/sailfish, dogtooth tuna, yellow fin tuna and giant trevally. The heaviest shark, escolar, barracouta, wahoo and rosy job fish would be worth RM500 each.

100 foot long Tournament mother-boat, Sea Maiden 1, raising the shark on crane.

To encourage conservation, there was a minimum weight for the following fishes. The fishes and their minimum weights were as follow: 1). Marlin-60kg. 2). Sailfish and spearfish-30kg. 3). Shark-70kg.

To help the anglers decide the weight of the fish caught, a rough guide was supplied. Marlins and sharks would be 10kg per foot and 5kg per foot for sails and spearfish. Anyone or boat found having fish that did not comply with these minimum weights would be disqualified.

(A)

(B)

(C)

                                     (A, B and C are small specimens by Spratly's standard)

To further drive home the conservation message, a new category was included this year. A challenge trophy and assorted prizes would be given for the most number of billfish caught and released (evidence by photographs). A very wise move I should say.

A wahoo caught with the popular Bonito.

To inculcate a sense of caring for the environment, any boat found disposing non-biodegradable rubbish into the sea would have all its anglers disqualified from the tournament. Another feather in the cap of the organizers.

Another trevally, quite common on jigs.

Overall the tournament was a success. Everything went on smoothly with only minor hitches. Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Song were everywhere taking care of and directing the participants and correspondents. All the other members of the organizing team were actively contributing their parts to the smooth running of the tournament.

Major Alias, with a good size dogtooth.

Other than the Calliban having some slight drive shaft problem and the boat 03 some engine hitches, there was no major problem affecting the boats. Towards the end of the competition, the Crystal Coral went to the aid of a sampan based angler.

Shallow reef at Mariveles.

2004 can be said to have produced the best result in nine years of competition. The large number of huge dogtooths caught stood testimonial to that. The few 100kg plus marlins that got hooked near Dallas was a phenomenon itself. Team Alu Alu lost four marlins in one day and got spooled 3 times in one night. Popping near Mariveles and Dallas produced many huge GTs and bluefins too.

The winning team from last year, Team Ikan Bilis, will be proudly flying the Jalur Gemilang at the Roles IGFA Tournament, Mexico, representing Malaysia. Team Odyssey, this year’s winner, will also be invited to the Cabo San Lucas 2005 Tournament.

Some of the participating boats.

Lifting up this 45kg dogtooth is easy for this boatman. It took 3 other anglers to move the toothy beast.

The dreaded jaws no more

The catch on display.

A marlin must exeed 60kg to qualify for this tournament.

The much hated line cutting barrcouta.

Anglers must fish within the competition zone in these sensitive water.

Team TCE