Hook The Shooter: 2011

February 1999 Rod and Line magazine.

(This article was my first contribution to Rod and Line, a Malaysian angling magazine. It was published in February 1999 issue. Since then I have written quite a number of articles on a monthly basis for Malaysia's first fishing magazine. In addition to Rod and Line, I have contributed to the Asian Angler's World of Singapore and the In-Fisherman of USA).

Pay pond fishing has been around for years. Ponds owners who don't like the hassle of harvesting fish or can't harvest for one reason or another have been opening up their ponds for fishing. Some of them just collect a flat fee and you can take all the fish home. Others will let you fish and pay for the fish later. Yet, a few will just organise fishing competitions. Whichever way they choose the end result is the same. The fish farmers get back their investment and the anglers get their thrill.

Paying to fish in ponds serve many purposes. Family outings at pay ponds can be very interesting. Many parents take their children to such ponds to introduce fishing to them. Here, the kids can fish more safely in relative comfort. The readiness of the fish to strike will reinforce their interest in fishing.

Pond fishing can be very relaxing for the family.

For the adults, especially the social anglers, they would find fishing in well-populated ponds interesting too. Once a while, you might hear pond owners cheating by harvesting their fish before opening them to the public. But these are rare occurrences.

Today, we have a mutation of freshwater pond fishing. A few enterprising entrepreneurs started the saltwater fishing ponds. Some are located near brackish water where water can be pump into their ponds, while those located inland have to make do with salt solutions. the most popular species are the barramundis (siakap) and mangrove jacks (ang ka tia). Huge specimen of 7 to 9 kilos are also put in to entice the anglers. To make things more competitive, jackpots and cash prices are offered.

I heard from many friends about these ponds quite sometime ago, but was not too keen. I was more inclined to fish in the wild. Casting plugs around Pulau Sembilan, Pulau Jarak, mangrove swamps and lakes is more my dish. For bottom fishing, the sea lanes off Pulau Pangkor, rivers, ponds and lakes are my hunting grounds. So how to get interested?

The La Nina phenomenon changed all that. My gang's whole year's booking of our regular boat kept being cancelled due to the lack of numbers. There are always so and so who could not make it. Sometimes the reasons they gave were so ridiculous that you just can't help laughing.

After a few months of forced abstinence, the itch became so unbearable that I told myself 'bo hoo hei pun ho' (meaning no fish, prawns also can (in Hokkien) or half a loaf is better than none.

So when the next time I heard that my friends were going to fish in a saltwater pond at Templer Park, I swallowed my pride and followed. From 11.30pm to 7.00am, I caught 3 mangrove jacks which gave quite a good account of themselves. The trip was very enjoyable, though I got to drink liters of black coffee to stay awake.

The next trip was up north, at Bukit Tambun (famous for its delicious seafood). There were quite a number of ponds there. the one that we fished in was near the highway, just after the tollgate at Bukit Tambun interchange. Named the Bukit Tambun Fishing Recreation Centre, it was started on 3rd Jan 1998 by Lim Joe Heng. Here I really got to know more about saltwater pond fishing. I caught four mangrove jacks and a barramundi. Not big, but they put up good fights.

In fishing, if you are persistent and try to do everything right, sooner or later you will be rewarded. This happened during my second trip to Bukit Tambun. I was into the final half-hour when I saw my line shooting out. Taking up the rod and cranking to tighten the line I struck and was rewarded with a run of almost ten meters.

On my Daiwa 14lb spinning rod fitted to a Shimano Stradic 1000 filled with 12lb line, the fight was quite an experience. When it stopped, I tried to pump, but I manged to crank only twice before the fish started to run again. This time it headed straight for the aerator wheel at the far end of the pond. Fearing for the worst, I feathered the spinning spool to slow down the fish, but was rewarded with three powerful jerks as the fish attempted to swing its head trying to dislodge the hook. Somehow I managed to turn the fish around and after another three short runs I netted the siakap, which pulled the scale down to 4.2kg. Surprisingly, it did not jump. Subsequently I landed two more siakaps and mangrove jacks.

The third time in Bukit Tambun was with my 13-year-old daughter and my wife. I didn't fish as I had to act as their 'consultant' cum 'servant'. We started at 3.30pm. my wife was using live prawn with float and my daughter was bottom fishing with kembung strip. luckily I wasn't fishing as both of them landed 5 fishes between them. A Singaporean businessman named Chen chipped in to help too (He is a regular at the pond as he is always in Penang for business. He is an authority in saltwater pond fishing, and I learned a lot from him). One of the fishes that my daughter landed was a 2.9kg siakap, which really tested her limits. She stopped fishing after this and was seen sobbing at one corner because the fish died and could not be released.

My wife waiting to net a small
jack for my daughter during the drizzle.

My most exciting saltwater pond fishing experience was at the Guiness Fishing Contest held in Port Klang recently. Though I only managed to land four bawal pinang I still get a lot of excitement from my good friend Wong Keat Hong, who connected, fought and lost a RM10,000 (1st prize money) ray. Imagine what we (3 of us) did to him in the car on the way back to Ipoh?

Wong Keat Hong made sure
this one did not get away.

After my limited fishing foray into saltwater pond fishing, and also with feedback from my kakis, I have come to the conclusion that most of the fish will feed in the morning up to 11.30am and again around 4.30pm to midnight, before slowing down. As for the method of fishing, my favourite is to cast out the bait (prawn or fish strip) and slowly move it along the bottom. When the fish hits, which is a light nudge most of the time, I will give some slack and strike when the fish pulls the line tight. Many use floats which are quite effective too. Attached to a live prawn or fish, the float will move around the pond as the bait swims around.

Keeping a sharp lookout for signs of fish is also important. Sometimes we can see the fish if we are wearing a pair of good Polaroid sunglasses. The surface of the water also tells a story. If a big fellow is near the surface, there may be some disturbances or small fishes will jump.

Of course saltwater pond fishing will never replace the real thing at sea or rivers. But it is a good substitute at times. To many it might be the only way to fish.

Fly fishing is very
effective for catching pacu.

Pacu (pronounced paku in Portuguese), is a common name for several species of fish from the Amazon Basin, which are related to the fearsome piranha. That is why the Malaysian Chinese called it the “sek yan chong’ or the man eating pomfret. Actually the pacus found in Malaysia are of the Colossoma genus and can reach the size of about 30kg. Being omnivorous they feed on nuts, seed and vegetations, but do relished small fish and insects too.

Just like the peacock bass, the pacu was first brought into the country as aquarium pets. Later, because of its fast growing abilities and size, some fish farmers reared them as food fish. The Malaysian public never cultivated a taste for its meat so it never gain as much popularity as the tilapia. As a result it was relegated to be stock in pay ponds, where anglers pay to fish for them.

With its flattened and deep body, the pacu was really built for sport fishing on light tackles. They never acquired the nickname “freshwater GTs” by accident you know. As an omnivore, it can easily be caught by using oil palm seeds as bait. I would like to stress here that circle hook is highly recommended so as to cause the least damage to these flat warriors. As they also feed on insects and small fishes, they can be caught on flies and lures too. The fly patterns that I normally use are the clousers, minnow looking flies and dragonfly nymphs. Tough tippet should be use for fly fishing as the teeth of the fish can easily gnaw through most mono lines. Rattling minnow like lures of 10cm to 15cm are known to be effective for catching pacus too.

The general understanding is this fish cannot breed in Malaysian water and climate. But lately rumors have surfaced that juvenile pacus were caught somewhere in Johor. So to be safe, this alien species should not be release indiscriminately into our water.

Fish that bites off testicles

www.malaysia-chronicle.com

I found this report about the pacu fish at this site. It seems some pacu were released in Papua New Guinea some 15 years ago. Due lack of food, they turned carnivourous. A number of fishermen had their testicles bitten off resulting in deaths. What I suspect is the pacu, now nicknamed, ball cutters, mistook the testicles for nuts or seeds which were their staple diet back in the Amazon River.