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| March 1999 issue of Rod and Line magazine. |
Kree...Kreeeee...Kreeeeeeeee. Hold on! Hold on darling! Alright now, pump...wind, pump hard. Well, that was me shouting out uncalled for advice to my wife as though she didn't know what to do.
Well you can't blame me for committing one of the cardinal sins of fishing, You see, my wife was connected to quite a large peacock bass (estimated to be 1.2kgs) on a 'Tiny' 5'3" rod and a 'Tiny Surecatch' reel filled with only 6lbs line. The yellow-golden bass was almost in the landing net when the 6lb leader parted with the final lunge. 'Oh no!' My wife couldn't hide her disappointment. On closer examination, the leader was rough and was cut by the tiny sharp teeth of the fighter.
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| A peacock bass caught by my wife. |
It all started at the Peacock Bass Fishing Contest organised by Rod & Line at Lawan Kuda, Gopeng, three years ago. After fishing for half a day without a bite, my desire to catch and land a peacock bass was unbearable. The itch was so unbearable that I jumped at every little hint of peacock bass. One of the most recent disappointment was running like a mad dog to a pond near Gopeng only to discover that the 'very expensive peacock bass' was another type of cichlid.
Therefore, I was overjoyed when I heard from a small boy that his father's pond contains a sizable amount of peacock bass. This population of bass comes from a few fish that the boy caught from Lawan Kuda and threw into the pond about a year ago. With the pond full of small tilapias and small freshwater prawns, the bass thrive and multiply like crazy.
Being a keen angler and a thick face one at that, I started to beg and bribe in that order to get the small boy to take me to his father's pond. The answer was as usual, negative. Well, you can't stop a determined angler, can you? We thick skin anglers are very creative, innovative and determined. if there's a will there's a way. I started to dig, korek and inquire and finally my persistence paid off. It so happened that a friend of mine is also a close friend of the pond owner.
That was how I found myself standing in Mr. Lee Fatt Choy's farm one Sunday morning. After exchanging the niceties, Mr. Lee excused himself as he had to attend to his corn plants.
I started to tackle up while my friend Ah Wee, made himself comfortable under a tree. Well, not everybody is an angler, you know. I was using a one piece Team Daiwa 6' casting rod matched to an Ambassadeur SM3600 reel spooled with 14lb Spider fusion line. I started to brag and make promises to my friend that the first fish will be his and then I'll release the rest. Forty-five minutes and hundreds of casts later I was beaten. Not that I didn't try. My boxful of Rapalas, Yozuris, spinnerbaits and jigs and you name it held testimony to my effort. Finally I declared that there is no fish here. Disappointed, we left without informing Mr. Lee as he was no where to be seen.
Two weeks later, Ah Wee called to inform me that Mr. Lee's son had caught and given him two peacock bass to eat. He told me that Lee junior caught the fish with rod and line. My interest was fired up again and I begged Ah Wee to make another appointment. This time I am a bit smarter. I requested Lee junior to accompany us.
Come Sunday morning saw us assembled at Mr. Lee's pond again. Of course I came with all the niceties to bribe the 11 year-old boy to divulge his secrets. Well sometime we old hack got to kow-tow to small masters too! Let's say for the advancement of the art of fishing.
My happy little sifu took me to another pond. Using a fine mesh net he scooped up some small prawns and asked me to use them as bait. I was too obsessed with the idea of lure fishing that I'd totally forgot about baits.
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| Little sifu had another peacock bass. |
Hitherto, the little knowledge that I accumulated about peacock bass was that it was a sport fish. To me sport fishing means lure fishing. Anglers have a funny way of acquiring funny snobbish attitude. I must confess that I am bias against bait fishing, just like those Mat Salleh fly fishermen. Well, that is another story.
That Sunday morning proved to be heaven. The moment the prawn baited hook landed on the water it was taken within minutes. I think I hooked and landed more than twenty fish and released them all except the one I gave to Ah Wee and another for myself.
Before we left I went to thank Mr. Lee and of course my little sifu too. Mr. Lee could not understand why I released most of the fish that I caught. The look on his face told me I should belong to Hospital Bahagia.
As you know, we anglers could never keep a good fishing spot for long, especially to your better-half. That whole night my wife kept on pestering me to take her bass fishing. She is my late mother-in-law's daughter, remember? At last I got to sleep after promising her I'd take her the next time.
This time around, I was prepared with camera, lenses and all my fishing equipment. After collecting prawns for our baits we settled down to fish.
My wife started to catch bass almost immediately. In between the bass, she caught a few tilapias. On very light tackles, I think the peacock bass gave a very good account of themselves as most of them are still quite small-less than a kilo. After half an hour my wife tangled on with the bass mentioned at the beginning of the story.
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| My wife and the little sifu. Notice the umbrella and the comfortable seat? My wife loves fishing, but hates the sun. She is scared of getting dark. |
Personally, I think peacock bass as a wonder game fish is a little bit over-rated. Being a layman, I wish to offer my two-cents worth of opinion. The bass found here could be the smaller species, as such they a smaller in size.
But on the claim that it would push other local species into extinction, I think we are crying wolf too early. The fact that I can catch tilapias quite often together with the bass in a small pond shows that the other fishes can co-exist with the bass. The fact that they don't attack lures as readily proved that they are not that aggressive either.
Well, if they are aggressive, like some quarters fear, then they are a bonus to eco-tourism and sport fishing too. Therefore, we have nothing to worry about as we are in a win-win situation. Please hurry-up with the stocking exercise as many like me are already in our fifties.
Correction: Since this article was published in March 1999 issue of Rod and Line, it had been proven the peacock bass can be quite destructive. Due to its aggressive behaviour, lures and flies are rather effective in catching this fish. Readers are advice not to release them indiscriminately into the wild. But I am totally against the wanton killing of the peacock bass.
