ANGLERS' ITCH (A day trip to Dinding Estuary)

My fishing article featured
 in May 1999 issue of Rod & Line
 fishing magazine.

      Mankind suffers from many types of itches. The usual kind is caused by tiny insects or bugs. Those ungrateful fellows not only get a free meal from you, but spread some incurable diseases like J E too.
Another type of itch is mainly confined to the males. It comes in periodic cycles of of the seventh or fortieth year of a marriage. Be careful of this one as it can cause untold miseries. Do avoid eating shellfish, seafood, tongkat ali, ginseng or Viagra.

      The type of itch that we are concerned here is the anglers' itch. It usually starts on Tuesday every week and grow in intensity until satiated during the weekend fishing trip. Should there be any reason that caused the trip to be cancelled then the itch can temporary be eased by cleaning or servicing your reels, rods or even just meddling with your tackle box. Yakking at the anglers' favourite haunt do sometimes help a little.
Of late our weekly yakking sessions seemed to have increased as we could not get enough people to hire a boat to Pulau Jarak. Should we go without getting enough kakis to spread out the cost, our bank managers will be calling us up about negative balance in our accounts. Your see, most of us are just poor wage earners. After a few weeks of yakking, without any relief from our intensifying itch, three of us itchy guys decided to do something about it. If we could not afford deep-sea we go shallow-sea.

Unloading our gears
 at Ah Seng's jetty where
 plenty of boats are available
 for hire.  The camera lens flare
could be caused by Foong's head.

      Sunday14/3/99, saw us (James, Foong and I) unloading our equipment into a 22-footer fiberglass boat powered by a 30hp Suzuki outboard at Ah Seng's place in Kampong Sitiawan, Lumut. (Ah Seng has a lot of boats for hire. (Refer to Rod &Line angling directory). Our target was the famed sar choi or Malaysian Whitings of the Dinding River Estuary. The white flesh of the whiting is very tasty if fried or steamed. Though small (biggest is about 300gm), it will give a good account of itself on ultra-light tackles. Some snobs will smirk and say, "Where got thrill lah?" "Going all the way for tom thumbs." Well nobody ask you to shoot burung pipit with an elephant gun. Furthermore fishing is not just catching big fish, but rather a combination of the art of catching fish, the breeze, sunshine and right company to ease the stress of the rat race.

A cooperative husband and wife team.
 The wife controls the boat and the husband
 catches the live baits for their fishing.

      Foong being a mechanic was our captain at the outboard. James wanted to be in charge of the anchor, leaving me at the centre. (The Tuan need not do anything). As we moved slowly down river the tide was just coming in. We passed a couple, the wife controlling the engine and the hubby casting the net for live baits. If more couples could be like them, a lot oaf marriage counsellors and divorce lawyers can seriously start thinking about changing jobs.

      James and I started to troll at the deeper part of the river without much success. Suddenly there was a loud clanking sound coming from the outboard before it stopped. Fearing for the worst, Foong lifted the outboard to discover an old crab trap entangled round the propeller. Muttering to himself while removing the trap, I overheard something about Rod & Line educating people on "Love our rivers campaign."

      We decided not to troll anymore and headed straight for the Malaysian Flour Mill Jetty to catch the incoming tide siakaps. On the way, Foong was grumbling about the boat not being able to achieve planing speed. All the blames were heaped on the worn propeller being too small to be efficient.

      Live prawns were drifted out after securing our boat to the jetty. As usual I couldn't sit and wait. Casts after casts were made with my rapalas without any hits. When the tide had peaked we moved over to Pangkor Island area for whitings. Using ultra-light tackles, we pulled up many trigger fish, which really can fight. Our targeted fish seemed to have gone off on holidays. It is the same, no matter where we anchored and I can tell you we really changed many places. Actually the best time to go for whitings is the 1st and 15th of the Chinese Lunar Calendar. But there are always exceptions. We anglers are an optimistic lot. When the itch is unbearable we are willing to try out luck against overwhelming odds. All of us kept on pulling up and throwing back unwanted fishes. James and Foong nearly overturned the boat, laughing, when I hooked the smallest fish of my life (smaller than my little finger).

The smallest fish caught by me.
 Look at the way Foong was laughing.

James Wong and his flounder.

      No matter how optimistic, there will come a time when you have to admit defeat. So we headed to some fish farms. Here James managed to catch three jenahaks of about 1.5kg and a flounder. Foong again grumbled about the propeller being not efficient as we were down to our last 30 out of 50 litres of fuel. The idea of rowing the 22 footer against the tide and wind for 5 km dampened all our enthusiasm to go any further. Heading back to the flour mill jetty was the best decision we made. The moment we maneuvered our boat underneath the jetty, the sky opened up, pouring catfish, dogfish, jellyfish and the kitchen sinks. Luckily we were not caught out in the open as the rain was real heavy.

Fishing underneath the
Malaysian Flour Mill Jetty.

      There were two other boats here too. Most of the anglers were up on those concrete beams happily pulling up gelamas after gelamas. Well, adaptability is our strong point. Out came our ultra-lights and we were in business. Anything less than 6 inches were thrown back.

      On the whole anglers are a very friendly lot. We began chatting and laughing with our new found friends and learnt that they were using sand worms as baits. These worms could last and last while our prawn baits got taken quite fast. Of course, we practised the helping and sharing concept (translated, it meant thick-face begging). In no time we were also using the worms too. Out of the blue, James mentioned that he read in the paper about a guy using similar worms to fry bean sprouts. It was quite tasty according to him. Aaag!
Maybe it is God's way of reprimanding him for spoiling every one's mood. James head hit a metal beam when he stood up. Blood was running down his face, which scared the daylight out of us. On closer examination, it was only a light laceration of the skin. The bleeding stopped after pressure was applied to the wound.

      Action continued without respite except for short intervals of a few minutes. Surely the gelamas were having their annual convention down there. Actually gelamas travel in school of thousands. If you hit one there will be many more. As a dish they are quite tasty if well prepared, but most people prefer to make salt-fish out of them. Beware of nose cancer.

We were wondering why the boat
 cannot achieve planing speed.

      The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started and we decided to leave for home. As he was wounded, James was relieved off his duty at the front. It was getting late too. So Foong really let go on the throttle. The boat was flying on the water surface like a flying fish. Boy, was it thrilling! Did I mention flying? All of a sudden it dawned on Foong and me as to why the boat was not planing earlier. (No prize for guessing correctly). Reaching the dock was a cinch and in no time we were driving home, happy and contented with itch relieved. Well.....at least until the next Tuesday.

Note: It is with deep regret that my friend and fishing partner, James Wong, has passed away some years ago.