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| This article was published in the July 2000 issue of Rod and Line fishing magazine. |
Blah, blah, blah........malapambu. Blah, blah, blah........malapambu. That was Guna running towards us gesturing and yelling to Paul in Tamil. Other than those X rated Tamil words (of which I am very good at), my vocabulary in that language is hopeless. Hopeless it is, I still could understand malapambu meant python. Pulling out my parang from its scabbard (almost like those sword-fighting movies, but not as cool as the hero), I was ready to do battle with any monster that dared to cross our path.
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| a. Gurdip Singh holding up his haruan. He is the only fishing Singh that I know of. b. Gurdip pointing to the logged out haruan territory. |
When Guna got back his breath, he laughingly explained in English that he mistook a giant haruan for a python. The monster's head was near the surface causing a commotion (going after prey maybe) attracting Guna's attention. In that split second his mind erroneously registered the head of a python (can't blame him as haruans are known as snake heads). Grabbing a branch, he threw it at the monster and found out too late that he made a mistake,when the fish flipped and dived into the depth. Desperately, he dug into his frog bag and discovered to his horror that it was empty. That was when he came running to us.
The three of us immediately returned to his python spot with fresh frogs tied to our hooks. Though we tried jigging, casting and waiting the python haruan never returned (smart fellow or else it couldn't live so long to be a python haruan).
We have passed this spot many a time without bothering to fish as we were targeting bigger quarries. Lately, because of the inter-monsoon season, the river that we were fishing in was swollen. With it debris of all shapes and sizes were washed down rendering river fishing impossible. It was during one of these trips when we couldn't fish that exploration in this area was made. Walking around, we discovered that along the left side of the unused timber track was marshy land. The whole stretch was covered by a layer of inter vining weed growing about half a meter above the water surface. Below this marsh was waist deep water. Who knows what monster lie below! On the right hand side of the track were fallen and abandoned logs below which were small pools of water. There were patches of clear water where some decent casting could be made.
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| The two haruan freshies from oversea. See how they fish. |
Luckily, Gurdip (the only fishing Singh that I know of) brought along five half-dead frogs from his previous haruan trip. Immediately, they were shared out among us. With us were two Mat Sallehs. One of them, Jackson, a New Zealander, who is the track manager of the Perak Turf Club and the other is Mark, his visiting Australian friend. Both of them were freshies in haruan fishing. Gurdip and I showed them how to attach the frogs and to cast to clear patch of water about the size of a basket ball court. From the way they were chattering among themselves we knew they were excited.
Suddenly Jackson struck and a haruan of about 800gm came thrashing up. Mark's frog was chewed up by some juveniles and I had to sacrifice mine to him. Gurdip too gave up his to Jackson. Jackson yelled that he could see a haruan following his frog. When it lunged, he struck too early and the haruan got its free lunch. Mark entangled his frog in some weed and was broken off. We all packed up and went looking for Guna. Sitting dejectedly on a log waiting for us, he related that something grabbed his frog and the hook came back empty. As we had no more frogs, we decided to leave for home in Jackson's van.
The next trip we made only Gurdip, Guna, Paul and I could make it. This time we were better prepared. Breakfast was roti canai and teh tarik at Batu Gajah. When we turned off into the jungle track, it suddenly dawned on me that my Sunny was not equipped for his type of road. Due to the daily conventional rain, the track was very soft. Add on the many holes made by wallowing wild boars, the drive was a real torture for me. Most of he time the wheels would spin and the car would slide from left to right, which made me sweat in my pants. After the fourth time where we had to get down to push the car, we decided to abandon the car and walked on. The walk of about 2 kilometer was energy sapping, as the soft mud would stick to our shoes making them heavier with every step.
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| A proud Jackson holding up his first haruan. |
At last we reached the area where we could fish and the frogs were divided up among us. Paul was casting near the spot where Jackson got his first haruan a few days earlier. There were a few misses here due to the haruans being too small. As for me, I was flipping my frog up and letting it drop vertically between those weeds. When it landed in the water I would jig the frog intermittently hoping to attract the haruans below. With heavily vegetated area, the usual casting or spinning will not work. Most of the time your frog or weedless lure will get hang up dangling above the water surface. The most appropriate way is to flip the frog up vertically and let it drop down through the weeds as mentioned earlier. Maybe, I was unlucky or my heart was not in it as I was worried about my abandoned car, I did not even raise a strike. Occasionally, giants lunging and gulping down some unlucky creatures could be heard further away in the unreachable marsh. Those sounds never failed to trigger my adrenaline flow causing me to feel high. About forty-five minutes later Guna came running about his python haruan.
Later, Guna and Paul each got two haruans of a bout 600gms, which were pulled up from some pools of water underneath some logs. Gurdip showed up from where he was fishing about half a kilometer away. His catch of two reasonable size haruans was quite satisfying.
Rain clouds were again forming over the horizon. Feeling rather worried, I pestered the others to leave, as I had no other way except to reverse the car out to the main road. The track was too narrow at that point to do any U-turn. On both sides were flooded marshes. Any slight mistakes would mean an expensive tow and repair job. Luckily by this time the ground was a lot drier compared to when we entered.
After two tortuous kilometers of reversing I managed to turn my car around at a wider spot. Not too soon though as my neck was already stiff from looking at the back all the time. I swore I would never drive here again unless in a 4X4 or a motorbike.
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| Wallowing hole made by the wildboars. After a few days of rain this place will be impossible to drive pass. |
Well, I think this place is still relatively untouched except for the former logging activities. It could be proven by the flocks of birds flying overhead every three minutes, heading to their feeding and nesting ground. This is birders' paradise! Let's hope the poachers will never find their way here as to them a good bird is a cooked bird.
