Tomans That Love Chicken Hearts.

Tomans That Love Chicken Hearts

(This article was publish in the April 2002 issue of Rod & Line magazine)

“Chicken hearts were tough, so how could you just shred them to pieces with your hands?” I argued. “Yah, lah! I can bet with you that they were chicken hearts and the tomans relished them,” Mong countered.

The issue was finally settled when Fong confirmed that the baits were chicken livers. I did not know how Mong got chicken livers mixed up with hearts. Maybe he had been listening to Siti Nurhaliza’s romantic songs too often.

Ronnie fighting his toman with determination on his face.

 After our jelawat forays (See last issue of R& L), we decided to go for the tomans next. They could be found in the same series of ponds and waterways, but at different locations. As I had to go on a family holiday (compromise lah, or else very difficult to go fishing), Mong, Fong,  Soong and Thong (sound like some drum music) went together. From their excited descriptions, especially Mong’s (his first encounter with the tomans) I just could not wait to try my luck. As it had been quite sometime since my last fight with these fresh water tigers, the itch was getting the better of me.

Catch and release - no point keeping. It will he the huge parent of some future tomans.

 As a result our two boats were cutting the water surface of the misty pond at 6.30 a.m. one Sunday morning. Fong’s newly acquired aluminum boat with Thong, Soong and Fong himself were soon far ahead of my round nose fiberglass boat. Mong and Ronnie were needling me about letting them ‘jatuh muka’ in front of the gang. I would have thrown the both of them into the water so as to lighten the boat if I were not the oldest of the three. When we finally caught up with the others, they were already ground baiting their position with mashed livers. After doing the same, we anchored our boat at a weed covered corner of the large pond.

Mong’s bait was the first to be taken. Being still new, Mong struck too early and lost the fish. Well, even seasoned toman fishos possessed ‘chicken hands and duck legs’ (all thumbs) at the sight of their line shooting out. Mong had two more takes and released both of them. What surprised me most was, being a relatively new angler, Mong released both his catches without any prodding from us.

That satisfied look told the whole story.

Suddenly my line started to snake out from the guides. Closing my bail, I struck and was immediately fighting a ferocious toman. Mong had two more takes before it was my turn to release two more. Mong and I alternated in landing and releasing fish after fish.

Soong and Fong displaying their catches.

During one of our rare respite from fighting fish, I asked Mong (in false innocence) how many tomans he had released and he said he had lost count.When he inquired the same, I bragged exaggeratedly that I had not enough fingers to count. As we both turned to look Ronnie, he put on his earphones and sang with Michael Jackson.

One more good deed for the day. He just released his catch.

“Beat it, beat it”, he was singing at the top of his voice along with the song coming from his hand phone.Being too engrossed, he did not notice his line moving out. The fish had taken quite some line, before we alerted him to it. That brute swung left and right, fighting every inch of the way back. Suddenly it went under the boat and wrapped the line round the anchor rope. Looking down Mong and I saw only a bare hook stuck to the rope. Both of us suddenly broke into Jacko’s ‘Beat it’.

Both Mong and Ronnie were using casting reels while I was using eggbeater. Most of the time when they cast the tender and soft livers split into pieces, out of five casts three would be duds.

Mong and his colorful toman.

After a few times of mess-ups, I jokingly demanded that we divide out the baits into three equal portions. At this rate, it was not fair to me as I would soon have no baits left. I shut up in record time when they asked me whether I would like to swim all the way back (might is right).

Yours truly proudly posing.

It was all jokes and puns among us during those quiet moments in between bites. While laughing and joking, we all heard Ronnie’s reel clicking away. When he struck, the sudden rush of the toman almost unbalanced him.

After such a long time with no fish, I think he was under some pressure to at least land one. The determined look on his face showed it. Slowly swinging his rod and pumping gently he finally managed to pull the toman out of the water for his remembrance photo before releasing it.

Now all of us started to sing ‘Beat it’. Hearing the commotion that we were creating, Fong steered his boat towards us to enquire. The three of them had caught twelve fish altogether and kept only two.

Catching tomans was quite easy with baits. I guessed our next trip should be lure only affair. There is nothing to beat the ‘sudden stopping of the lure feeling’ by a ferocious toman. Being quite well populated, I think lure fishing should never be a 'pak kor’ (empty handed) outing here. Let’s hope that it would remain so, as another toman ‘hot spot’ was recently wiped out by the netters. Those fellows took their catches and exchanged them for some free prawn meals in some restaurants!

We were making quite a commotion there in the middle of the pond, when En. Zaini came over to investigate. When asked, we proudly announced we had caught quite a number of tomans. “Anything more than 6 kilos ah?” inquired En. Zaini. “No lah, all about 2 kg to 3 kg only,” we answered (pretending to be humble). He told us he caught only one and that made us even more proud.

When  he finally showed us his ‘only one’ fish, we all slowly shrank lower into our boats. That ‘only one’ toman was an 8 kg giant! After all the oohs and aaahs, he told us that his bait was a lampam. Fish such as this was ‘sup, sup suei’ (his exact words) to him as he had caught quite a number of bigger fellows regularly in the past.

En. Zaini shut us all up with this giant.

Before we left, Thong was seen collecting all the rubbish and plastic bags found floating on the water surface. If the general public was like him, then there is hope for all of us in the future.

Jelawat Encounter.

     

This article was published` in the March 2002 issue of Rod And Line Magazine.

     The sultan fish or jelawat is one of the few fish whose scales can be eaten. Before the jelawat was successfully spawned artificially they used to be out of reach of poor guys like me in the restaurants. Since then, jelawats were been bred everywhere, but they all carried a funny muddy taste (the pond one).

     Of late, the fishery folks had been releasing jelawats into the rivers and lakes of Perak. Suddenly the ponds and rivers around Tanjung Tualang area had some thriving populations of jelawats. Reaping the reward of this resurgence of jelawats (though not the Perak variety, as they all had very red fins) was the angling fraternity of Perak.

Seng, Keong and Rothman making us feel so inadequate with their catches.

     Some of my kakis who had been fishing around the mined out ponds of Tanjung Tualang discovered this huge population of jelawat. These ponds were all interlocked to each other and some of them had small streams flowing into them.

     One Sunday found our gang in three boats cutting through the calm surface of the water. The sun’s rays inched across the dark steamy surface of the water. Slowly but surely the ray pierced through the mist and brighten up the breathtaking view all around us. On our left, a colony of cattle egrets (at least more than 500) were waking up happily and noisily bragging to each others about their conquests the previous night.

Rookie Mong happily posing with his jelawats.

     Fong, Ah Hei and I anchored our boat at a spot where there was some slight water flow. Before tackling up we ground baited the area liberally with meshed oil palm fruits. Whole fruits were then attached to our hooks and cast out. After that it was back to story time and patient wait. The calm surrounding was sometimes broken by the chomping sounds made by snakeheads in the mass of floating vegetation near the shore. Those sounds meant only one thing. That was one way tickets for some poor unfortunate creatures. Tempting though the sound might seem, but that did not distract us from our main reason for coming here, that was to catch the elusive jelawats.

The hundreds of cattle egrets at their love nests.

     The rod belonging to Fong was the first to bend. A ‘toothpick’ (our nickname for jelawats of less than a kilo) was landed and released. What followed was ‘toothpicks’ after  'toothpicks’. Even after changing spots a few times, we still could manage juveniles only. Ah Hei was the champion of our boat as he landed the most (about ten). His biggest was about a kilo and that was the biggest among our catches!

     Before heading back, another boat with three of our kakis came to show us their catches. At least theirs were about one kilo plus specimens. Ah Seng from the other boat told us that his catches included a few whoppers of more than three kilos here in the past. Instead of joining us to hunt for jelawats, they had headed for another spot with very fast flowing water. Here Ooi lost a Rapala to a very hard running fish that cut him off at an underwater log. Had he landed that one, it might qualify to be mounted on his wall with pride. Well, that was what made fishing so interesting.

Fong reluctantly showing his 'toothpick' too.

     After a rest of one Sunday, we decided to try our luck for the big jelawats again. Fong, Ah Hei and Chan decided to go on a Saturday, fish through the night for prawns and then hunt for the jelawats on Sunday.       Night fishing here was a no-no for me. The main reason being the prawn population here was almost wiped out by over harvesting and pollution. Another contributing factor was the mosquitoes and other bloodsuckers here had two feeding sessions. From 6.00p.m. to 9.00p.m. the starving hordes would drain you dry. Their appetites were such that they were hungry again from 3.00a.m. onwards. Insect repellants and thick clothing were of no help. The last reason reason was I value my life very much.

     According to some angling friends who related their horrifying experiences to me. They were once doing prawning here in two boats together with a local professional in his one-man sampan. Suddenly there was a bowling bubble trail from the marshes towards them. At the speed of that ‘thing’was moving it couldn’t be a turtle. It was always in situation such as this that you would find people suddenly becoming very religious. A chorus of prayers of the three main religions of the world erupted in unison. God must have heard the muhhibah praying session as that ‘thing’ went past underneath the boats, without any ugly incident. Crocodiles had being sighted before here and some monsters had shredded the nets strung out by the locals. Well…….?

My beautiful kalui.

     Mong and I were  already launching our boat at 7.00a.m. My heart sank though for the water level had dropped since the last time I came. Even with the engine raised, we were still hitting bottom quite often. Oh how my heart ached. Reaching our spot I anchored near some marshes. After one hour of fruitless waiting, my hand phone suddenly rang. It was Fong sending his S.O.S. Ah Hei’s outboard had gone on strike. With my toolbox and Fong’s skill the outboard was running again (it had a small leak at the gasket). They had to stop fishing and limp home. At least they had a few ‘lam kongs’ and two good size jelawats for their efforts.

     Taking over their just vacated spot, Mong and I settled down to wait. Mong (a freshie in jelawat fishing) was the first to land a jelawat. The grin on his face told the whole story. At least he never let his sifu, the famous Mr. Wong Keat Hong of the RM10,000 stingray fame (Rod & Line, November 1998, Guinness Explorers Fishing Competition), down. Half an hour later he had another take. Grabbing his rod which by now was bent into a perfect C, he truck. The sound of the reel giving line was music to our ears. Suddenly it stopped and his line went limp. His braided line had dug into the underlying line in the spool thus causing the break. What luck! When my rod started to bend, I struck oh so slightly. My screaming reel sent ecstasy through my whole body. ‘Patin,’ I gasped, which got Mong overly excited and he stood up holding the landing net. That act almost dumped both of us into the water. When he had calmed down enough to sit down, the fish had taken quite some line. I had forgotten how many times the fish ran. Slowly but surely, I was gaining line back onto my spool.

Ooi and his sebaraus from fast waters.

     Suddenly, my worst fear was realized. The fish got entangled with one of the many underwater rawais crisscrossing all over the place. Luckily, by now the fish was almost exhausted and couldn’t struggle much. Mong had the presence of mind to up anchor and rowed towards the fish. “Wah, a kalui lah,” shouted Mong. That gourami pulled the scale down to 3.2 kg.

     Mong had another bite which turned out to be a jelawat of 1 kg plus. He deserved both his fish as he had gone through his baptism of fire without a whimper. You see, even though I reminded him to protect himself from the sun, he came in shorts. At the end of the day, he look more like a cooked ‘lam kong’ to me.