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.