KALUI FIGHTING AT TANJUNG TUALANG

(This article was published in the September 2002 issue of Rod and Line Fishing magazine.)

All unarmed martial arts can be roughly divided into two categories. One is the hard style while the other is the soft style. The former is characterized by its firm stances combined with sudden attacks of speed and power. The soft style is poetry in motion. The moves of the soft style are smooth and easy flowing. It makes use of the opponents’ strength to its own advantages.

Why am I talking about martial arts in a fishing magazine? Well, if the fighting styles of our fresh water game fishes can be classified, then I think this method of explanation is the most appropriate. The tomans, sebaraus, kelahs and their likes should fit the hard style fighters to the dot. Their powerful leaps, fast rushes and snagging tactics make sure of that. The main exponent of the soft style aquatic world is none other than our giant gouramis.

Being flat bodied, it really uses it greater surface area to great advantage. Fighting a big kalui is like having a bout with a Tai Chi master. It will l glide from left at right, resisting your hard pumps. When you least expected it, the kalui will move with lightning speed to cut you off against some underwater snags (that is if its fine teeth do not cut you off first). A contest with a big kalui is always a bruising affair, testing your stamina to the limits.

My cousin, Lai, holding up his 2.6kg kalui. This gouramy relished chicken liver.

This was the explanation I used to answer my US based cousin’s inquires. Being a karate exponent (my cousin) I guessed this was the best way to let him know the fighting qualities of our fresh game fishes. Through our e-mails, we had being arguing about the superior fighting qualities of our tomans compared to the muskellunges. Of course being a patriotic Malaysian, I am pro toman. You cannot blame me if I added some brick-breaking and jumping-over-the- roof techniques to the toman’s arsenals. As a result I was under tremendous pressure when he came back for his annual holidays, full of misguided expectations.

The type of weed patches where we fished for kaluis. If you could stay quiet and still, you might be lucky enough to see one or two kaluis propelling themselves almost totally our of the water to grab the water hyacinth flowers.

My heart sank further when we reached my usual fishing spot near Tanjung Tualang. Due to the dry spell, the water level was very low. Being one who was good at cooking up excuses, I conveniently blame the low water level to an act of God (good excuse if we were not to catch any tomans). Luckily for me my cousin, Lai Moon Lam, and his brother-in-law, Dr Chin Sou Fei, caught three tomans of about 2kg between them. My cousin finally ended our arguments by announcing that the tomans equals the northern pikes in fighting qualities, but loses out to the muskies. I kept quiet, as I have not met those fish in unarmed combats before ($$$$).

What surprised us most, during this trip, was a 2.6kg kalui which took my cousin’s liver bait (meant for tomans) and fought him aggressively. After having his trophy photograph taken, he gasped. Wah! Can fight lah. I guess that must have triggered my itch for kalui fishing for I just couldn’t wait for the next Sunday.

Baskaran with our two kaluis.

Baskaran and I were cruising out to the pond even before the sun was up, come Sunday. Easing our boat slowly along the mist-covered, we were wary of hitting underwater structures. The whole scene looked as though taken out of some Dracula films. Reaching our designated spot, we rammed our boat up onto some floating weeds. From then on it was a matter of keeping as quiet as possible. Everything was done in slow motion so as not to spook the ever-wary kaluis. If you could keep perfectly still and quiet, the kaluis could sometime be seen to propel themselves out of the water to grab at some insects or the purple flowers of the water hyacinth.

These were the buah aras that we used. they can be eaten. One of my colleagues from Sarawak told me that they eat it as ulam (salad).

 

Our baits consisted of the evergreen crickets and buah aras. Casting to the far side of the water hyacinth patch, we waited. After almost half an hour of patient waiting, my float suddenly bobbed and went under. Reeling in the slacks, I struck and was rewarded with a bulldozer. That brute went under the weeds and just kept taking line. All I could do was to push my rod tip under water and hoped for the best. Suddenly my line went slack and I reeled back my cut 15lb mono trace. Those tiny teeth sure did their job well.

One of my kaluis. those brakets you see on my sides were my boat rod holders (patent pending).

One hour of fruitless waiting later, we had no choice but to change to another spot. Here, the result was a lot better. We caught two kaluis each. Not big though, just about 1kg to 2kg in sizes. Anyway, it was still fun feeling the steady pull of the fighting kaluis. As the catch was not that good and our itch was not satisfied, we were already planning for the next trip on our way back.

Netting one of my kaluis.

 The next trip saw Keong, Ravi, Baskaran and I heading out in two boats. Keong and I headed to an area where I had seen some kaluis playing around some weeds a week earlier. After securing our boat, I took out my secret weapon- circle hooks. According to my experiences, when buah aras were used as baits, most of the fish caught were lip hooked. But when crickets were used, the hooks would be swallowed deep down. Lip hooking has a lot of advantages. First and foremost, catch and release can be practiced without causing any real problem to the kaluis. Secondly, thinner traces can be used, as the fine teeth of the gouramis cannot reach and cut the monofilament during hard fight. Thicker leaders can be used to overcome this problem, but will reduce the number of bites drastically.

Keong was the first to tangle with a fish. This fish did not fight like a soft stylist. Its fast powerful runs had us puzzled. The mystery was finally solved when a jelawat was finally netted. Yes, they also relished crickets too. When my float shot up and laid flat on the water, I knew a kalui had taken my bait. I just reeled in my line slowly and let the kalui tighten the line (circle hook, remember?). The fish shot to the left and then turned to the right. I felt as though I had a wau bulan at the end of my line.

Keong holding up the jelawat that gobbled his crickets.

Once in a while the reel screamed in protest as the fish took line in powerful surges. In the end I had to cut the trace to release the fish, as the circle was deeply embedded in its gullet. The same thing happened to all the other three kaluis that I caught subsequently. I was really puzzled and distressed. Circle hooks are supposed to pull out of the stomach and lodge at the corner of the fish mouth when it turn and run! Beats me!

Still deep in thought, I was brought back to the present, when my rod started to jerk. A big brute had taken my bait. Big fellow, lah! I gasped to Keong. When it glided the weed edge my heart sank. I could see the two bamboo poles sticking out of the water. True enough, my fish got entangled with the rawai and used it to break loose. The rawais are always a problem to us anglers, but what can we do? The pros have to fill their stomachs too. Conflict of interest, I guessed.

A gust of cold wind snapped us out of our gloom. Looking up, the whole sky was dark with rain cloud swarming everywhere. Keong screamed through his walkie-talkie (he is in the construction business) to Baskaran to flee. Gunning our boat, we skipped over the ponds to find Baskaran and Ravi waiting for us at the rendezvous point. By then it was too late. Strong wind and heavy rain were lashing us from everywhere. As the water level was rather shallow at certain stretches, we were hitting bottom quite often.

My rig for kalui fishing.

Suddenly I notice my outboard was not spurting water through its pump indicator. Cutting out the outboard we had no choice but to drop anchor. In my mind, I was thinking of the money I had to spend for the impeller replacement. Keong was busy bailing to prevent our boat from being filled with water. As visibility was down to a few meters, Baskaran nearly rammed into us. When told about our outboard problem, he suggested that I use a piece of thin wire to unclog the pump indicator. God, was I relieved when I noticed water spurting out again when I cranked my outboard. When we finally reached our landing site, we were like four half-drowned cats.