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| This article was published in the December 2003 issue of Rod and Line Fishing magazine. |
Mention Kota Tampan to most folks and they will blink and
give you the blank look. You cannot blame them as this small village, situated
near the Perak River, just a few kilometers from Lenggong is considered a
sleepy hollow.
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| This is the house that Datuk Sri Ong Kah Ting grew up. |
Lately Kota Tampa seemed to be getting into the limelight
quite often. A team of archeologists had uncovered a prehistoric settlement,
and as a result a museum had been built nearby to keep all the artifacts. The
other reason for its claim to fame is one of its illustrious sons, Datuk Seri
Ong Kah Ting, was elected the president of the MCA. Surely this sleepy hollow
will be expecting a lot of changes soon.
More than two decades ago, a few of my friends and I were
exploring and fishing the Perak River area. The flow of the river been slowed
down by the Chenderoh Dam further downstream was very conducive for fishing.
The occasional big floods that occurred created quite a number of ponds (these
were before the building of the few dams further up river, which alleviated the
flooding problem). The flood water trapped in the valleys by the surrounding
hills, and with it all kinds of fishes too. These were the ponds that we were
fishing long ago.
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| This one grabbed James' Tail Dancer. |
To access these ponds, we had to hire a sampan, row across
to the other side of the river and then trekked to the ponds. I still remember on
one of the trips where as always, I was given the task of rowing the sampan.
All my friends were teasing and telling me to row harder or else
they would not provide me my meals. The most vocal of the lot was this guy who
was a non-swimmer. He went on and on until I got fed up.
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| It shot out from under a log to grab the spinner bait. |
Using my leg, I dislodged a piece of river clay used to
patch up a hole in the sampan bottom (Kota Tampan sampans were famous for
having holes on their bottoms those days. To prevent water from swarming in all
one got to do was to dig up some river clay to patch up the holes).
Water was rushing in through the knuckle size hole fast. I stopped
rowing (or rather downed tool to be more exact). You should see the panic look
on his face. Even though he was pleading and begging, I stood firm. Only when
he had meekly agreed to patch up the hole with his shirt, that I resumed
rowing. Well, as they say, ‘revenge is sweet’.
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| Be very careful of these mengkuang leaves. |
Actually we were rather foolhardy to trek into those areas,
as army patrols around those areas were rather frequent. Being mistaken for
terrorists and accidentally shot could not be ruled out. But when you were
young, you always throw caution to the wind.
Goh Tiong Boo (an ex-classmate) and I decided to explore our
former hunting ground again just for old time sake. James Wong was roped in to
make up the crowd. With my boat, access to these ponds was a lot easier now.
Many passages were cut from the river leading to these ponds allowing us to
just slowly maneuver our way in. But still we got to be very careful inching in
as the cuts from the mengkuang leaves were not unlike being cut by saws. We
passed many overhanging branches and vines. I was pulling Goh’s leg about pythons
and cobras dropping down from the overhanging jungles above (he is rather squeamish
about those reptiles).
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| This fellow bit more than it could chew. Do you think it can swallow the balsa imitation? |
At the first pond we moved very slowly as most part of the pond
had water weeds growing just below the surface of the water. Drowned tree
trunks were aplenty too. Shallow running lures were used to avoid frequent
snagging.. Our luck was not so good here, for quite frequently while casting at
one spot, the schooling sebaraus would frustrate us by surfacing at the other
end. Maybe the water was too clear for we had many striped gladiators following
our lures before veering off near the boat on a few occasions.
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| The sebaraus here are more colorful than their cousins from other areas. |
At the second pond, our luck was better. James’ Tail Dancer
was hit after only the second cast. Not too big, but still a good fight on
light tackle. After releasing a few ‘tom thumbs’ we decided to move on to the
third pond. Here too the small fellows were the more aggressive ones. A few more
were caught and released before we decided to call it a day.
On our next trip, only James and I could make it. At one of
the ponds, I noticed a ball of kuang fries among some sunken logs. James’ red spinner
bait was grabbed the instance it was cranked pass the fries. When it was landed,
instead of a kuang, the culprit as a sebarau. It must be eyeing those fries for
some time.
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| My Shad Rap gave this small fellow an aching jaw. |
Not to be outdone, my Shad Rap was hit too. Pulling up that sebarau,
I was rather dumbfounded why that ‘ikan bilis’went for my Shad Rap. I doubt, it
could get that piece of balsa wood pass its throat.
We headed to the next pond when there was no more action
here. After we cut the engine, sebaraus rises could be seen intermittently. My
Red Head was the first to connect on to a jungle perch, followed closely by
James’ Tail Dancer.
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| I take my hat off to who ever invented this lure retriever. |
Between us we caught and released more than twenty sebaraus
here. Tried though we did, we never encounter the elusive giant loner that we
were always hopping for every fishing trip.
On a good day when everything clicked together here, a
bountiful and fruitful harvest can be expected. One thing angler cannot leave
home with is a lure retriever. The plentiful remains of drowned trees and
bushes made sure that your investment for one is a must.
