Fishing is about so much more than catching fish

[Mattseah]

Fishing is about so much more than catching fish


its about being with and making friends.. its about going places where you would never have dreamt of otherwise.. its about learning new techniques.. its about interacting with different cultures.. its about getting back too and being one with nature.. its about relaxing.. and thats why its called fishing and not catching

We left Golden Mile around 2215H on wed night 151106. Amin, Zahari, Ahmad, Yi Bin, Leonard and me. After realising we had the whole bus to ourselves, we leaned back our chairs in preperation for the trip to a petronas station outside KL. clearing customs was a breeze with hardly anybody going up to Malaysia on a wed night. We arrived at the petrol station around 2am in the morning and stood around the misty early morning waiting for our Malaysian friends.. Like a ghost ship 3 cars soon appeared out of the mist and we exchanged handshakes with Ben, Tan, Faiz and Nan. Many of us were meeting for the first time properly.. but by the end of the trip we would become good friends.. bonded the way only going on a fishing trip together can..

The drive up to Gerik (the last town before we reached the lake) took quite a while.. with frequent toilet and makan stops along the way.. We arrived in Gerik in time to have lunch at a shophouse which served incredible deep fried Keli. It was a sign of the food we were to have for the rest of our trip. After getting some supplies from the local market, we drove for another hour to reach lake temengor. We offloaded our stuff at a ramp and boarded a boat to the houseboat, our home for the next few days..


The Ramp




A quick look around had me impressed with the facilities on the houseboat.. a full range of beverages complete with hot and cold water.. matresses and pillows to sleep on.. 2 toilets as well as full shower facilities.. We unpacked and waited till 1500H when we planed to start the fishing proper.





Liew was to be my fishing partner for the whole trip. Unfortunately, just as Liew and me were the first boat to launch, we saw a batch of weather coming in and decided to delay the fishing session.. it proved to be the correct decision as the rain and wind came in strong and we had to hunker down to keep from getting wet. It was a lesson at how fast the weather could change and reminded us to always keep an eye on the sky when fishing..



At 1600H, the weather finally cleared and we launched for our fishing grounds.. For this trip, we only has 3 small boats with 2 people each and a catameran cum canoe that was towed by a bigger boat. This combination allowed 3 people to fish from the big boat and 2 from the catermeran. we also managed to fit a small motor to the catermeran so it could manouever a little around the fishing spots.. This ingenious solution to a lack of boats was thought of by who else but uncle Amin.



The journey took at least 20 minutes as the boatman brought us past numerous fishy looking spots till we finally reached a bay filled with numerous coves and started fishing.


Our Boatman for the trip called Samri



I managed only a blank realising that my lack of a deep sink line was going to be a hinderence for the trip.. while Liew got his trip off to a nice start with this toman.. small by his standards.. but a great fight nontherless..





That night we returned to the boathouse to a wonderfull steamboat dinner..





As we prepared to sleep that night with the food digesting in our stomachs, we realised that this wasn't going to be a 60 fish a day trip. The sebaraus had already moved upriver to spawn and we were only going to catch the stragglers.. The fishing was going to be tough and mentally i prepared myself for blanking on this trip.. We were going to have to work very hard.. and only the next few days would tell if it was going to pay off...

To be Continued....

[alberto]

...more ...more ... where the rest of the cr???

regards
Alberto

[Mattseah]

haha, patience my friend.. im really busy these few days.. will update when possible..

Regards

[Mattseah]

Day 2 AM

The next morning i was the first to wake up at 0520H, something that would repeat itself the whole trip.. i guess im just used to waking up so early everyday. It was nice to take my time preparing my tackle for the day and hear the cocks crowing waking up the owners of the houseboat and their workers. When the sun finally came up, only 3 anglers were ready to tackle the morning window that the sebaraus were supposed to be really active in. Ben, Nan and me. we devided ourselves up into 2 boats with me taking the boat on my own and headed off to a place called sungei docks..





It was like a place hidden from time.. with mist hanging over the water surface we eagerly cast our flies and lures in the beautiful surroundings. Sungei docks consisted of a series of small coves linked to each other with small streams entering into it from various places.. Ben and Nan were casting lures all over the coves and only had a small toman to show for their efforts.. after trying a little, it became obvious to me that i wasn't going to have much luck in the coves with my intermediate line. i signalled for the boatman to enter the streams, at first he was hesertant and wanted to stay out in the coves. i knew that the streams were much more suited for my outfit and looked more like sebarau habitat so i asked him for the paddles and paddled myself in.. i guess this showed him i was serious and he was alot more willing to explore the other streams after that..



i explored almost all the streams and had just reached the end of the last one when i asked him to turn back. I had made over a hundred casts and was getting a little worried that i would blank when i just made a split second to cast my white craft fur clouser behind the boat and stripped it back to the boat. on teh second strip, the line went tight and started shooting out of my hands. The fight wasn't an epic battle as in the small steam, the fish soon found structure and stopped, luckily my boatman was able to wriggle the line free and handline my fish in. My face broke into a tremendous smile when i saw the fish surface as the biggest sebarau i had ever seen ;D since this was only my second sebarau of my life, that wasn't very hard to do.. but it was a beautiful fish weighing in around 1.5kg.



my hands were trembling when holding the fish for a photograph and continued for quite awhile after..





after the fish i told the boatman i was ready to return to the boathouse a happy angler, on my way back thoughts were running through my head, was this going to be the start of a great trip? or was this going to be a one fish trip?

When we reached back the houseboat, i realised my mustad 34007 size 2 hook had opened and it was a miracle that i managed to land the fish.. Amin announced that we were going to a place called Pulau Tujoh after breakfast, a place where all the record breaking fish were caught from.. sounded good.. but would the place live up to its hype?

[Mattseah]

I would like to apologise for the blurry pictures, apparently the picture hosting site i uses blures the picture a little when it displays them. Though some were my fault for using the wrong settings in my excitement

[alberto]

Hi Mat,
That is one beautiful and large sebbie. Congrats ;D

regards
Alberto

[elmo]

Hi Mat,

Superb catch........more,more,more....!


Harvey

[Mattseah]

Sungei Tujoh was quite a large but shallow river leading into the lake. The bast spots were at the entrance to the river. However due to my lack of a sinking line to probe the very deep waters, me and liew went up stream as far as we could and slowly fished the banks as the current brought us downstream.



I tried fly for awhile but soon realised that i simply wasn't covering enough area as the boat drifted down river so i switched to lures.. I managed to get a small sebarau on a red and white halco sorcerer before switching back to fly near the mouth.. unfortunately that sebarau threw the hook just as i reached for my camera to take what was only my second fish of the trip.

As i casted my fly, it soon became evident that i wasn't getting my fly deep enough as casting into the exact same places where my fly had just passed through, liew caught these 2 magnificent sebaraus..







We than went into a beautiful small cove with a waterfall to have out lunch that had been packed for us..





as you can see, some of us couldn't resist the cool waters of the waterfall and had a quick dip..

The rest of the afternoon didn't yield any fishes and we retired back to the houseboat around 7..

I have to say i saw quite a few insects on this trip and decided to take a few pictures of them in case they came in usefull in tying patterns in the future..

[Mattseah]

I should meantion that during the previous day i had broken the tip of my RPL+ by carelessly allowing it to hit a stump while i was untangling my line. That ended my quest for more fly caught sebaraus.. Thank Goodness it was a Sage

The next morning, i had the added company of liew as we set off around 0630 to find the ellusive sebaraus. This time we were headed to an area that liew had visited on his previous trip so following his directions we went right to the end of the river.. His accounts of previous good catches at the very same spot could only highten my expectations..





However as this trip were to prove.. Past experiences were no guarantee of present success.. We tried to no avail, checking out numerous small branches and even braving the rain... just as we were about to head back i managed to get this small one on a fire tiger bommerang





Everyone was trying hard but with little to show for their efforts..



That afternoon we went back to the morning's spot in a quest for tomans this time. liew had graciously lent me his 7wt to use but i still decided to stay mostly with lures as it became quite obvious that lures had the advantage given the depth that the fish were holding at..

This would turn out to be the best session for the whole trip..

Liew started off brilliantly with a beautiful 4.5lb Toman







Than we spotted a school of small toman, after a few casts proved the parents weren't around i asked the boatman to get closer, picked up liew's fly rod and procceded to have the most fun i've had for a long time. A point to note is that before this i had not even hooked up a toman on fly before, this trip was to change that ;D











Liew than suggested moving on to find bigger tomans so i said goodbye to the school and went in search of Bigger fish. Who would have expected while looking for toman, i managed to land 2 sebarau within 3 minutes of each other. This also allowed me to fulfill my wish of getting some underwater shots of a sebarau..









Our method of hunting the toman was to keep quiet and cast to them as they rose, a method that yielded results but required a fair bit of patience and casting accuracy something that i was a little lacking in for spinning. Liew however was a master of the baitcaster and his ability to put his lure exactly where he wanted to amazed me throughout the entire trip. I only managed to do that with my fly rod.. guess thats where experience comes in..

Liew was to prove his skill again with this 7lb toman just as we were about to leave.. A true team effort with liew battling the fish, the boatman moving the boat to clear the snags and me using the net to net the fish..





I also managed to hook up a toman but lost it when it bit through my leader. I was totally unprepared for the fight with it peeling off line from my reel with what i thought was a suitable drag setting. The strength and ferocity is something that cannot be described but from than on i realised that i wanted to experience that again and one day land the toman. the toman wasn't the only one that got hooked that night.. This will definately be something i'll do more on my next trip..

[Qwek]

"its about being with and making friends...

bonded the way only going on a fishing trip together can.. " and makan too

We always enjoy the company and hospitality of our fellows fishos up north. I'm sure with Pak Amin bringing us to the far corners for fishing adventures, we will get to fish with them and together we will get to meet new friends.

Matt, look like you guys missed spawning season but great catch. From the look of it I'm sure you guys put on a few pounds too. yum yum.

More cr please.

Cheers
Qwek

[Mattseah]

The last day of the trip started promisingly.. i went to the back of the boathouse looking for the acrobatic lampans which would do flips on the surface of the water in teh early morning.. i was observing the lampans when i suddenly noticed one that looked a little longer than the rest.. a closer inspection and i realised there was a black spot along its side too.. Sebarau!! I quickly took out my lure set and 2 casts later i landed this beautiful specimen..



We set off after that in search of tomans.. i had a miss which took some paint of my bomber lure but no hookups. Than when i sent of a cast to a splash, my line got stuck on the reel which caused the lure to fly back and impale my poor partner on his little finger. We immeadiately rushed back to the baothouse where with the owners help, we managed to get the hook out. Neither of us felt like fishing after that and we spent the time packing while waiting for the others to get back..

We left the boathouse around 1300, leaving behind many memories but with the knowledge that i will definately be back to Temengor one day.. To fish in such beautiful surroundings with friends is truly an unforgetable experience..



Regards
Matthew Seah

[NickMatthew]

Nice write up matthew! Nice to see you're having fun man. Hope to wet lines with you again. Btw kent's pretty much free nowadays... I'll give u a call some time this week man. Till then. Ciao old pal!