Air Kuning December 2012

Fly fishing during hot sunny day

Jelawat using bread

My friend the first timer fly fisher

Beginner's luck

Peacock Bass and Tarpon day

Apparently, if you live somewhere in Teluk Intan, you have the 1 hour radius of fishing spot for Tarpon fishing and Peacock Bass. And of course, you still have the option to go GT fishing at Pulau 9 from the jetty around here.  So in the morning I did went hunting for peacock bass and later in the evening I went for Tarpon. Nothing much to say but credit to Nick Ooi  from Tacklebox Adventures for the flies he made for me as well as the local lure caster of Teluk Intan.

Smaller frenzy in the morning

One of the best fly

One of the biggest size of the day for this pond

Later, the Tarpon is having the same fly as well

and another one, which is slightly bigger

The size that will terrorize your 3 wt 

Even until the last fish. It was still in tact. 

It was getting dark so this Tarpon the closing for this trip

Anyway, raining season doesn't really effect my fishing that much. Although the water level is slightly higher, less saltwater in the canal, thus the Tarpon is biting a bit slow. But nevertheless it was an amazing trip. I am still looking forward for a sebarau trip real soon

Another tarpon trip

It was a fine day for fishing, went it 2 hours before the sunset. Its the high tide and the fish is biting. A tips about tarpon fishing is to cast near sunken timber or any underwater structure with tarpon rising nearby it.

Something at the end of the line that doesn't shows any acrobatic action

Well, its the wild card of the day - an estuary tilapia on charlie

A thing with tilapia, normally it doesn't go for fly. But I guess the fly landed on their nesting area and normally they will attack anything that comes into that territory.

One of the fierce jumper, caught me off guard.

It wasn't that big compare to the next one but when I strike it, it jumps all around the canal and it was spectacular.

The final tarpon, one of the biggest, sadly suffered with hooks at the gills

The last tarpon is quite big compare others. caught it nearby an old small bridge that was disintegrating. However, I didn't release the last tarpon because it is badly hurt. But in respect to the one of the best fighter I did bring it back home and cooked it for dinner although it doesn't taste that nice.

Small Stream's Fun

Every cast got nibles

Just a visit to Pahang, found a nice small river with full of fishes.

One of the fishes that I rarely caught but its plenty here

The small stream meets the larger river. 

Tarpon on the 3rd day of Aidil Fitri

Its the third day of Aidil Fitri and finally after 1 month of fasting I get to go for fishing at my In-law's nearby river canal. I woke up at 630am this morning and it was a very quiet morning due to everybody that is still busy celebrating the festive season. It was quite cloudy and tide is low with the fish is rising everywhere. This time, I managed to get my brother in-law to be my photographer which is very uncommon since he is not fond with fishing. Anyway, Thanks to him, I have somebody that could take my pictures nicely instead of me taking of my pictures myself.

The road is mostly dried out due to the drought season, this means that the salt level in the canal is slightly high which is good for fishing Tarpons and other estuary fishes.

Oooh ,country road~

And the first fish on the first cast. Using Crazy Charlie pattern. Its small but on a 3wt rod, its REALLY fun.

Too small to be called Atlantic Tarpon

And the 2nd cast, with the 2nd fish. Could this day get any better?

The mini Silver King

The Second Tarpon on Fly

Then, the fishing starting to get a little bit slow. I cast my line and leave it there for awhile. I started to chat with my brother in-law and he was really amazed with the fishing today. As I was chatting, I could feel nibbles on my fly, and I quickly jerk the rod but it was too late. So I recast and let the fly sink to the bottom. As I begin to strip, there was a tension in the line and I quickly give a hookup resulted with this.

3rd Tarpon : slightly bigger and can feel the muscular within the fish

After that I pack my gear and slowly I started to make a move. As a conclusion, during this trip I learned to overcome the situation where most of the time when anglers fish for tarpon they have the trouble to land the fish because it normally will throw the hook during the fight. This is due to its mouth design with a shell-like lips that gives difficulties to set the hook properly. To overcome this, I use branded hooks (well in this case, I'm using Gamakatsu hooks designed for bonefish size 8) which is sharper, stronger, and hard to bend so that when I hook the fish it maintains its angle.

Tarpon in action

Fly fishing for Puyu

Fly fishing puyu

On Goldbead Pheasant tail nymph

Cast where it rises and let it sink

Puyu

Normally puyu can be found in small canals that are nearby with paddy field. However, this place where my friend introduced to me is a bit differ, the puyu lives at a huge shallow pond and it is everywhere.
The puyu here mostly attracts toward white coloured nymphs compare to Olive nymphs. I suggest to try using small white coloured Crazy Charlie which can be more effective.

Repeat peat peat peating

Well, there is a trend here, normally when a new pay pond opens and the fishing is good, it attracts a lots of anglers around KL until it will be overfished. Even if it is a catch and release pond, after lots and lots of anglers come around and keep catching and releasing the fish, the fish will later becomes very wary of lures and they started not to bite it anymore.

Thus, I wind up going to this Barramundi pay pond in Banting again even though I just went there few weeks ago. I was really determined to catch the Barras on lures but I somehow ending doing fly fishing until the end of the day.

For your information, they haven't restock the fishes since the last time I went there, but thank god there are still many left. Its a good idea to have a pond where they recycle the fish often.

I did enjoy fly fishing here maybe its because the pond is small and there is no need for distance casting. Most of the time I will be practicing my cast, controlling the loop, and once a while, there will be a hookup.

Anyway, enjoy the photos.

1st bite

and another

and another

 Anyway, the flies that I use is still Crazy Charlie, slow retrieve. I did tried Clouser but no luck in getting solid hookup.

I also invite my colleague to join me.

Apparently his friend catches more than him

Fishing is not only about the catch, but also the company that you bring along

My colleague jerked so hard that it ends up tangled at a tree behind him

And the tree full with Red Ants, talk about bad luck

Barramundi of Banting

It was a saltwater pond located in one of the village in Banting. The entree fee for this pond is only RM3.00/rod and you can fish for the whole day. However, you are not allowed to release any fish that you catch and you need to pay extra RM15/kg for all fishes that you landed.

The speciality of this pond is that it allow any fishing techniques even lure casting and fly fishing which most of the local saltwater pond owner doesn't allow.

Barramundi on Crazy Charlie

Well today I decided to do some fly fishing. Using a 3wt outfit and mostly using white-coloured Crazy Charlie pattern for this application. I did bring my baitcasting outfit but the fly fishing is really intoxicating :-).

As for the lure casting part, I let my friend to do the job.

 

 

Barramundi on storm flutterstick

And another Barramundi

Lastly, the fishing only can be started at 8:00am until 12:00am midnight during weekend. After several hookups, we only manage to land the total of six barramundi which costs us RM46.00. It was fun but by 12:00pm we had to leave due to the hot weather.

Freshwater prawn fishing

Its a fun and practical kind of fishing where you can even fishing no matter if its raining or sunny day because you could do this under the roof..

Just another visit to EAK

Fishing in Empangan Air Kuning is starting to become more tough day after day. Every weekend is full of families and people fishing. However it still doesn't stop me getting fish.

The first catch is pacu, having a boat is really helpful when there are too many people by the side.

 Using grub is really effective in alluring pacu.

Every now and then, there are still some Peacock Bass taking micro lures. Its kinda fun.

Today is Fly Fishing day

Its been long time since I have been to streams for nymphing and dry flying. Above is one of my favourite patttern which is CDC Deer Hair Caddis. Tied it this morning along with several others dry flies and nymph.

The water today is crystal clear, slightly higher level than before. However the Malaysian Trout are nowhere to be found. I only manage to land a Sebarau using Copper John.

Small Size but twice the fun

My friend also manage to land another small Sebarau on spoon.

Reel Servicing / Cleaning / Maintenance

Personal Service Centre

As a reminder, using bait-caster reel requires higher maintenance since the casting mechanism mostly depends on the mechanical performance of the reel itself. Having regular service will helps to prevent poor casting performance e.g. loss of distance and the smoothness of casting.
The basic for servicing the reel is to clean the reel thoroughly and re-lubricating the parts with the right type of lubricant.

One of the Popular Lubricant

 Basic Items Needed:
1. Tools for dismantling the reel:
Use10mm hex full socket instead of normal spanner. It holds the nut perfectly. 

Tweezers are also important as it helps to hold fine component. 

Art Brushes helps to spread the grease evenly throughout the reel.

Small Circlip Pliers helps in removing circlips.

2. Degreaser.

Consult bearing supplier for proper degreaser. Normally bearing manufacture recommends their own degreaser. As example SKF bearings uses Krown Degreaser. 

However, some bearing uses plastics or teflon retainers that could be damaged by heavy duty degreaser.

Other than that, you could use any light oil, kerosene or Isopropyl based alcohol degreaser.

3. Air gun in a can.
Air dusters helps a lot in removing dirt and grime in tight spaces. It also helps to dry up bearings after degreasing it.

4. Detergent 

WD40 helps a lot as it could be use as a cleaner (not for lubricant) for plastics parts. It also helps to create a layer that resist water during cleaning the reel.

5 Lubricant (bearing oil, grease)

Bearing oil can be important as it helps improving the bearing performance.

However the lesser viscosity of the bearing oil will effects on prolonged usage.

That's why getting the right bearing oil for each trip can save from hassle of relubricating the bearings.

Grease with higher viscosity helps in protecting gears, while lower viscosity is suitable for other moving parts.

Spreading the grease on reel body case and screws will help to prevents water from entering.

However always clean after every trip as it saltwater tends to crystallize with the grease when its dry.

6 Case and Compartment

Make sure to do servicing on a very clean place. Remember a small grain of sand might cause scarring on gears thus resulting performance issues. Proper compartment make assembly easier.

Lurebox can be use to sort out parts