Thursday, January 26, 2006

Catch Report : One Fathom Bank Ep. 3

Location : One Fathom Bank, Straits Of Melaka
Departure from Tanjung Harapan Jetty : 3:00 pm, 21 January 2006
Arrival at Tanjung Harapan Jetty : 4:00pm, 22 January 2006
Baits used : Live baits (selar kuning, tamban), fresh fish and fresh squids
Number of rods : Sharma : 3 Rods, Navin : 3 Rods
Price : RM150.00 per person inclusive of boat charges, bait, light house charges
Total Catch : Batfish (Telinga Gajah) – 1, Stingray (Pari) – 2, Tetanda – 2, Gerut-gerut – around 2-3 kilo worth of fish, Tamban – about 4-5 kilo worth of fish, selar kuning – about 3-4 kilo worth of fish

We received yet another offer to go fishing at One Fathom Bank (OFB). We were planning to go to OFB during the Chinese New Year holidays, but our usual boatman had space in his boat and wanted us to tag along. He offer us RM100.00 per person. What the heck… To cut long story short, we went for the trip.

The sea was kinda rough that day. Normally, our journey there takes about 1 hour 15 minutes, this time our journey took almost 2 hour 30 minutes. Along the way, we had the unfortunate luck of bumping into a Malaysian Marine Department boat. The Marine Department stopped our boat and made our tekong board their boat. The Marine personnel on board as our tekong where were we headed, and then advised that we turn back. According to the Marine personnel, the sea is quite rough and can be dangerous to small boat. Hrrmm…. Decision..decision… should we heed the marine personnel’s advise and turn back or stick to the original plan? Being true ANGLERS.... we decided to carry on with our initial plan. We waited until the Marine boat was out of sight, then we proceeded towards OFB...

:::... MARINE DEPARTMENT BOAT ...:::

We arrived at OFB at about 5.00pm. We wasted no time and after quickly unloading our stuffs, we started to jig using apollo. We kept some fishes in our bait box to be used later for as live bait for bottom fishing. We were jigging till about 7.00 pm. During that short period of time, our total catch of tamban and selar kuning was about 7-8 kilos all together.

The first few hours of bottom fishing didn't yield any results. The bites were only coming in at around 9.00-10.00 pm. During that time, Navin and myself started to use squids at bait. Our target fish at that time gerut-gerut. The gerut-gerut in OFB were quite easy to catch. you don't have to you a big hook. A small circle hook maybe size 1/0 or 2/0 is enough. Gerut-gerut are relatively each target. Once you have cast out you bait, do not rest your rod. Hold on to the rod. When you feel the fish nibbling at your bait, give a jerk to set the hook. Since circle hooks need little or no jerking action to set the hook, these fishes can be caught easily. We caught a lot of fish using this technique. In between that, we each caught 2 stingrays (ikan pari). The action stopped around 2.00 am. By then, the tide has changed and then we proceeded to do bottom fishing.

Navin was on a roll that night. He had a few strikes. His best stike for that night was the two tetanda fish that he caught. He had a good fight with the tetanda. Especially the bigger fish. He was all smiles after the catch. He couldn't stop smiling.


:::... THE TWO TETANDA NAVIN CAUGHT ...:::

The highlight of this trip happened just before we were going to leave OFB. The boat was supposed to fetch us at about 2.00 pm. At around 11.00am, Navin's rod took a mightly dip. He was using squid slice as bait. He had a solid hook-up. He fought with the fish for about 10 minutes before we could finally see what fish he was fighting with. It was a batfish (telinga gajah). After some initial difficulties, the fish was finally landed. Navin was all smiles after that.




:::... NAVIN WITH HIS 2.5 KG BATFISH (TELINGA GAJAH) ...:::



:::... NAVIN ALL SMILES AFTER HIS VICTORIOUS CATCH ...:::

After landing the batfish, we didn't do much fishing. The sun was at it maximum at than time. We just chilled and waited for the boat to come get us.

When we got back home, we laid all the fish onto a canvas sheet and seperated them according to categories. Till next time... happy fishing....!!!

:::... OUR TOTAL CATCH ...:::

:::... POSING WITH PART OF OUR CATCH ...:::

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wah... banyaknya ikan...

spark said...

..Nice fish!

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

First of all, I'd like to thank you for this website, it's very informative. I'm going fishing at OFB on 9 & 10 Sept 2006 off Jeram, Sg. Buloh. Hopefully it'll be as fun as yours.

Any tips would appreciate if could email to vjvictor74@yahoo.com.

Warm regards.