ROMPIN fishing

Whenever people mentioned about Rompin, the 1st thing that comes to their minds is this....

No, not Marlin.. but SAILFISH, the smaller cousin of Marlin. 

Royal Billfish are held in Rompin annually. Fishermen from most part of the world will drop by to have their share of fun fishing sail fish in Rompin.

I had my share too..

But little does anyone know, there is another part of fishing where lesser people will pay attention to....  Freshwater fishing.

There is a dam nearby and a very very long Rompin river to explore. 

Rompin river was known to have abundance of big prawns.. the blue pincher but due to over fishing for the past few years, their quantity reduces tremendously. 

According to the locals, the good season for the 'udang galah' or the blue pincher is after monsoon season.

This is the river side chalets that me and my friends always stay whenever we are fishing at Rompin river.

Morning view at the river side..

At night, this will be a fishing spot for prawns..

Shrimp...!!!  Some finger size prawns caught by the river side chalet. Good fun on UL rods.

Bigger one are caught up the river.

If you are lucky enough, you would land a river Barra doing bottom fishing at night. 2.5 pounds fighter...

Apart from river fishing, we went to Sepayang Dam which is located around 30 minutes from Kuala Rompin town. We stayed a night on the orang asli or local aborigine's hut in the dam.

Over 70% of this place are covered with either lily pads or weeds. A good place for the fish to hide from their predators.

This place is known for its ferocious snakeheads. Surprisingly, the snakeheads here spawn all year long. You can spot many groups of baby snakeheads around the dam.

Caught one of the 'mother' snakehead.

Other then snakeheads, there are Jungle perch. You can find them in the rivers in the dam. 

You can do bottom fishing here as well. I can't believe we caught a few baung (Hemibagrus) at night.

One day catch of 3 species of fish and we bought those sizable fish home for consumption. Good clean protein here..

It has been a good trip despite of the rain during the 'prawning' session...

I would say Kuala Rompin is nice cosy town where you can enjoy both saltwater and freshwater fishing...

Tasik Prima or Tasik Puchong Prima... what ever you want to call it..

That was how it looked like 12 years ago, an abandoned mining lake in the sub-urban of Puchong area where abundance of snakehead or tomans to fish.

Due to over fishing, the numbers of snakeheads decreases drastically and most of the time, I see fisherman does not land anything. The popularity of tasik prima slowly dying ..... until the appearance of Peacock bass in late 2007. According to a source, the peacock bass in Tasik Prima originated from Subang Lake.

We had great fun even before the news of the availability of Peacock bass spread out.

Development around the lake started in 2010 and so does the reclamation. At least 10% of the total area of the lake was filled for lake side housing development and land based fishing was reduced as banks are fenced up due to development.

There was a period of time, the Peacock bass went missing. You really don't see them anywhere and you don't see people fishing them up. There was some netting activities in that lake and I thought the Peacock bass was all netted up.

After awhile , they are back bigger and stronger....

It was great fun  ....... for now. Not sure when it will last.

** All the fish was caught and released.



My long forgotten playground

It have been quite awhile since my last fishing trip to this lake nearby my place. I used to fish here every weekend for big snakeheads and huge peacock bass.

I rang up Jeremy last week during the long break to join me for a short boat fishing trip since the boat was laying around my yard. Initially I wanted to test the outboard, but not knowing whether it works or not... I would rather not take the chance and have Jeremy bring over his motorguide thruster.

The planned trip was supposely to have the boat touch the water before sunset, but due to some 'technical' hitch, it was delayed till 8am... to have the boat loaded.

A 10-footer looks like a pygmy on his montrous truck.

After having our stomach filled, we were off ..



This monstrous truck is no match for these..... had to stop and let it pass.

Finally... the boat hit the water.. and that is my boatman.. LOL

We did not ventured far from land due to some 'power' problems. Our batteries was not fully charged.

The first fish landed....

Caught that with the 3DS popper on my 4-8lb light tackle setup. Great fun..!!

A lot of raises around that area but the fish couldn't be bothered with lures running above them..

We headed back nearer to the land and tried our luck on peacock bass..

I was surprised to found out that there was not many area at the spot they normally hide.

Then Jeremy caught his first fish... He out smarted one of the 'orange' fish.

Then his second and third.....

That was it... No more fish.. and we headed back for lunch.

It was hard to believe that I did not land a peacock bass where they are abundance in this lake!!!

Before the long break ends, I made a solo trip there across the other side of the lake and did some land based casting...

The weather was not very kind though. I had only an hour of fishing period before it rained heavily.. but it was great fun...  1 cast 1 fish................

Now that is what I am talking about....!!!