Malaysia 18 - 21 april fishing trip

[mack]

Just got back from a 4d3n trip. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks Vin and Shannon for this well organized trip. Appreciate all your time taken to plan, co-ordinate with boatman, buying the stuff locally, budgeting, purchase the air tickets and pack the rods into the tube.

Trip was plan last year when there is a promo ticket (round trip @ $140) by MAS. It took just 3 days to fill up the 8 slots, lucky they took me in as the 9th angler.
Took a 3hrs MAS flight to Malaysia and landed at the new airport. Boat owner and chef came to airport to welcome us. As we have a special request, they took us to a tackle shop to stock up whatever we forgot. The sotong jig was the most important thing we bought there.

Most aspect of the land activity was well taken of. We are pampered with good food and alcohol, no-budget grocery shopping and nice hotel room.

[mack]

Boat was a local fishing boat that comes with 10 beds, toilet, cooking area, dining area, ample rod holders. In terms of size and comfort, it is smaller than David’s boat and does not have aircon. Something special about this boat is that it has electrical (+ and -) points for electrical reels at all rod holder locations. Water storage tank has sufficient water supply for bathing (4d3n trip) if we don’t waste water.

In terms of tackle, we bought a lot, consisiting of 5 electrical reels, jigger 4000, ishidai z30, saltiga z30 twinpower, certate, avet mx, accurate 870. All I can say is, if u intend to fish in sabah for a few trips, get a electrical reel, it helps a lot. We have 3 anglers using size 400 and 500 daiwa reel, it does not have sufficient power to crank big fish up, so size 600 or 750 electrical reel is more suitable.

[mack]

For a 4d3n trip, all we need is 1 good day of fishing and we can fill the ice box. Bottom fishing and jigging is done throughout the 4 days.


On the first day, we reach the spot at 5pm. We started landing fishes on the 3rd spot. Anglers at the left hand side of boat landed GT, angoli, big kaci, grouper,trevally and baby amberjack. Myself and Shannon who is fishing on the right hand side caught only 1 angcho (3kg) each. When night falls, sotong came out in full force. Boatman told us that fresh squid is a good bait for 2nd day of fishing. Using the unique jig bought in tackle shop, we jig non stop for half a night and landed more than 10kg of squid. There is so much squid in the sea, hence fishing on the first night was lousy, only a few big kaci, one tengiri and big emperor were landed.


Boatman was very hardworking on the 2nd morning, hunting for angoli. In the late morning, we hit a good spot, landing many angolis and several bigone. After the fish stop biting, boatman will shift the boat. In the afternoon, we hit a spot which produce several amberjacks and angoli. It’s a tough job bring up an 8 to 10kg amberjack from 100m of water. My Seaborg MT750 makes that job a lot easily. At about 5pm, boatman brought us to a special deepwater spot, my first drop was received by a very strong pull (suspected amberjack), unfortunately hook straighten. Vinz started jigging and on the 3rd stroke, fish on. Amberjack was brought up. Others started jigging and were rewarded with angoli and amberjack. I continued with my bottom fishing and was rewarded with 2nos of AJ and several angoli. It was continuous fishing till 615pm when the AJ and angoli stopped biting. Then another special came. Red ruby snapper started biting. Almost every drop of jig and bait produce a ruby. Boatman also surprised us with a sizeable barracota. Strong wind and wave suddenly started at 730pm and boatman suggested that we shift to shallower waters. It was choppy throughout the night so most anglers went into the bunk for a well deserved rest after a hard day of fishing. 85% of our catch was caught on the 2nd day.


On the 3rd morning, we were hit by 3m waves and boatman suggested that we shift nearer to land. A normal 2 hrs boat journey took 4hours. Boat was rocking like hell and water is splashing into boat through the small gaps. It was a torturing 4 hours. At noon time, when we reach the 7-star grouper spot, lucky the wave downsize to 2m. Most of the anglers came out to try for the prized fish. Within 1 hour, we have 2 or 3 strong pulls(jigger 4000 and daiwa tanacom 500 couldn’t stop) which resulted in sangkot. Boatman’s guess was big 7-star. Whole boat bite rate was quiet for 3 hours before we started landing some long nose emperor. After lower a big fresh squid, there is several light take on my rod and when it dipped, I just crank it all the way up. A 2kg 7-star grouper was my reward. After that fish, i lowered another big sotong. Within 10mins, there was another take, My enhanced jigger 1500nr with 80lbs (almost full drag) cannot stop the fish and it resulted in a straignhten hook. Others landed several reel fishes in the evening. Those jiggers caught several barracuda and one 6kg tenggiri.


It was still choppy on our last night, so most of the anglers retired to the bunk. I continue trying for tenggiri till 1am but nothing landed so I also went to sleep. Heard some commotion at 4am so blur-blur went out to investigate. Boatman and deckie has already landed 4 tenggiri and 1 barracuda. I started fishing and a 8kg tenggiri bite my bait and I brought it up to the surface. Unfortunately, the owner hook straightened as I was fishing very high drag. Owner of boat who was with us landed 20+ reef fishes between 5am to 7am. After a light breakfast, we started our journey back.

[mack]

In my opinion, this is a very good trip (in terms of fish landed) for this area. Photos show only total catch for 9 anglers and exclude boatman and deckie catch (which easily can fill up a big ice box). After taking 18kg of fish each and giving some fishes to deckie and villagers, we sold 100kg+ of fishes back to the boat owner.

We were eating amberjack and ruby fillet for 3 days till we are craving for meat when we came onto land.



To Vinz & other 7 kakis........
Kindly contribute more photos and your version of the trip if u happen to see this thread. Please do correct me if i am wrong.
I am very lucky to fish with a bunch of easy-going and friendly kakis for these 6 days.....thanks everyone.
If we have chance, hope to fish with your guys again.



cheers

[stickbom!]

Wonderful to see familiar faces in action! Thanks for sharing Mack Hey what did you do to the 1500NR? Ctex drags? how much 80lb braid did you fill the reel with? I had 200m of PE4 on mine recently and it was almost 80% full already!! One more question, when you said Daiwa 500's, how big are they? Z20/30 size?

[mack]

Mike,

Great to see u back fishing too.

Hope you enjoy reading my CR

My jigger NR 1500 is modified by Alan of extreme rod. Not sure what drag material did he use. I load in close to 200m of 80lbs power pro. If i am not wrong Daiwa Tanacom 500 is the size of saltiga z40.

cheers

[MarkR]

Nice catch Adrian!

[Blackmarlin]

Mike,

Great to see u back fishing too.

Hope you enjoy reading my CR

My jigger NR 1500 is modified by Alan of extreme rod. Not sure what drag material did he use. I load in close to 200m of 80lbs power pro. If i am not wrong Daiwa Tanacom 500 is the size of saltiga z40.

cheers

Adrian, why do you need to load with 80 lb pp. I think 65lb is damn bloody strong. Imagine trying to burst the 65lb when sangkot already damn "chuan"

[JBS]

Cool man. looking forward to going soon.

[tripleK]

Nice catch and good write up...

[mack]

Robert, Left over lines, so just load into the reel. GF was using this reel during her june 08 sabah trip as it was a small and managable reel for her. For this year's june trip, she wants a electrical reel, so have to start hunting for one.


Alvin, Thanks for the comment, hope your trip in june will be fruitful too.


Mark, Thanks for the comment. Have not fish together for a long time liao. Interest in the penga trip in early May?


Joshua, We will be using another boatman in June. Catches will be subjective as different boatman have different spots. We have to compete with those deckies. But if we can get fresh squid, chances is better. Have prepared 2 types of sotong jigs, will get them for all to share.

[stickbom!]

Mike,

Great to see u back fishing too.

Hope you enjoy reading my CR

My jigger NR 1500 is modified by Alan of extreme rod. Not sure what drag material did he use. I load in close to 200m of 80lbs power pro. If i am not wrong Daiwa Tanacom 500 is the size of saltiga z40.

cheers

Oh I see. The Jigger NR is a nice reel! Very compact and light. Great for jigging.

[tryto2fish]

great haul!!!!

[AmbeRjacKHunter]

Adrian..nice and great all round trip there...

Rgds

[MarkR]

Yo Mack,

Been a bit tied up with personal stuff this month...will be back very soon!

cheers

[mack]

Bro RK,

Gd luck for your upcoming sabah trip, alot of pple is going up there in June.


Mark,

Congratulation on your wedding. Enjoy your honeymoon. A good resort in maldives will be Cocoa island by Como hotel & resort (same owner as the bhutan uma paro resort). Their villas are built like a dhoni (boat) on water, crystal clear beachs, good spa and good service. They should have a boat for big game fishing too.

Cocoa Island Maldives - Como Hotels and Resorts

Await your return to fishing

cheers