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| Baung Akar, one of many catfish species in Malaysia |
DAY II
We started the day early to start fishing, since it rained last night the water condition doesn’t improve. Our rations only dried and canned food for 4 days, now its time to look for our fresh meal. Mr. Rahim told us that in this conditions, Baung Akar can be found in abundance as it crawls out from their hiding spot and feeds on debris washed into the river. The effective bait is grasshoppers and worm. I’ve never had this experience since I was a kid. Digging for worm, strafing across the grass for grasshoppers. Sometime we take for granted with all the technical fishing and modern equipment. This is classic, trying to catch a fish for lunch and dinner.
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| Baung Akar |
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| They are small, cant wait to sample the taste |
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| Our new guide.. Azmi haha |
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| One of many Baung caught in the morning session |
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| Enjoying our time |
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| Yum2.. now we can focused on our casting session in the evening |
After our morning session, we refresh ourselves and cooked our lunch. We only had Sardines and Anchovies Chillies and it tasted very good. Probably we were to hungry and we had a top notch chef in our group. Right after lunch, we were joined by another group angler from Penang, its a good sign when there is more people in one location. Since there is only 6 of us in Jeram Ketir, it can be quite intimidating, if there is any unforeseen emergencies or threats that we might encounter in this lush thick jungle. Anglers have to remember that Royal Belum is a virgin rainforest. There are possibilities that we could encounter wild animals and having a good guide is a must as we focus on our safety as our main priority.
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| Along will be our Chef today! |
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| Sardines.. Yummieh |
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| Small river system connected to the main river, cleaner water source |
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| Bathing! Smell like elephant already hahaha |
Our afternoon sessions starts at 3.00pm, we head upstream for our casting session. Our target is the Hampala Barb (Sebarau). There are 3 stages of rapid in Jeram Ketir. As we walk upstream, we continue to cast along the river targeting structures and shrub that might be a place where Sebarau would lurk, waiting to ambush on small fish. Altima Spoons and Rapala Shadrap size 5,7 or 8 is effective in enticing Sebarau to initiate a strike. Our team manage to land 2 Sebarau, we have release a smaller one and we take home one large Sebarau for our dinner. The path along the river system is rocky and challenging as we head upstream, but it created a new level of challenge that we need to face in order to secure our Sebarau Trophy.
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| Along |
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| Murky water = no fish =( |
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| Work hard! |
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| Casting upstream along the river.. Challenging! |
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| Beautiful scenery |
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| Me =D |
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| This is our private pool haha |
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| Safely release, CNR on small ones and take only what you need |
We head back to base, and prepare our dinner. This would my first time tasting Sebarau. Our menu for tonight is Baung Masak Lemak and Sebarau Goreng Kunyit. Tasting fresh fish is something that can’t be bought in any fish mongers. The water condition did improve and there is only slight rain in the evening. We head into our night fishing session without any Mahseer hitting our bait. We manage to land some more Baung and we called it day, preparing for our third day outing.
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| Dinner Time |
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| Cooking Area |
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| Usually pictures are taken after our dinner, thus only few left in the pot haha |
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| Soldier’s Smoke |
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| Enjoying his dinner |
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| Chit chat while waiting our bait to be taken by mahseer |
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| We wrap the day with this fine catch! |
