BATAK RABIT, PERAK

Batak Rabit, Perak – 14 Feb 2015

Macrobrachium rosenbergii, also known as the giant river prawn, giant freshwater prawn, Malaysian prawn, freshwater scampi, or cherabin, is a species of freshwater shrimp native to the Indo-Pacific region, northern Australia and Southeast Asia. Currently is the beginning of Udang Galah season and I joined in a trip to Batak Rabit, Teluk Intan in search for my first river prawn the Udang Galah.

Since this is my first trip, I do not own any item related to Udang Galah fishing. The only item that I have was sinkers. Thanks to Along who share some of the terminal tackle and Kikilala who shared his 3 rod and reel for freshwater prawn fishing. We make our move from KL around 3pm and arrived at Teluk Intan around 6.30am.

Batak Rabit is a small town situated just before Teluk Intan and along the Perak main river system. There are several boat jetty where you can charter a small boat 15-20ft for prawn fishing. The service was excellent, new boats, clean and you can buy the bait from the owner. The owner was friendly and share us with all the tips and insight of fresh water fishing.

Good morning Teluk Intan 🙂

Our skipper today, Along and Ganu

Once we board all our stuff its time to begin our hunt. Small freshwater prawn is the bait of choice for this trip and we have 2kg of bait for 5 of us. At the beginning was pretty slow and only Ganu and Ijol started off well. The water condition was pretty calm, its just that the water clarity was slightly clearer than the ideal condition for FW prawn fishing. Who cares haha, its time to score some Udang Galah haha 🙂

Its a tight competition in this ecosystem, the small prawn local called it Udang Beras was at the bottom of the food chain and most of the species in this ecosystem would go after it. Including other small fishes that constantly took our bait. Fishing for Udang Galah is a finesse game. Anglers must know how to read the rod movement and slowly pull the rod if we think that there is a FW prawn at the end of the line. I’ve been to local FW Prawn pond, but in the wild altogether its a totally different game .

Afiq preparing his Udang Galah rig, a finesse game

Our boat first score, sifu showed me how pull this tasty treat from the depth

Fresh water prawn fishing requires anglers to fish with multiple rod, more rods means more prawn :)?

We continue to fishing but still no Udang Galah for me. We travel in the surrounding area but than Ganu radio in, he found a good fishing spot. We quickly head to the location and it was jackpot!! We are pulling one Udang Galah after another and the feeling was sensational! Since we are on UL tackle and small fishing hook, it was an even battle between us and the giant prawn. Starting to get the hang of it and soon scored my first Udang Galah. It was not big though but still a good start!

One huge Udang Galah will put a smile on the anglers face haha

Finally! Hahaha

Through out the day, I think we hooked hundreds of this small fish 🙂

Afiq with his catch!

Lucky guy scored a Baung or Native Catfish.. 🙂

Like all fishing, there are problems that I encounter during this trip. First of all is the main line, what I have in my spool was a mono-filament and apparently puffer-fish was constantly biting my main line. I started with three rod and endup with only one as it was too frustrating to retied the rig even though I pre-tied the hooks earlier. When this happen, you will lose your sinker, swivel and hook.

Next time please be sure to bring tons of the three items if you decided to use mono as your main line. This teething problem can eliminated by using 6-10lb braided line. Puffer-fish would bite the line because of the light biased that passed through the line. Scientifically yet to be proven but it happens and really test your nerve.

Along with his biggest catch of this trip, freakin huge!

Afiq gives a thumbs up for his catch 🙂

No big ones for me, 🙁 arghhh still trying to understand when is the right time to pull the rod

Last hour, we end our trip around 7.30pm