PULAU SEMBILAN, PERAK - 28 MAR 2015

PULAU SEMBILAN – 28 MAR 2015

It all began when Razi texted me there is an opening for Pulau Sembilan jigging trip and its organized by Ejal and Ayie from Ikanz group. Since I can’t head out to Port Dickson on the 28th, I switched planned and invited Doug Bailey with me to a jigging trip to Pulau Sembilan. I called Ejal and told them that we are in for his trip. Pulau Sembilan or 9 Islands is a small patch of literally 9 island that are grouped together in one area.

There are a lot of jigging spot around the 9 Islands and it is one of Malaysia’s famous fishing spot in Perak which is right after Pulau Jarak. Rod and reel setup is almost similar to Port Dickson and I had my faithful Daiwa Luvias with me paired with Major Craft Solpara LJ. Jig weight range starts from 12g and 100g. Pulau Sembilan is really famous for its Giant Scads and can weight up to 4lb each. Usually Scads travel in large group and we can catch them by using small metal jigs.

As good as it may sound, I think Pulau Sembilan has lost some of its shines as the place was under pressure due to excessive fishing activity. My last visit to this place was probably one of the worst 2013 fishing trip lol. The surrounding islands was littered with garbage. Pulau Lalang, was the usual afternoon stop-over for lunch and rest was covered with garbage and it a pain in the eyes to waste such a beautiful fishing spot. I kept and very low expectation and focused in enjoying the weekend. We head out from KL around 10pm and we reach at the chalet at 2.00pm. We had our short rest and prepare all our fishing gear, hopefully I can get a lot of content for the outing report 🙂 .

We begin our morning session with casting and popping along the first Island, hoping to score a GT, Barracuda or Queenfish.

Doug fishing sessions begins with Yozuri … Popper haha can’t recall. Good action though, diving popper with bubble trail, too bad nothing is interested with our popper.

We arrived at our first fishing spot to kick off our morning session. We drop down our jig and begin jigging, hoping to score a good pelagic species. After a few drifts, not a single fish is interested at our jigs. Coupled with strong morning winds that churns the sea really tested our ability to stay on top of things haha.

We decided to cast along the island shoreline instead hoping a GT might lurk beneath the rough current and wave. Rocky structure, strong current and wave ripple might be a good fishing spot for GT’s. Our boatman is very good in maneuvering the boat along the island shoreline, Ejal and Doug begin their casting session while me and ayie enjoying the show hoping for a sudden splash of GT taking their lures. To no avail, our luck in scoring our first fish still has to wait at another fishing spot.

Next spot is situated at the center of the 9 islands, a drop off zone from 20ft to 50ft of water. We drifted from shallow to deep water and finally I scored the first fish of the day. The fight was quite brief with a few quick dash and it ended with an elegent acrobatic jump haha. It was a Queenfish! Several drift later I ended with 4 Queenfish which two of them was safely released. The strike zone was around the drop zone and I was able to time the jig perfectly on top of a school of Queenfish.

Queenfish! This fish are common in Malaysian waters, my first in Pulau Sembilan

Ayie first of the day! Another Queenfish!

Not a bad size, Queenfish is still fun!

Queenfish No 2, keep um comin!

Queenfish No 3, fun on light tackle 🙂

One final Queenfish of the day, handling it can be tricky as it is quite slimy and beware of the two spike at the bottom of its head.

Our boatman manage to land one and Ayie scored one too. As the current started to change, the Queenfish has gone. Soon after a few drift later, my lucky jig was taken by a Golden Snapper haha. Not big but definitely a keeper! That snapper was our last fish for the first half. It was already 1pm, we decided to rest at Pulau Lalang and have our lunch!

Jenahak aka Golden Snapper. I’ve caught one previously using live bait but this time with a jig 🙂

Instead of chartering sports fishing boat, anglers can also charter fishing boat which can fit more angler during one trip.

Pulau Sembilan has been a safe zone against any strong winds and bad weather. The 9 Islands provides shelter for fishing boat and Pulau Lalang is one Island that are built with facilities like shelter and toilets. Its an open concept and all people can use the facilities for free.

After 2 years, we were astonish by the changes that happens to Pulau Lalang. It was wayyyyyy better and clean! Seeing the place changes just rejuvenates us haha! We stop by and had our lunch that we bought earlier at the food stall. Such a beautiful scenery and a great place to re-energize ourselves for the second half of the day. We slept for while just to give that extra energy to continue our jigging session. The place was relaxing to our mind and body that we overslept! We bid farewell at the place and continue our second session only at 3.00pm

Not a bad place for our lunch break 🙂

Captivated by the changes in Pulau Lalang, now its a clean place and a hotspot for tourist!

Pristine clear water and white sandy beach, its hard to resist and Doug taking a dip!

We head out behind Pulau Lalang for our final jigging spot within the 9 Islands. A baby grouper was my next catch! After a few drifts, no more fish are interested with our jigs. We head out to the final jigging spot. Pulau batu putih which is slightly further away from Pulau Sembilan. It is a place known for Giant Scads and we were lucky that a frenzy of Scads attacks the Pulau Batu Putih! It was a scene I’ve never seen before.

The fish frenzy was so intense and loud! All of us cast our jigs and lures into the middle of fish frenzy and Ejal, Ayie scored a nice Giant Scads and finally Doug first SW fish in Malaysia, another Queenfish! We were too focused in capitalizing the giant scads and we caught a bunch of them!

Ejal work so hard today, tirelessly jigging all day but it was the Giant Scad on lure that made his day 🙂 #manis lol

SW Trip can be challenging due to the heat and demanding jigging technique to our physics. Doug never gave up that day, once he got the technique, finally scored his first Queenfish!

Malaya Fish Wear, checkout their latest collection on exclusively from Ikanz, background Pulau Batu Puteh

Not many images for the evening session as mentioned earlier, we are to focused capturing the Giant Scad which is good eating fish! To my surprise several Sailfish were spotted at our final fishing spot at Pulau Batu Hitam. Sailfish has been hammering scads and not long after that it all went quiet.

Sails must have spooked the scads away and that’s a sign that our fishing session for Pulau Sembilan is over! What a great trip!!!! I must say thank you to Ejal and Ayie for having me and Doug in this great angling journey. Appreciate it and hopefully more fruitful trip to all of us 🙂 Thank you for reading!