Karang DO, Rompin – 6 SEP 2015
I always put Rompin as the Mecca for SW fishing in Malaysia. The center of sports fishing in Malaysia and the anglers that went there demands great service and expects to have a great outing with friends or families. It is nerve wrecking at times thinking about how to ensure that people would experience a great outing in Rompin, plus its even more nerve wrecking when Scott wanted to go Rompin and wanted to go out with our team ahaha!
Scott Bremner, the guys I’ve go out fishing since Nov 2014, formed a team for the Royal Pahang International Billfish Challenge 2015 called the Sail Slayers. A three man team Scott, Chris and Erin will take on big teams to earn their rights in the Rompin Hall of Fame. This is actually a 2 day outing but I decided to compile everything within one day.
My day started in Friday, drive to Rompin early to make all the arrangements for homestays, terminal tackle and the most important thing is to go to the jetty to get some insight on how’s the fishing have been going on over the last 2-3 days. Weather has been a bit rough and getting a baitfish was the biggest challenge.This time, Scott, Erin and Bill a newcomer will be fishing in Rompin for the next 2 days. They arrive quite late to the house, unpacked our stuff and bullshit most of the with the boys until 2.00am haha. This wills serve them as a 2 day training outing for them and basically we are going to try different technique rather than just drifting livebaits. Popping, Trolling or even Flyfishing! We called it a day as it was getting late and pray the weather is going to be OK and hoping the baitfish is there where it was suppose to be.
Day 1
Morning of Day 1, we had breakfast at James and the weather was awesome! Clear blue sky. That’s a great relief, and hopefully it will last long towards the end of the day. As we head out to our first Unjam, the baitfish indeed was a challenge. Other fishes like a variety of small coral fish is around but species like Tamban, Kembong, Selar was scarce! We change 2 spots for baitfish and still the result is the same. We only had a handful of baitfish it was getting close to 10.00am thus we decided to head off to our fishing spot.
We had to make use with what we have and drifted our bait several time. Luckily Sailfish is around and willing to take our bait. We had a couple of strikes from Erin and Bill but somehow the hook are not set properly or not at the opportune moment. After couple of drifts Erin finally got his bait taken by a predatory species. The fight was brief but it was a Queenfish. Queenfish is always an opener for any of our SW trip, so lets the game begin haha!
Huge Queenie! I just don’t get, every time Queenfish will be the opener of our SW trip haha! Erin with his opener!
Erin is really passionate about his fishing, an avid fly fisherman and loves the great outdoors back in his home country Canada. Fishing for Salmon, Trout, Halibut and the list goes on and on. He represents a completely different fishing style, fly rod and reel plus coffee grinders “huge multiplier reel” as compared to how local always use a spinning reel.
We moved on to our next round of drifts, Scott still tries hard to land his first Sails on a popper. Bill drifted lives and Erin working on his fly rod and reel. Sailfish took both rod and reel. Bill loses the fish but Erin got the hook properly set and the game was on! The Islander fly reel was soo loud! Screamin when the fish went for it first sprint.
Seriously I don’t no if that reel have any drag on it, but one way to stop it was to palm it, if its going at 80-100km/h I don’t think its a good idea haha.
The fish is travelling faster then our pace in reel in the line. Slack on the line will give the Sailfish a chance to unhook or cut the leader
Erin fight with the fish gives us a big boost in our spirit! We want more!
Erin finally landed his Sailfish! To reel it in on a fly reel probably heightens the excitement haha!
We bid farewell to our one and only sailfish in Day 1.. Sad2 result
That was the one and only sailfish in day. Simply there aren’t enough baitfish to play around and that ended our livebait fishing. Erin wanted to try out some trolling lure and we just give it a go. We trolled around the fishing spot where sailfish were spotted. No luck. We tried almost everything today, we haven’t really stopped fishing for a minute. Erin final bait got hit by a Mahi but the battle was brief and Erin loss the fish. We ended day 1 with just one Sailfish. We headed back around 6.00pm and stop by at James for a nice dinner. Headback and sleep early to get ready for day 2.
Erin rigging up trolling lures and setting up 2 coffee grinders for our first trolling session
Zuker’s Trolling Lure! First time I’ve seen how it was rigged, pretty cool, should try some on Tenggiri
We wrap up day 1 and hopes day 2 will be better
DAY 2
We started Day 2 as early as possible, and we haul a good number of baitfish! Finally! At least 20-30 of them but I know, once we head to Karang DO, there aren’t any chance we are getting any baitfish at the location. We begin our day fairly well with several takers but Erin was the first one with his first sail of the day. Bill after almost 7 takes in 2 days yet again hard to find the sweet spot hooking the fish.
Erin again on the loudest fishing reel in Rompin at that moment of time was on his way for the second fish of this two day trip. It simply is amazing fighting sailfish on a fly reel. It is entirely up to the anglers ability to ensure tension on the line, and he is good at it. Bringing home a beautiful Sailfish!
Sailfish! Erin setting the benchmark in Day 2
After things started to slowed down a bit, we head up further Karang DO, towards the open sea, all the boats are concentrated at the area and birds are everywhere. I kept an ear on the status over that side and the fish is taking bait but there aren’t any baitfish in the area. We still have plenty of them and head straight into the battlefield.
As we are approaching the diving birds, several sailfish surfaces and directed Scott to continue sending those topwater lures at the school of sailfish. Bill and Erin drop the live-bait including me. At first Erin’s bait were taken but lose it, Bill got a good take and finally! He sets the hook and its Game On! I was drifting the bait slowly and a sudden dash as the lines spills out, a sign that a Sailfish already took the bait, lock the bail arm and reel it to tighten the drag and it was ON! As pass the rod to Scott and double hook on its way!
Double hookup! and finally a picture of Scott in my report haha!
The fish jumps out of the water in attempt to cut the line or losen the grip of the circle hook! Luckily after all the cross over it didn’t cause any tangle! That would be a major headache for us!
Tango on the Deck! Scott and Bill dance and dance like the world would end tomorrow. The line cross over many times, the fish went under the boat and literally mayhem on the deck. It was great see both of them control the line pretty well, Bill was on fire, trying hard to land his first Sailfish on Malaya sea. It was an awesome sight, Bill finally had upperhand and land the Sailfish. Scott’s sailfish was not ready to throw the towel and still put up some fast dash and swims under the boat.
Bill finally lifted his trophy catch while in the background Scott is still fighting his Sailfish. Few minutes later he landed a monster Sailfish! It was huge but probably not the biggest I’ve seen but it is still an awesome experience.!! No 2 and No 3 safely landed!
Bill and his first Sailfish of Malaya Sea! Thumbs up and great job!
Scott and is sailfish! Finally!
We have landed 4 Sailfish in 2 days, not the greatest tally but still it was a great fishing outing. Bill caught another one, but sadly it was tangled with another boat. Unacceptable! but that’s how it goes some times. I spend 3 awesome day with Scott, Erin and Bill. I wish the best of luck to win the RPBIC 2015. Although by the time I’ve finish with this write-up I’ve already known the result haha.
We head back early to had an early dinner. We packed our stuff and they set off back to KL. Sad to depart with them but surely there are other fishing times. Picked up Eddie who’s leading another team with a tally of 6 Sailfish and we head back to reality and leave wonderland for now. A pleasure to take you guys out and hopefully we will be back for some more action next year!
