As we are gearing up for an exciting APR 2017, with Kuala Rompin, Pekan and Royal Belum is on the main list. I am delighted to be able to end March with 4 Day Tour around Perak. Daniel, an Australian guy who lived and work in Singapore decided to come over to spend his holidays fishing for Freshwater Game Fish Species. Peacock Bass, Jungle Perch aka Sebarau and Giant Snakehead are the best three Freshwater Game Fish Species that area available in Malaysia. Daniel will be travelling with his buddy Mitch and their adventure starts in Penang. It is a bit more convenient for travelers to land and depart from Penang as the distance to the fishing ground was more or less 2.5 hours from Penang.
We took an early morning drive to Lenggong, Perak. A place called Kampung Beng or Kg Beng, is home to one of Malaysia’s favorite invasive Game Fish Species, the Peacock Bass. You don’t get Temensis in Kg Beng, the dominant Peacock Bass fish here has to be the Butterfly variant. After 2.5 hour drive, finally we reached the spot at 8.00am. Just in time for some local kampung made breakfast. So much has changed over the past 1 year, they have new access road with a new house catered to private group. We just can’t wait to get it started, after a quick breakfast we head out to start our day 1.
Day 1 – Let the game begin!
Morning session is always a good time to score some early points. Basically fish are known to be active “feeding” in the morning and evening. One thing I love about Kg Beng Mini Amazon is the fishing spot is not situated at the main Sg Perak river. Most of the spot are small streams or small ponds that are connected to the main river. We would maneuver through small stream just to get to the fishing spot. The main river was a little bit murky, but it was better as we travel along small stream and pond. As usual, it is infested with Hydrilla and most of the Peacock Bass would dig deep in this Hydrilla. Waiting to ambush baitfish and hopefully our lure.
One thing they tried in the morning was rubber frog. A lure made of rubber and shaped into a small frog. Comes with two jointed hooks and blade. It is often used when we came across shallow and weedy area. Daniel put one to effective use when he scored our first fish of the day. It was a Common Snakehead and it was a good size. Maybe around 2lb. For a fish that size, it will hit the rubber frog hard and Daniel did it with good control.
Bang Lan taken us to a lot of spot that morning but only manage to convert one good strike and land a Haruan. We did try a numbers of lures and see which one is effective and hopefully during the evening session we can be prepared. Time was 12.00pm and its time to head home for our lunch. Home made kampung style dishes, with some chicken, fish and rice. Both Daniel and Mitch enjoyed it. Especially a special dish called Ikan Pekasam or fermented fish. It is deep fried and it has a very crunchy salty flavor which makes a good side dish for our rice. We decided to have our evening nap and head out again later today. I was dead asleep when I notice it was raining heavily outside, those cooling effect does add in an extra hour of your sleep haha.
As the rain stops, we gather ourselves and had evening tea or coffee. We went out again at a different location. Bang Lan told me that it is more effective when we use large size topwater lure or popper. Around 7-10cm. I did bring a new Chug Bug Rattlin 7cm. As soon as it hits the water, BOOM! A good attempt from the Peacock Bass to swallow it as it pops and rattle above the Hydrilla, but missed. Second cast generated another strike, this time I manage to hook it. Peacock Bass is very good in acrobatic jumps, and shakes its head to shake off the lure. Apparently that is how I loss my fish. We had a couple of strike later on but non of them were converted. We did our best for Day 1 and as the light begins to dims away over the horizon. We head home, shower and ready for our dinner.
Day 2 – The Adrenalin Rush!
It was very cold morning. Quite. Most of the other anglers that was here on Sunday now has to work, cause its Monday. It does feel good to throw away your Monday blues and just go out fishing. We had Nasi Lemak for breakfast. Malaysia’s iconic breakfast. The game plan for today is to focused on using popper through out the day. A little bit of composure and focused did help us for the morning session of day 2. Daniel finally scored a Peacock Bass. It was a good start and finally we can scratch off Peacock Bass from the bucket list. Mitch was doing fine but luck was not on his side.
We continue on before our lunch break. A location closed to the main bridge that crosses the Chenderoh lake. Basically, the side of the lake was filled by a Pandanus type of tree. Fish would lurk underneath that tree. What we do is, instead of popping above the weeds. We cast our lure close to the edge of the Pandanus Type Tree or locally we called in Mengkuang. We lost a couple of good strike and Daniel was the only who get a perfect hookup on one of the Peacock Bass. He had it perfectly on the line and all I need to do is to lipgrip it to get it into the boat. I did ask him to hold the fish for a while and it was a decent size Peacock Bass. Maybe around 40-50cm. He was on a very light line, 10lb. He tries to pull the fish into the boat using the line and it snapped in the end. OMG, that could have been a good trophy Peacock Bass hahaha.
After lunch, its time for a break and nap. It seems like a trend now as it is raining again in the evening. This time it was raining quite late, with a bit of thunder and lightning. We can only head down to our last session at 5pm and we only have effectively 2 hours to make the most of the day. It was just a light drizzle when we get to the spot, we started our day with some topwater lure.
Clearly we can see a weed line just below the water. We popped across the weed and Hydrilla. Bang Lan Rapala Skipper Pop were smacked by a Peacock Bass but did not connect properly. We tried the whole area but that was the only action we had this evening. We continue on fishing along a small stream. Pandanus tree were everywhere and we scouted every feet of it. Bang Lan yet again was lucky as his top water plug were hit by a Juvenile Toman. At the closing stage, we went back to the place where Daniel scored his Peacock Bass. However not a single rise and activity can be seen. We head back by 7.00pm. The sky was very clear and to watch a beautiful landscape of Kg Beng Mini Amazon was amazing. Clearly it was a slow 2 day in Kg Beng. After this we are off to Royal Belum and hopefully we can expect better fishing and Mitch get a good chance to end his 2 day run without any fish.
