Of fishing with Ikhwan at Mengkabung(Not sure how to spell that)

Hey people!

As said in the earlier post, will post here the tales of my time going fishing with Ikhwan.

It was last Saturday.

I had futsal in the morning from 10-12. I slept at 3.30 and woke up at 9. Went to futsal. Was quite off target. Then went back. On the way back, fetched Ikhwan.

Here the story starts, alright, now as I reached back, got my servant to fry some eggs and cut some fruits for me to eat breakfast(More like lunch). Fruits for the dessert and to offer Ikhwan.

Got the stuff ready, all the fishing gears that is.
1.Fishing rods
2.Spare fishing line
3.Some weights
4.Some swivels
5.Some hooks

Pretty much all set really. Then off to look for bait!

On the way, I saw the usual fishing store and dropped by to restock on fishing equipment(Hooks and weights(Stones i'd call it from now on) and some swivel as we needed more)

Done, all stocked up, then on to get baits, went to the small pasar*(would you call it pasar ikhwan?) got a bait that we normally used with my family. Ikan basung or basungan. or whatever you call it, but that 1.

Now all set to fishing.

Finally!

A good 20+minutes drive I think, didnt time it. Finally reach the place where we wanted to.

Now all set and got our fishing gear ready at the "boat docks?". Well there, anyhow, first thing was to set up the hooks, swivels and stones to the fishing line. Set up mine, then set up Ikhwan's.

Yay! Finally we can fish, 1st throw to show Ikhwan how to throw(whats the proper word for this?) the bait out, abit not right, as the roof in the dock was rather low and disturbing.

So I threw it again. Poof! The top half of the fishing rod flew of into the sea. I was like "Oh shit!" Ikhwan was just staring not realizing at first. then i told him the top part flew in the water. ahahahah!

So yeah, thank goodness, the swivel, stone and hook was all intake, and we could reel in the top bit.

To add to that embarassment, the dock had 4-5 people, 2-3 of them working on repairing it. Not sure wether they saw though! Hahaha!

So yeah, Ikhwan said he already pushed the top bit in to the max. I didn't check properly before showing him how to throw it so yeah, its partly my fault.

But thats not the main reason though. Apparently there was some soil and weird white and black goo that looks like smashed fly larvae and swamp soil in the hole of the main part of the rod where ur supposed to put the top part in.

So I borrowed Ikhwan my fishing rod instead while I try to properly put in the fishing rod. It took me about 45 mins to 1 hour just trying to clear the hole out properly and finally put in the rod properly! What a waste of time!

(Told my mum about this(It was her rod) and she said Jerrick(My cousin) was the one who played with it before, and saying he oked it into the soil back at home.)

So yeah, we finally got both fishing rods working. But I got annoyed though. I couldnt throw the bait far enough as the roof was really low. To add to the problem, the people were repairing the dock was hammering away so it probably scared off all the fishes. So in the end(I should have mentioned this earlier), we took the offer of Ikhwan's Mom's friend of hiring a boat to somewhere along the river/sea to a better fishing spot. So yeah, got there, under the Mengkabung bridge. One of the pillars(?). Surrounded by water like a really small island. And told the dude to come pick is up at 5. It was around 2-3 then I think. So yeah, now I was excited, as I've been wanting to hire a boat to get on here in ages. All this while we only went fishing in a more rocky area at side of the river where its much shallower with sharp and jagged rocks where our fishing hooks, swivels and stones kept getting stuck and lost. So yeah, now on this island(hahah) we were surrounded by really deep water, with very strong currents. Which is the closest I could get to deep sea fishing.( I ever caught a baracuda in the nearby shallower area i mentioned earlier.) Hahah!


(Mengkabung river)

So yeah, got our baits in the river/sea and waited. While waiting, I ended up getting one of the line roll thingies to become proper fishing stuff without the rods. (Ohhh, its called a spool, just check it on google) As I lowered it down to the sea/river. I noticed that all around the 'island' was little baby fishes. Now realizing the hook was too big to hook them in. I got another spool and set it up with smaller, stone and hook so that I might be able to catch them(Net would have been so much easier).(A spool)

As I was doing this, my rod started moving. The usual action of a bite. So i dropped what I was doing and started to reel it in. First it sort of felt like it got away, so i slowed down. Then the 'fish' pulled again, so i reeled it in quickly. When I finally did, voila! nothing but bait! ahhh... we got excited and I told Ikhwan to text the dude to pick us up at 6 instead. Expecting more fishes to come as this was normaly the time all the fishes start biting when my family goes fishing here.

Then I got back to setting up the spool and lowered it slowly to the baby fishes.

To my surprise! They completely ignored the bait. Completely unlike the usual way where they all start fighting over it!

Now I thought there was something fishy going on(funny enough~!) From here till 6 o clock, there wasn't actually anymore action happening!

Seriously nothing!

Before 6, ikhwan ended up making a whole fish as a bait. ahaha!

At 6 the dude with the boat came, and Ikhwan reeled in his bait. The dude thought he caught it! and was saying "Wow! You caught a big fish!" In Malay that is. I was like, oh its the bait actually.

Now, we got back in the boat, packed everything up(First time fishing without catching a single fish for my part) Back to where the dock was. Ikhwan's Mum's friend gave us some pisang goreng and some tea to drink. We headed back home.

Few hours later, Ikhwan texted me. Well maybe not a few, prolly just and hour plus later. yeah, Ikhwan texted me saying these exact words.

"...btw, the fish we bought was temenung..hahaha.. no wonder.lol"

Now theres the reason why!! it wasnt ikan basung!! temenung unlike the basung, had much lesser "smell" in the water and thus, fishes dont attract to them(Not even the baby fishes which was a surprise)

So yeah, the lesson of the story is, next time you go fishing, make sure you got the right bait!

*Credit to those who originally posted the photos, I just took them off google