The long awaited day came when we arrived at the sleepy town of Bagan Dato, Perak one early February morning of 2009. YH, FG & I endured a tiring overnight bus ride up to the town reaching at an unearthly hour of 5.30am at the jetty! Well, at least we knew the local elderly folk found amusement in 2 blokes sleeping on the main road leading to the jetty when turning up for their morning exercise (should have taken their photos).
Soon enough after a hearty breakfast of roti canai, tosai and nasi lemak, we hopped onto the legendary GT Chaser, skippered none other than Captain Toh Seng Hoo or fondly called Ah Ho, who is no stranger to the Malaysian fishing scene. Probably one of the best skipper captains for sportfishing in Malaysia. It's been about 1 year since I boarded GT Chaser, a 60ft steady vessel with ample fishing, sleeping and popping space complete with kitchen and toilet/shower facilities. I was pleasantly surprised to find the condition of the boat was still as it was a year back - squeaky clean and hardly any sign of wear and tear!
YH seen here doing a John Travolta
Spanking clean as the day I boarded 1 year ago!
Captain Toh Seng Hoo, skipper of GT Chaser fame
This trip was organized by Darren & Damien, two very accomplished jiggers which we had the honour and priviledge to fish with on this trip. (Damien runs the popular jigging blog damienloong.blogspot.com)
Our first stop was a deep stretch of water with some nice drop-offs indicated by the Koden. Ah Ho advised that there were some nice bottom fish and GT to be tackled from here and so down went our jigs. FG, YH and I were jigging with an assortment of Bluefox and Williamson jigs - namely the Herrings, Abyss, Yabai & Benthos jigs between 150-250g.
Men at work...
First to hit was a nice little Golden Snapper that attacked the 250g Bluefox Herring whih was almost half its size! Talk about being greedy! Nothing to shout about but still a Goldie nonetheless which contributed to our dinner that night in the form of freshly steamed fish - yum maayy!! Not long after, YH who was jigging with a Yabai octopus jig, got snagged to some structure below. Within seconds of freeing the jig from the snag below, he had a big take - resulting in a nice Greasy Grouper (that looked more like a mudskipper after its eyes popped out from the pressure coming up from the deep). Yabai-dabai doo! First big fish on Yabai!
Yabai jig caused the downfall of this Grouper
The Grouper that looked like an XL sized mudskipper
To be continued....
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