Hutan Melintang - 9th Feb - 11th Feb

A trip filled with mixed feelings. Or to be more exact, it was a trip filled with much 'WFT' moments :-p

Destination - Hutan Melintang. Target - Giant Trevally. Method - Jigging.

It was a highly anticipated trip due to the excessive publicity from FisherZone forum, Kingfisher and Rod & Line magazine, declaring this place the 'NEW GT PLAYGROUND', with front page of 20+kg GT and big fat Groupers. Overall it was a good trip, but I guess as always when you expectations are high, you are usually left disappointed with average results. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed myself although there were quite a number of hiccups/'WTF" here and there.

Firstly, i was so busy over the week that I have no time to really plan and pack my equipments. The moment everyone on the boat started unpacking their equipments, I felt so under powered!! There were gigantic Saltigas, Jiggers, ATCs, etc etc with PE 6 - 7 rods, with jigs ranging between 150g - 400g. And there I was sitting at one corner, unpacking my PE 1.8 - PE 5 rods (PE 1.8 Extreme Anglers Custom, PE 3-5 Tenryu JigZam, PE 5 Lemax Sea Game), and reels (Daiwa Caldia Kix 4000, Shimano Navi 8000 & Avet SX). And I do not know what I was thinking when I was packing my jigs, but I actually took out all jigs above 200g and replace them with loads of 30g - 100g. WTF?!? And my heaviest line was 30lbs; main and leader. WTF!?!? I swear sweat was dripping down my spine slowly when I was unpacking then. And as if it wasn't bad enough, the kakis started unpacking their gigantic electric reels, and one of them turned to me and asked, 'Where is your bottom setup?'. I picked up my Avet SX paired with Lemax SeaGame PE5 and give him a 'WTF was I thinking-Look'.

Going back to packing, I charged my camera's battery the nite before departure. So as usual, I started taking pictures the moment we depart from my place. And after my 2nd picture, there's only 1 bar left on the battery indicator. I was like, WTF? And on the 3rd picture, before I could turn off my camera, it shut down by itself... Seriously...WTF?!?!?!

Anyway, shall let the pictures do the talking.

This is the hostel where we spent the nite. I think it's in Teluk Intan. It's the 3rd time I've stayed here. Last 2 times was when we went to Pulau 9.

Setting off to Hutan Melintang. There I was at the far end.

Had breakfast at Teluk Intan town. Seriously...WTF was I thinking with the face like that??
Here we are about to board Sea Garden Fishing Boat (海城号), at the far end.

Hmmm...what's with the face again??

One of the 3 sleeping area.
Some of the arsenal

The chef in action. Overall food on this trip was ok. But when your last trip was on Crystal Coral, their food was... Breakfast we had Maggi Mee Soup and Maggi Mee Goreng. Lunch was fish porridge (Ang Choh and Pek Choh) and plain porridge with eggs and vegs. Dinner was curry ray, tow foo, veg, curry chicken etc.Now lets go into the overall catch report. To a certain extend, Sea Garden/海城号 deserves the attention that it has been getting. Although we only landed 3 GTs on the entire trip, the moments when we passed by the schools was really chaotic.

We reached our first GT spot around 4/5pm. First 30 minutes of drift jigging was very quite. Then on the 3 drift, chaos set in. I was standing on the far left at the end of the boat, jigging a 230g jig with my Jigzam/Navi combo. On the 3rd retrieve after the jig has touched the bottom, i felt a hit. And without thinking much, I jerked my rod 3-4 times to set the hook. Lines started peeling out. And the funny part was, the chef was shouting behind me, 'Jerk Again!!'. So i did. And he shouted again, 'Jerk again!!!!!'. AND I DID!!! And he shouted '1 MORE TIME!!!! Your drag too loose!!' AND I DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And if you've been reading from the top, this is one of the moments. And at that very moment, the jigger beside me, Edmond (Marketing Manager of TCE Sports), got a strike himself. And the same goes to the jigger beside Edmond, and the one beside, and the few others beside every one else. It was maximum chaos!! You can hear people shouting 'YES YES!!', and another 'AIYA!!!! WTF!!?!?!?'. Unfortunately for most, only Edmond and myself had a solid hookup. And from there, it was pretty much a 2 man show.

Here's my first GT :-)

As fast as the chaos started, everything was quite after both the GTs were landed. And after a high-five with Edmond, I put my rod back in the rod holder, and light myself a rewarding ciggie and a few gulp of icy mineral water. Although it wasn't a very long fight, it was very draining especially for someone who hardly exercise, or shall I say, hardly move his ass...

After the short break, although I was still tired I started jigging again at the same spot. Within 15 minutes, I felt a strike at mid water level. After 3 hard solid jerk, GAME ON!!! :-)))) This time, I can feel it's a bigger fish as the run was faster and the lift was much heavier. Took me twice longer than the first GT. And when it was finally landed, it made me a VERY lazy man for the next 2 days. 1st of all, both my arms were aching like mad throughout. Secondly, the feeling of 'Mission Accomplished!' was just too strong... :-p So I pretty much spent the remaining time sleeping, and lepaking around; and not to mention some 'Crap Talk' and High-Five by Edmond and myself cos after I land the GT, he jigged himself a good size shark. It was landed cos when they tried to gaff it, the leader got cut off.

Here are some pictures of the GT moment captured by Ah Wah :-) It's not everyday you get to jig a GT. So even when you are dead tired, POSE!!!

This was definitely the most painful moment. As if I still have any strength left to pose with the fish. But WTF!??! It's a GT!!! LIFT!!!!!!!!!!!

From the entire trip, I only landed 2 GT and 1 other fish which I don't know what to call. I didn't do any bottom as it was really tiring reeling up some dead weight with tiny reels. On the first nite, the bottom kakis reeled up quite a number of Pek Chohs and some good size Ang Chohs. Second nite of bottom was a bit more quite. As for jigging, we came across 2 GT schools on the 1st day and none on the 2nd day, and only 3 was landed in total. On the second day, we came across a school of Ang Chohs. I think around 6 was landed, all on jig.

Here are some pictures of parts of the other catches. Still waiting for the other kakis to send me their pics. Hopefully will have more pictures to post later.

Here's a...Pek Choh (I think) landed by one of the bottom angler.

Lai with his squid. Thank you Lai! Most of the pictures you see here are from him :-)

Ah Hou. Ex Kingfisher camera person. Check out the eyes...

Check out the eyes again!! Ang Choh sure made a difference...

Lai with another or same Ang Choh as the one above. I'm not sure as I was sleeping already. I think it was jointly landed...

Here's another WTF moment...

Here are some BORROWED specimens :-p

Grouper caught while the bottom kaki was reeling in his bait on his electric reel. Halfway up, this Grouper whacked the bait :-o

Ang Choh from jigging.