Just 3 days back, I had my fifth camping trip to Sungai Lembing, Pahang. The journey was quite adventurous with mount climbing, jungle trekking, swimming in the local river, scouting for bamboos in the heavy brushes to make a fishing rod and… all of a sudden stumbled with a tiger. Yes! The animal scientifically called as Panthera tigris jacksoni. I thought if I was not crazy or hallucinated, it was a real Malaysian tiger focusing on me in the brushes. And the place was a converging area between Sungai Kuantan and Sungai Kenau. Some folks suggested as Kuala Kenau. Or Kenau Valley. The tiger was about 80 inches long (approximate to 230 cm) and had all its eyes focusing at me. So that was me… 3 days back on a camping trip but with primary intention – going for reflective fishing.
I started to love fishing back in the ’80s of which time I was just 9-10 years old bloke in South West of Johore. At that time I had my parent sponsoring my fishing tackle. It was either made of Fisherman or Daiwa brand if I could be able to guess. I used to apply the Perfection Loop back then, where I got it from crazy-fishing-fans. They normally cast their lures at small rivers and ponds. But to the more ambitious me, I used to take pride by travelling with my parent to seashores like Muar and Johor Bahru. Whilst my mother painted the surrounding sceneries on her drawing paper, I would wander here and there fly-fishing. Some passersby of whom ended up either curious onlookers or buyers of my mother’s acrylic mixed oil pastels paintings, would show me some techniques of tying knot. And only 3 knots I did remember. But after 35 years I had really discovered their real names. Bimini Twist, Duncan Knot and Improved Clinch. The normal line of me included the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with a thickness between 0X-2X. Ambitiously imbedded to catch either a Marlin or Salmon, I fly-fished like a pro. Although there was no catch at all at the end, I learnt a few things about knots.
Lures were other lessons for me in the past. Since there were no worms to be dug in cities or even their waterfronts like Johor Bahru and Muar, I had to use either the flesh of raw sardine or shrimps/prawns. Raw shrimps were very cheap back then at Johor Bahru’s wet market; now replaced by the gigantic building of City Square JB. 1 pound or ‘kai’ of shrimp cost only MYR1.00. Meanwhile, for raw prawns like tiger prawns cost between MYR3.00 and MYR7.00. Whenever I cast my lures into the little transparent blue-black water, I was disturbed by passing jellyfishes or even floating sea algae. The one and only folklore that was frightening about jellyfishes, spread from mouth to mouth, was that you could lose your hand once beaten by this flaccid sea creature. As a result, the so anxious me had assumed that the jellyfish that stirred and disturbed my fishing line would one way or another hurt my precious hands. So many times I missed ‘what-I-thought’ my would-be precious catch. And in the end there was no catch at all. But I learnt a few things about lures.
When city waterfronts could no longer give any chance to me, I retreated to my village. Clarius batrachus or ‘Keli’, Ophicephalus striatus or ‘haruan’ and Mystus nemurus or ‘baung’ were all the fresh water fishes of my villagers’ pride. Elsewhere, my crazy-fishing-fans of whom some were my school mates, often challenged themselves for a catch of one of those fishes. Monsoon seasons were the best spot where the water level of rivers and ponds rose high. Whenever they splurged the muddy water in front of my house and awakened me, I began to get enthralled by their passion to fish the freshwater fishes. So I busied and hurried myself searching lures such as earthworms, house lizards and frogs. But there was one peculiar forbidden matter about my dwelled land. Nevertheless like a curse, whatever life objects were taken from the land must have its own repercussion. Let’s say if I took a few worms in the morning, later in the evening I would encounter centipede or scorpion. Meanwhile, house lizard became rattlesnake and a frog became a venomous spider. Just because my enthralled instinct had been furiously warming up, I did not care anymore about the repercussion or even my mother’s impermissible signals. I quickly ran out and chased after my crazy-fishing-fans. “Yahoo!”, “Hooray!” was all my blurted words. Full of enthusiasm backed by enthralled energy. That particular time, nobody could be a bold hindrance to me. Here, during these years between 1984 and 1986, I really got my big catches. What I could easily recall were 2 fishes from the Mystus nemurus species, 5 fishes from the Ophicephalus striatus species and 1 extraordinary fish from the Clarius batrachus species. So many times again I had shouted “Yahoo!” and “Hooray!” like it was my final catch for my whole life. But it turned out to be a sombre truth when I could be able to spare my time fishing ever again after 25 YEARS!
The revival of my fishing enthusiasm really happened after 25 years at the age of 38 years old. It was the end year of 2011, just after graduation from college. At that time I was searching for a job in Melaka in an attempt to escape the wild, abusive and double standard Kuala Lumpur. The Melaka waterfront was my choice for fishing. 3 spots of the waterfront were located at Ujong Pasir, Pulau Melaka and the one right behind Holiday Inn, Melaka. And the most memorable moments there included taking pro-photos of Mahkota Hotel, Melaka, sneaking into Holiday Inn for a job, drenched by heavy midnight rain while fishing and sleeping like a log on a rotten bench that was close enough to the sea. But something was amiss. I had no parent and home to go back. But what can I say except carrying on living this life.
My lures were much upgraded since. I would include steel lures, chicken’s intestines, fishes and shrimps. My fishing tackle included miscellaneous hooks, 2-3 types of line, sinkers, floats, aerial-type rod, branded reels like Daiwa and Shimano, nets and gaffs. Even though still recreational fishing but the upgrade of the kits made me proud and confident. My catches included crabs, sea prawns and normal sea fishes. Those fishes included Hampala Barb, Sea Goldie, Ark-Eye Hawkfish, Caranx spp. Or ‘Selar’, Perciformes Scombridae or ‘Kembung’. Some could be caught at the seashore whilst others onboard to the open Straits of Malacca.
Though bushcraft is somewhat related to camping, my newest approach to primitive fishing with only fishing line and hooks had some kind of relevance. And the use of earthworms as baits had me retrograded to the past. Only that for the new moments, I was not fishing at waterfronts but rivers in the deep jungle. Not ponds like my old childhood years but leftover mines that have plenty of resources. The technique of casting lures had to be varied because of unexpected obstacles like disturbance from jungle creatures. And one of the jungle creatures I had seen lately was the Panthera tigris jacksoni. Or the Malaysian wild tiger. Albeit of its ferociousness as a man-eater, its beauty was truly amazing. If not amazing to the general public, at least it was to me.
Concluding this writing, years that passed will bring more experiences to one’s hobby or simply one’s liking. Even if the benefits are not actually in a monetary form however there still satisfaction in it. And maybe who knows, if you cannot get a fish, like me, you might end up confronting….. A tiger.
