Island Hopping at Pangkor & Pulau Sembilan

It took 3 months of planning & many hours of discussions. Initially it was a team of 8 anglers but 3 drop out during the last few days due to various reasons. We finally made the trip on a Friday, 17th of May 2013. Gathering at a friend's place at 3:30 am. We drove for 3 hours from Kota Damansara all the way to Lumut via the Kuala Selangor - Seri Manjung coastal roads. We stopped by Sitiawan for breakfast then continued our road journey & finally arrived at Marina Cove before 8:00 am.

When the boat arrived at 8:50 am, we immediately hop on-board & loaded up our tackles. First stop was Pangkor island fishing village where the crew had to collect some needed supplies of fresh baits & cooking ingredients. Comparing Port Klang & Pulau Ketam, Pangkor is so much cleaner with evidently much lesser floating garbage. Water around here was clean & relatively garbage free. The tekong (local name for Captain) wasted no time & gunned the engine straight to our first fishing spot located around Pangkor Laut Island.

First spot was pretty uneventful as none of us registered a bite. Some of us did casting with lures, others with vertical jigs & most of us did bottom with Sabiki rigs. After spending about 45 mins of fishing without results, the tekong suggested we move straight to Batu Puteh which is actually the entry point into Pulau Sembilan islands. Journey there by boat took almost 30 mins but when we arrived, the sea birds were the first creatures to welcome us as they were flying about circling the rock island. Boils could be seen all around the island indicating fishes were in a feeding frenzy. We wasted no time & immediately started fishing.

My first approach was to use lures & jigs to entice some pelagic fishes to bite. According to the tekong, this is a hot spot for Cencaru (Hard tail Scad), Cermin (Trevally) & Talang (Queenfish) fishes. Daniel registered the first hook up with a good sized Cencaru of 1kg on jig followed by myself with a similar fish on jig too. We did casting with spoons, jigs & even deployed Sabiki rigs to do bottom fishing. Every angler including the crew were on an adrenaline rush as we had just stumbled onto a school of Cencaru on a feeding frenzy. Everyone was hauling fish after fish.

While the feeding frenzy was on going, Daniel had a hook up with a good size Talang of 2.5kg which got the attention of everyone. The tussle was most entertaining as this was the first in the trip that we had a genuine rod bending, reel screaming kind of action. Soon after landing the fish, I too registered a bite followed by a solid hook up. I tussled with the strong fish & in my mind I thought it would be a Talang too but it turned out to be a 1.5kg Cermin (Longtail Trevally).

After about 2 hours, the action finally stopped & the tekong suggested that we should move back to Pangkor Laut as strong winds was picking up indicating an impending storm. Not wanting to jeopardize the safety of everyone, I agreed to make a quick escape back to Pangkor Laut as the rocky shorelines would provide some cover. While we were there, the tekong whip up a simple lunch of rice, fish curry & salted egg. When you are hungry & exhausted, any warm meal looks delicious.

After lunch, we continued on fishing at several more spots around Pangkor & Pangkor Laut moving from place to place every hour or so but the results were poor. We caught some demersal fishes like baby groupers, stone fishes & even croakers but there was nothing to shout about. Most of the fishes caught around here were not fit for eating so we released them. By 5:00 pm, I had begun to loose patience with the poor results & suggested to the tekong that we should head back out to Batu Puteh. He agreed & we arrived there at about 5:45 pm.

Immediately upon arrival, I dropped my Sabiki rig straight down to the bottom. To my surprised, a fish took it in less than a min, followed by another & another until I got the feeling that 3 fishes was hooked up to my rig. After about 1/2 a min of hauling it up, it was indeed, 3 good size 1kg cencaru had latched onto my rig. That was a morale booster which prompted everyone to switch to Sabiki rig bottom fishing for cencaru. From then onward, we were hooking up cencaru after cencaru fishes. While at the sea bed, the fishes were on a feeding frenzy, the anglers on the surface were on an equally if not crazier fishing frenzy too.

For this 2nd round of the day in evening at Batu Puteh, I have decided to abandon casting & solely focused on bottom fishing with Sabiki rigs. While the morning session got us more than 10 cencaru, the evening session resulted in a sudden increase to more than 30. While the frenzy was on going, I even had 5 fish hook up! That is one memorable experience I won't forget. Although I've hooked up 5 Gelama (Sin Croaker) fishes at one go at Pulau Ketam, this was a different experience all together.

By 7:00 pm, the action had stopped as I believe the school of cencaru & Talang had moved on to other places. We slowed down & enjoyed the sun set evening of dusk & prepared for dinner. After dinner when it was pitch black dark, it was time for squidding but it turned out to be unproductive as the squids were not in numbers & not aggressive either to take our squid jigs. After 9:00 pm, the tekong took the boat back to Pangkor Laut where we anchor near the rocky shorelines to take shelter & call it a day. We did bottom fishing till midnight but again, it was unproductive as the catches were small & few. Myself doze off at around 1:00 am & we did no fishing further on. By 6:30 am, the tekong called for us to switch places again but we told him we've had enough for this trip. So instead, we had a quick breakfast & off we went back to Marina Cove to disembark.

By 8:45 am, we were on the road again en route to Kota Damansara to end the trip. We had lunch at The Little Yum Yum Restaurant generously prepared by our angler friend, owner of the Restaurant. Even though he was tired but he managed to whip up a delicious array of dishes all cooked with the fishes that we caught. Most enjoyable. We had a hearty lunch, exchanged stories & much laughter before we disperse to go home. It was a memorable trip.

Fishing charters for Fishing at Pulau Sembilan & Pangkor Islands.
Tekong Awang 019-5748722, RM 1500 for overnight trip.
Tekong Abang Man 012-5566915 RM 1000 for overnight trip.

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