Air Ganda Tomans

Tasik Air Ganda, Grik, Perak

During the Raya holidays, me & buddies ventured all the way to Air Ganda at Grik, Perak to do Toman fishing. Although the fishing wasn't anything to shout about, the journey there, the element of adventure & the breathtaking scenery will be with me for a long time to come. I have always had a special connection with freshwater fishing at lakes & ponds. In fact, I started fishing at those ex-mining ponds in Ipoh all those years ago while I was a tiny tot, from that day onward, the first image that comes to mind when someone mentions fishing had always been me sitting by the bank of a crystal clear lilly pond, grass on the banks, acacia trees & all manners of wild secondary forests growth all around me. Fishing to me was always the water, the trees, the grass & the smell of the land. Now, don't get me wrong, I do enjoy saltwater fishing, but pond/lake fishing holds a special place in my heart.

Gathering at a friend's place at 1:00am, we started journey from Sungai Buloh around 1:15am heading towards North via the NSE towards Ipoh to pick up a friend. Arriving at Ipoh somewhere around 3:30am, we continued North again toward Kuala Kangsar. Exiting NSE & continuing our journey along the Baling-Kuala Kangsar road, passing by Sauk, followed Lenggong and finally our destination, Grik town itself. Arriving early at 5:00am in the morning, we went in search of an eatery for a quick breakfast & some rest before meeting up with our boatmen, the popular Yusof of Air Ganda. Daniel and Mun Yip took Yusof's boat, while myself and Aemes took Arun's. We both headed out together but would later fish at separate places to increase our chances of catching some good specimens.

We headed to our first spot after exiting the bay of Kg. Seri Tasik. The waters that morning was calm and cooling. Boils were seen regularly at random but mostly concentrated around sunken logs and tree areas. Being predators, I would assume Tomans hunt and spend most of their time around those places, where the baitfishes also loves to hide. Daniel was the first to land a 1.5kg Toman at the edge of an island like structure luring with a spoon. I too had a minor hook up there but lost the fish when it jump the hook shortly after. Remind me not to use treble hooks again. After nearly 1.5 hours fishing at that area with no hook up, we switched spots to other locations. The Tomans were there alright, but they were not hungry or aggressive. Altogether we switched close to 5 places fishing from 8am all the way till 2pm. In between those places, we also moved around from spot to spot slowly cruising along the lake hoping to find some Toman fries.


The lake is full of rawai (a kind of fish trap) and netting all over the banks. I assume this is installed by commercial fishermen to catch various species of fishes. When you do come near the banks, be careful when casting as you might cast into a long line. Angling here can be frustrating some times when most of the good spots are already lined up with fish traps. I counted more than thrice when I accidentally cast into a rawai line then had to find a way to retrieve my lure. Arun, my boatmen for that day kept telling me to avoid casting to certain spots which his trained eye could see there is already some kind of trapping installed. Example here of this photo, this looks like a good spot to fish Tomans right? Sunken trees, floating weeds but too bad, on closer inspection, there were already lines lined up from one end to the other end of the spot.


Finally, after fishing for 4 hours without landing a fish, I've decided to switch to live bait fishing. Although I would very much prefer to catch a fish with lures, but sometimes, we just can't beat the effectiveness of live baits. I took out a live bait rig that I had pre-tied the day before, grabbed a 5" keli catfish rigged it to it's pectoral fin. Casting it out some 10m away from the boat at a random spot. I jab the rod onto the boat's rod holder, leave it there and continue casting. Not more than a min later, the floating rig suddenly disappeared from view. It had sunken, being pulled down by whatever that had grab the helpless Keli bait. Bubbles were forming all over the spot.


This is it! This is a Toman chewing on my bait. Grabbing the rod, I gave it a few more seconds to mouth the bait then I gave it a moderate strike to set the hook. FISH ON! Fish on! I shouted with much excitement on the boat. All eyes was now on me as I fought the fish slow and steady. During the initial fight, the Toman gave me a strong pull as it throws out all it's energy to try to get away but this is a futile attempt as the rig is constructed first with Size# 1/0 circle hook, followed by 5" of 15lb wire cable followed by 50lb of 100% fluorocarbon leader. It is not going to get away by swimming or trashing or biting on my line. It's MINE! It only took me about 2 mins to reel it in slowly, brought it up onto the boat and took some photos before releasing it.

By now it was way past 1pm and all of us were already exhausted. The weather had been cloudy and cooling since morning but by 12pm, the sun was right on top of us. All the casting, sweating couple with the blazing hot sun was taking a toll on us so we decided to take a break. Heading to a nearby hut to take lunch & some rest.





By now it was 3pm. After resting up, a cool bath & stuffing ourselves with some simple lunch. We continued fishing. For the second half of the day, both our boats travelled together. By luck, we encountered several schools of Toman fries. For each encounter, we would bombard the fries with all manners of lures in the hope the parent Tomans would attack our lures but most of us hook the fries instead. It was fun initially when the juvenile Tomans would attack anything we toss at them, but eventually the excitement wears off when no mama Toman would appear. This went on for several more schools of Toman fries along the way. We did not catch anymore adult Tomans for the 2nd half of the day. Overall, we caught 4 Tomans of between 1 to 1.5kg and numerous juveniles.

By 5pm, most of us were exhausted. We called it a day and returned to jetty at around 5:30pm. We departed from Kg. Seri Tasik, headed to Sauk for dinner.

In summary:
The Tomans here are certainly well educated. Although we tried many types of lures and techniques, the one that was most successful was the humble spoon. This lure being all metal & weighing 10 to 15g would easily wobble down & sink fast enough to follow the Toman when it rise for air and dives back down. If you ask me whether it was worth the time to get there, I would still say, it is definitely worth it. Will make a return trip in later months when time permits.

Video of our trip to Air Ganda.