It has been ages since I last went fishing and actually caught something that can be brought home for dinner.
Today, I decided to go out from KK town area and go to a place I know, a nice secluded place where at least 7 out of the last 10 trips allowed me to bring home one or two table size fish and normally earned me an approving look from my better half.

Make that 8 out of 11 trips now. Nothing really to shout about in term of the size of the fish but it was fun to catch them. I arrived there about 2.30pm and the tide is about 1 meter and slowly rising, the red line on the chart is the time I fished.

The first fish I caught is a family of the trevally. The local call them ikan cermin (mirror fish) basically because of the very reflective surface of the fish. I thought the fish is called a threadfin trevally because of the long thin threadlike fin when they are small.

The one I caught is still smallish I suppose but it is a nice dish just for two people. The thing about my place is they totally do not have size limit. Typically I release any fish smaller than 1 hand, unless gut hooked then it's pointless to release because they probably die. Self-imposed limit influenced by watching Rex Hunt fishing series. Caught and release 3 small groupers and one emperor fish slightly smaller than a hand (longish mouth with reddish fins/tail). It was a nice run for a small fish. Hit the live prawn bait mid water and straight away run with the line. I used a 20 lb flourocarbon leader and a 10lb line. A bit overkill but that was my rig when I last use them in Perth so hmm didnt bother changing them.

The other fish that I caught is just before I was about to go back, using my last bait. At first I thought it was another grouper just a bit bigger as it immediately try to run towards the corals but then it turn out to be a black color snapper. Well actually I am not sure if that is the actual name of the fish but it is black and looks like a snapper hence black color snapper, maybe I should call it thicked lip black snapper. I caught it few times before, mangrove area and they have very thick and soft lips, no teeth at all a little like bream. Very yummy sweet flesh as well.

Hmmm here is a picture of the two fishes next to each other, as you can see the trevally is slightly bigger. Tonight we will eat the snapper first. The trevally, hmmm lots of people say is nice but I don't really fancy it much. The flesh is a bit tasteless to me, the black snapper is a lot nicer and sweeter. Probably we just don't know how to cook it, we just normally steam the fish and put ginger and soy sauce.

Okay as you can see, our steamed fish does not really look very appetizing, it does not have the typically restaurant look with nicely placed herbs dressing BUT it does taste good, the fish itself being fresh (still alive when i reached home) and the taste of it is excellent enough to compensate for our lack of skills in cooking :)

The skin especially has a very smooth taste to it, it taste a little like steamed coral trout skin but sweeter and smoother. The flesh is sweeeeeet, I just love this yummy fish.. just look at the fat and thick sweet lips, mmmmmm..

Hmmm caught myself a bream or is it a Tarwine??!!! while on vacation in Perth.

Shown below are some of the fishes that I caught using prawn as bait.

All the fishes except the one on the left were released after the pictures were taken including the blowfish.

Went fishing again with brother nico, time was 3pm till about 7pm at Angler's delight. A jetty somewhere near Kinarut there just before Outward Bound. That's me on the right with one of the fish. The current was moving pretty fast on that day but saw few guys there got some decent size fish, trevally & mangrove jack. One even claimed that he lost 2 MJ when the line snapped just below the jetty. From the description he was telling us and also the size he indicated with his hand which almost twice the span from one end of my tummy to another might have been a typical fisherman's tale of the fish that got away :)


The picture on the right is two things that I like a lot, durian and fish. This fish is called Kitang which is one of my favourite fish to catch for the fact that they are pretty fiesty little fellow.

They fight pretty well for their size especially when you use very light tackle. Well what else can you catch from the shore which give you a decent fix to your fishing addiction. If the fish cant get bigger, use lighter tackle.

Hmmm time to go out for dinner, it's 8.27 pm now and need to go have something before going out with friends for new year thingy.


The graph at the bottom is the tide at the time we went fishing.

Hmmm 30th December 2006, almost the end of 2006.

Went fishing at Nexus Lagoon jetty with my brother Nico and Sissy Jess from 8am till about lunch time.

Shown below is the picture of my nephew Eli, Sissy Jess and Mum.



Started promising with my sissy line got pulled by something which run straight into the coral below the jetty. It is probably one of those pesky smallish grouper the size of your palm.

They do look beautiful but they are too small to keep.

Anyway, shown on the left is our catch of the day. We got so engrossed with catching the fishes that we forgot to take picture at the jetty when we caught the fish.

We use two set of rig to catch the fish locally known as Laimang or Belais I think. One is with a big hook with a large whole live prawn which is basically there to keep those fishes around while we use another two line with tiny hooks probably about size 10 to catch the fishes.


Quite a few managed to break the line / hooks especially the bigger speciments. Shown below is the slightly bigger ones but not as big as the ones that got away.

Anyway the location is okay to fish but will cost about RM 10 per person to enter. It belongs to the Nexus Karambunai Hotel & Resort.

The problem about the area is it does not have any shade. Another source of irritant is of course being a jetty to cater for tourist to go on and off boats to ferry them for a river cruise and other touristy thingy you have to from time to time entertain their curiousity and questions and answers.

Expect to get some cheers and wows and ohhh and ahhhh if you happened to catch any fish. Well at least it's only like few minutes of interruptions every other hour so it's okay i suppose.

Shown below is the tide during that time.

Bought a few fishing stuff recently from Cabelas.

Daiwa Exceller 3300
Exceler® Features:
HardBodyz™ computer die cast aluminum alloy body
DigiGear™ digital gear design
Seven bearing system including CRBB corrosion resistant bearings at key locations
Machined aluminum ABS spool
Machined aluminum handle with Soft Touch knob

I already owned a Daiwa Laguna and I am pretty happy with the smooth casting and the distance that I got from it. I decided to buy the Exceller because my Laguna is somewhat on the large size, Laguna 5000. I bought it last time to try on surf fishing. Got myself a 10 foot fishing rod.

I was also curious about the DigiGear thingy that comes with Exceller, the review about it being smooth and that the features that they have is what you can find in those expensive high end models. Also Exceller is only like USD 60 which is pretty okay price wise.

I also bought a red fishing line, again sort of curious whether it is true or not as claim by the magazine that red color is invisble under 3 feet of water. Got something to do about red light is totally absorbed or not reflected or some shit like that under 3 feet of water.

Frankly speaking, I don't really see much improvement in catching more fish and I think I sort of bought a line that is slightly too thick. I choose a 12 lb line, should have chosen the 8 lb line which should allow me to cast further and maybe get a better feel of the Daiwa Exceller reel smoothness due to the so called digi-gear.

Anyway I did try the exceller out and unfortunately the only decent size fish that I caught using them is only a 350 gram Flathead and 400 gram flounder/Sole fish with the Daiwa Laguna. Both are not really known to be a great fighter. In fact they just sort of gave up half way and follow the line back to shore.

Caught this flathead using a large live prawn, 2 running ball sinker with about 1 foot of fluorocarbon leader and a size 1/0 circle hook. I read from a local magazine about bouncing the prawn to tempt ambush fish and decided to try it on the sandy part of the Likas Bay, just opposite the KK Port Jetty.

It took me about 20-30 minutes continously casting and reeling the bait before the flathead grab the bait and run with it. It was a short run towards the right side and once I start reeling the line, the flathead sort of follow the line back all the way to the shore. Tide was about 1 metre and water was quite clear.

The sole fish was caught with the Daiwa Laguna reel using similar rig. I threw the line quite far out maybe nearly half way in distance between the shore and the KK Jetty. At first I thought it was a small ray but it was a nice surprise that it was a flounder and being 400gram, sadly is the biggest flounder that I caught so far. I am a shore fisherman wanabe fishing in terribly unproductive and over fished water of Kota Kinabalu.

The tide at that time (Sunday 12 Nov 2006, 10am) is quite low as shown on the right. I think it was about 0.5 meter, KK highest tide is about 2.0 meter from lowest tide.


I suppose fishing in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah from the shore is a very frustrating affair or more like act of meditation than fishing. The sole fish that I caught is by fishing from 7am till 11am. There were like 10-15 other people there and all of them left empty handed at about 10 am.

I feel there is a serious need to introduce minimum size and also bag limit to the shore fishing community in Kota Kinabalu. Looking at the rigs that most fishos here you can tell that they actively target small fish, in fact any fish even as small as 1 finger will be happily bagged by many fishos here.

I cannot imagine what they do with those tiny fishes that they caught. I suppose they would probably like deep fry the fish and easily put the whole fish in their mouth.

I gave up telling them off because every time I asked them why they keep them they all say the same thing.

• No big fish
• Small fish taste better

I think every weekend KK fishos caught at least 20-25 small fishes the size of one or two fingers.

Those 20-25 can easily grow to about the size of a hand in 1-2 months. One way I suppose is the government should introduce law to fine anyone who keep fish the size smaller than the hand and then increase the minimum size every year by maybe 1 inches or 2 inches.

That way eventually the size of fishes that can be found and caught in Kota Kinabalu/ Sabah water will be bigger. It will however not work unless a huge mega fine of RM 1000 per fish smaller than the minimum limit is imposed. Strong enforcement must also be in place to make sure the rule is followed.

Another thing I feel that the government should do is to completely ban netting by those so called weekend fisherman in Likas Bay. They should at least use nets that are big enough to let fishes smaller than a hand size to escape instead of catching even ikan bilis the size of 1-2 fingers!!!.

Anyway enough ranting. Not a single politicians will be willing to do anything anyway because there is no money to be made by them.

When you walk through a storm hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never, ever walk alone.

Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never, ever walk alone.

been busy for so long didn't really had any time to go fishing...

my current passion
Wifey
Baby
Liverpool
World cup 2006

Will see if can go for some fishing sometime this month, just want to post a song that I loved for
so long. :D

Went and fish for an hour or so at Likas Bay, Kota Kinabalu. Didn't catch anything worth taking home.

I am not sure what fish is the one below, occasionally I will land one or two of them a day (C&R) as usual. I asked som eof the local here and they only say the fish name is Ikan Batu!??


Hmmm other fish that I caught and released is called a Bigeye Snapper (Lutjanus Lutjanus)

Tiny fish but looks quiet beautiful, yellow tail with yellow stripe. I never seems to catch them any bigger than the size of my hand from the shore. Maybe they move to deeper water once they grow bigger or either that the local anglers here just fished them faster than they can grow, either that or my fishing kung fu not strong enough :)