Kapitan Larry's Pond (July 12, 2009)

We went to Kap's Lawak yesterday. My cousin JB was there to settle a score with a 3+kg Apahap that broke his leader and ran off with his swimbait. I was there to try out my new Abu BC rod that Purefishing sent me. A few months ago I got a lemon Berkley lightning rod that broke from an unlikely spot. Since I was not able to claim warranty from the local shop where I got it, I wrote to Purefishing Malaysia. Purefishing immediately agreed to replace the broken section. But upon checking their inventory, they no longer have the Berkley rod on stock. Instead, they decided to send me a new rod -- An Abu Garcia MH rod free of charge. Many thanks to Ho and his team from Purefishing Malaysia.


Anyway, the bangus and tilapia were not biting so I shifted to dalag using one of Bong's spinner bait. I was casting parallel to the banks and after half an hour of casting. I got a really hard strike. I thought it was a record-breaker dalag as it ran really hard and pulled my line even when my reel has a drag of 5lbs. The fish ran towards the middle of the pond and when i tried to re-gain line, the fish jumped ---- IT was not a dalag but a huge Apahap! It struck the tiny spinner bait. My estimate would be 8 to 9 kilos as it was definitely bigger than the one I caught from Aling Nene's pond.

I tried to gain line by pumping the rod. All my braid was out on its first run and my 12lb Mono backing is already showing. (I'm only using 125 yards of braid on my BC reel for dalag. The rest is mono backing). On my second attempt to gain line, the fish ran another 30 yards or so and then jumped again. After two runs and a couple of jumps, the fish may have tired (or so I thought) as I was able to gain a lot of line. When it was just about 3 yards away, and my cousin was about to net it, the fish again ran and made a third jump. On the last jump, the spinner's tiny hook did not hold. :envy: Sayang! It could have been another record for Bong's spinner bait.

I called up Mikko and he went to Bong's place before heading to the pond. Bong sent some heavy duty spinners and a gaff! When Mikko and RC arrived at Kap's past 2pm, the wind started to pick up and casting against the wind was extremely difficult so we decided to transfer to the main pond near Kap's entrance.

We casted for the rest of the day using swimbaits, spinners and soft plastics. JB got a strike later in the afternoon. The fish broke his large swimbait in two just missing the hook section. Now its 2 for the apahap and 0 for JB :) .

I shifted to 5-inch Kalin's Swimbait using the Abu rod. After an hour casting, something struck and I quickly set the hook. Somehow something is hooked but it is not fighting. To my surprice, it was a crate (water snake). It tried to taste the 5-inch Kalin:

RC unhooked and released the crate.

Just after 6pm, we went home with egos busted. Next time, we will get even ]:)