ICasters' Malaysia

A story behind my fishing journey with ICasters

Everything started with a call to my sifu, mathew mahen kumar, asking about his fishing activities and ports. I know him via a good friend of mine, satya, for liquor deals. Very bad to do actually, people don't really like if you ask for port. Find youself loh, nanti aku bagitahu, hang pi sapu semua ikan macam mane ?? lol

I am fishing since 10 years old and managed to become a successful kaki haruan, puyu,talapia dan segala jenis makluk parit. Thanks to my late father Mr Arunasalam Muthusamy.

But still MMK looked like a professional angler which got my attention. He invited me to Jugra, followed him. I could not cast as the soft plastic lure given by him was too light for the heavy setup I brought. Without choice, I had to use my udang galah rod and reel which I had, and I could cast well.

But again, that was the first time I am using lure and I was basically helpless and there was no strikes at all for the next 3 hours. Imagine, jugra siakap pond, no strikes for 3 hours. Kaki jugra should know the pain.

Then, I realized that I am not presenting the lure at all. You got to present the lure to attract the fish. It is not about just pulling the lure in the water. You need to make the lure looks realistic for the predators down there. With the guidance from my sifu, then I started to have strikes. 

Still, I had problem because I didn't know how to set the hook. By the time, I learn to set the hook, MMK have already landed so many baramundi(siakap). WTF wei.

Finally, after almost 5 hours of casting, I hooked up a small siakap. Happiness landed in my heart. Then I realized that, you don't really need a high poundage setup to land a big fish. Furthermore, with lower poundage, you can use tiny lures which indirectly attracts almost every fish. Presentation becomes much realistic. You are giving the fish a chance to fight. Imagine a fish weighing 2KG is being pulled by a line with 20 LB (9kg) poundage. The fish has no chance to fight.  You can basically pull the fish out from the water without any obstacles.

From that day, I started my journey towards a professional UL angler. Went again and again to Jugra pay pond, trained hard and today I can pick a pond and cast for a specific species. Not a great achievement but better than a year back.

And my hard work gave me another victory once again after I landed a giant grouper weighing more than 20KG with my UL setup. Still nothing great but bolehlah !!!

The ICASTERS team which includes me, landed 38 giant groupers and 8 huge barramundi in the recent trip to Tiger 5, Kampung Changkat Keruing, Perak. I personally landed 3 giant groupers with my UL setup.

It wasn't easy anyway, but I was quite lucky to get the first strike among us. I was very happy because I managed to set the hook and started my battle. Within few minutes, I lost. The knot between the mainline and the leader was the issue.

Set the knot again, started casting, few minutes after, another strike from the predator in the water. Managed to set the hook and I started my battle again. Another lost, within few minutes, the grouper disappeared.

I started to have doubt, will my UL make it? MMK shouted, try again! I set back my knot, casted again. After almost an hour, another strike, set the hook and started to pray. I was just praying asking god for help. By god’s grace, after about 30 minutes of battle, I landed a giant grouper weighing approximately 18 KG (according to the workers there).

I started to shout and celebrate forgetting that I should not shout or make noise while fishing, Mathew’s strict policy. I forgot, sorry boss!

With the victory, I continued my battle and managed land two more giant groupers and one of it was estimated to be weighing more than 20 KG. This once again proved that, we can land a big fish with a right and light setup.

With this successful ongoing journey, I would like to thank my sifu MMK for all the knowledge that he has given and shared. Tabik spring, sifu ! 

And not forgetting every other members of ICASTERS, you guys are great ! Lets stick together and bring this team to a different level.