Chapter 4- Air Kuning, Perak with a turn of her head and thrash of her tail.
As the dawn of the last day begins, I awake to the sound of my alarm clock. I don’t have to get up to know that my foot with its Arthritis and CRPS is in a bad state, but I am determined to make the most of the last day. To be fare only half a days’ fishing we have before we have to drive back to Kuala Lumpur. Foot locked in its ankle support I grab my stuff, pack my bag and head downstairs to the truck. Every step I take is like walking on sharp nails; the skin on my foot feels like its burning. How I love this “not” !!!!!. The pain I feel from my foot is starting to drain me. I am a lot slower than I was yesterday but I am going to beat this today. Stubborn by nature I am using it to get me through this.
Loaded into the truck we head to the Mamak to go get some breakfast, having the same as we did yesterday. This time we took a slower approach and just relaxed at the Mamak. I think D could see I was struggling and I was so grateful to be able to just sit for a bit, enabling me to get used to feeling what I was feeling from my foot. As we finish up at the Mamak we walk to the truck the pain in my foot is still there but its’ slowly getting better. We make our way to the lake
The dirt road we go down is wet and slippery as it had rained during the night. Approaching the lake, the sun was starting to rise, the mosquitoes are a-plenty ready and waiting to try to get a free meal. We unload the boat carrying it to the water’s edge and start loading it up. My foot is still giving me problems but I battle on trying not to let it beat me.
As we head out onto the water, we scan the water for any signs of Snakehead, their fry ball and any signs of Peacock bass. D sees an area he likes and we decide to give it a try for half an hour. During that time we got nothing. As we are fishing I was scanning the water and saw a fry ball not too far away. I point and told D that I thought that it is was a fry ball; so we head over to investigate it and sure enough, it was but they were not small and red but instead a yellow colour with black lines. They were older ones so we give it a go-to see if any fish were around it. As it turns out nothing, all we got was a couple of the small Snakehead to bite from the fry ball. It was amazing how fast the time went by. It was nearly 9 am and we had to think about leaving at around 12:30. So we abandoned the area and started looking around for another spot to fish. As we do, we are looking for any signs of a Snakehead. It’s getting hotter as time goes by; all the time fighting with my foot and dealing with the pain. I can feel I am coming to the end I can’t go on anymore; the pain is becoming too unbearable, then all of a sudden I fry ball makes its self-known to us right by the boat. These are really young baby Snakehead bright red with black stripes. We cast at the fry ball and just like that D sees her, the big Mama. She comes up for air extremely quietly and slinks off back to the depths to watch over her fry. Knowing she is around we cast at the fry ball. Cast after cast, but nothing. She is a wise Mama and we followed that fry ball for over 1hour 30 minutes. The time was 11:25. am but we kept chasing and trying because we know she is there. We were determined that one of us gets the opportunity to catch her. But as time went by, I could feel that I didn’t have it in me anymore to keep standing. I try fishing sitting down but I just can’t get enough energy together to carry on. My foot has drained me. I look at D and tell him I am done and start de-rigging my rods as he carries on; cast after cast he makes; then all of a sudden there is a lot of commotion coming from D. I look at him seeing that his rod doubled over and I can’t believe it, after all that hard work he finally got her. The fight is now on to bring her to the boat. She is pulling line off his bait caster, the rod doubled over but no sign of her as she heads for deeper water. Slowly and steadily D starts gaining ground on her while etching her closer to the boat. As she makes her way to the boat on the surface I can’t believe the size of her and the colour on her. Then with a turn of the head, a thrash of her muscular tail she turns and heads for deep water again. D starts to make up the line she pulled off his real grabbing the landing net as she comes closer to the boat, I scoop her into the net and lift her into the boat getting the first chance to feel her immense weight and getting a good look at the size of her. D hurries to unhook her as he wants to release her fast. We grab the scale, put her on it and she weighs in at 6.2kg or 13.67lbs she is a beauty of a fish. I take my phone out and start taking some pictures of D with his great catch. It’s time to release her back into the water to carry on keeping guard of her fry as we hold her by the boat reviving her till she tells us she is ready to go. We look at her and with a turn of her head and thrash of her tail, she disappears into the depths and just like that our time had come to an end and we had to think about heading back to Kuala Lumpur.
As we make our way back to the truck D and I are started chatting about the exciting experience of the day and about our fantastic catches out on Air Kuning water. It was a great time indeed and fantastic feat cause I ended up getting my personal best Peacock bass and D ended up getting a great size Snakehead. The fishing was hard but was very rewarding.
