We continued casting fruitlessly for the next few hours before deciding to head to a campsite to have lunch. However, when we arrived the others were nowhere to be seen thus, we decided to make a few casts at a spot nearby. As it was relatively shallow and weedy, I opted to use a spinnerbait and was rewarded with my first toman of the day! After that brief bit of action with no other takers, we headed back to the campsite just as the others arrived and took a well-deserved break.
We headed out again around 3pm, and as the bites today were slow, I decided to stick with the spinnerbait that had produced bites. Entering another lubuk overgrown with weeds and fallen logs, I spotted a toman swimming in the shallows. Casting over it and slowly reeling it pass its face, I saw the fish turn and took a bite at the blades of the spinnerbait, hence no solid hookup. However, this was one fierce fellow, and I continued to chase it. The monster finally took the spinnerbait properly boat side. It was a pretty intense close quarter fight before landing my first proper ‘negro’ toman from Royal belum.
The Climax
As the day wore on and the sun began to set, our boatman said he was going to bring us to a secret spot. After a 30-minute boat ride, we arrived at a creek mouth with lots of weed islands around. Seeing as the conditions were right, I switched to a topwater buzzbait and began blind casting around the islands. Out of nowhere, a wake suddenly appeared before a solid explosion followed by line peeling of the reel. Using my trusty Abu Roxani Poweshooter paired with a Fenwick HMG, the fish stood no chance as I pumped it out of the reeds and landed the biggest toman for the trip; ending the trip on a high note.
Looking back at this trip, I would say that this place has lived up to the hyped. We saw plenty of fish, had plenty of strikes, just not many landed successfully. But that’s fishing, there are good days and bad days, and we just happened to have had bad luck on this trip. That’s what gives us the motivation to keep on trying, in hopes of better days. Till the next time, tight lines.