If you want fish, parabellum
An exact same place but totally different experience in Royal Belum
Nic Chew FFI CCI
Royal Belum, famously known for their jam packed top water action Sebaraus and Tomans, is a place everyone would definitely visit for an intense adrenaline rushing experience in Malaysia.
The same goes for us too! After skipping 2 years of Royal Belum trip due to the pandemic, we are finally back to the place where we were hoping to satisfy our top water action thrill. That was what we thought initially.
However, reality is not always what it seem. It was totally different from what we had expected, there were almost no boiling and rises in the early morning and evening. To make it worse, loud noises actually scared the fish away (we can actually see the toman swimming away from our popper) so our hope of seeing some top water explosion went down the drain and we were left dumbfounded.
It was completely different from all of our previous trips.
We were quite disappointed but still changed to sinking line and used flies like clouser and baitfish even in the dawn and dusk throughout the whole trip. Some of our boat mates still continue with popper but the fish didn’t reciprocate. With sinking setup, we managed to catch ourselves quite a few fair sizes of sebarau.
As for the tomans, they were so spooky that they only took big gliding and most importantly quiet fly. We only managed to come to that conclusion when the tomans refused to even look at big streamers and poppers when we casted in their strike zone but took the lure instantly when one when one of guys casted a pencil lure at the exact same spot. So we suspected they want something that is quiet and create lots of waves. With that in mind, we quickly searched for our fly box for all possible big gliding flies but unfortunately we only have a 3 inches mouse. We casted the mouse and got 1 strike very quickly but didn’t manage to hook it up.
When we went back to the boat house, we found out that Dron actually tied a big gliding fly, his ‘Royal Belum Special’ to target the tomans. We asked the fly from Dron and used it on the next evening. Without a doubt, our suspicion was right, the RB special was taken immediately but very gently when the fly dropped into the water and glided a few feet. Then it turned into a series of tug of war between man and fish, one trying to prevent getting catch and another trying to make sure it didn’t go into the branches.
With the first successful toman landed on fly during the trip, we told the rest of our boat mates and straightaway at night, few of us started to tie the RB special. I believe you know what happened next. The next day, the rest of the gang was landing one tomans after another using the RB Special and others changed to walk the dog and pencil lure. Thus the photos and the gallery
All in all, this was really an eye opening trip for us. It actually taught us to be well prepared for any situation. So next time when you see us, we are most probably geared with flies for almost all condition and any species of fish. As one of the Latin phrase goes, “Si vis pacem, parabellum”, which means, if you want peace, then prepare for war. I’mma change it to this “If you want fish, para bellum.”