Sebarau on Popper Fly

Fly Fishing Trip, Fly Pattern, Freshwater Trip, , , ,

The sebarau is one of the more exciting fresh water gamefish to target on fly, especially on surface fly. The take of the sebarau on surface fly is always exciting, providing a sensory overload from the visual, auditory and kinesthetic sense. The best time to target them on surface is in the early mornings and late evenings, where they will be actively hunting on the surface for any unsuspecting prey such as grasshoppers, spiders or any unfortunate insects that get blown onto the water. The use of large noisy poppers in bright colours, decorated with flashy tinsels and enhanced with UV flash works best. In the early morning, we would cruise the banks of the waterway where there is thick vegetation and if there is a tree that has fallen into the water, that’s the best place to find them hunting actively. Once we have located a likely spot, we would shut down the boat engine and slowly drift into position, careful not to drift too close. The boat will be drifting parallel to the bank about 50 to 60 feet away. We would pick a target, usually a tree trunk partly submerged or a clump of vegetation and cast to it. Once the ripple has settled, the line is stripped in a short burst and rod tip is twitched to enhance the action and the commotion of the popper. The trick here is to “ pop”, stop and then “pop” again. This action allows the popper to remain in the strike zone longer while giving time for the sebarau to examine the fly. They usually take the fly when it starts moving. There are times when they will follow the fly close to the boat and take the fly before diving down into the deeper water. Sometimes, the sebarau will take the popper on the drop if it lands near them. It is important to hang on the line at the last cast so that your hand is always in contact with the line. Some people would just let go of the line and let it fly out, adding distance to the cast. While this is good if you are distance casting, but to catch fish, the hand needs to always be in contact with the line, ready to strip strike when the fish take the fly. Lifting the rod to strike like when doing conventional fishing will only pull the fly out from the fish’s mouth. In the late evenings, the sebarau will hunt in groups and it is this behavior that gives them the name River Wolves. They can be seen charging at helpless baitfish near the surface and it takes speed, accuracy and a cool head to cast to them. In this situation, once the popper lands, start popping fast and hard. A strike usually doesn’t take very long. ~More Gallery Click Here~

If you want fish, parabellum

Fly Fishing Trip, Freshwater Trip, , , , , , ,

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.” ~More Gallery Click Here~