Catch Report: Kolam Memancing Tangkas

Paypond: Kolam Memancing Tangkas

Location: Kampung Sungai Tangkas, Kajang

Date: 22nd February 2019

Time: 2.15pm - 7.15pm

Directions: Waze - Kolam Memancing Tangkas

Report:

Ever since Kolam Memancing Harmoni has been closed till further notice, I am on the hunt for a new paypond to make it my regular spot. Kolam Memancing Tangkas has been the first for me to try out. 

The operating hours and payment of the pond are as follows:

Monday to Thursday: 2.00 PM - 2.00 AM

Friday to Sunday: 2.00 PM - 4.00 AM

Payment is RM 25 per rod for 3 hours or RM 30 per rod for 5 hours of fishing. Every additional hour costs RM 5. It is strictly CnR here; however, anglers are rewarded if they catch certain species of fish heavier than the weight set by the pond. Rewards include cash prizes, additional fishing time and hampers. Each species has their own rewarding weight.

Entry was easy to identify as you drive up to the pond:

You know you're in the right place once you see this sign.

View of Entrance Area. A small gate leads into the pond.

First impression of the pond? Rather small. The pond is roughly the size of a futsal court. Sheds were set up along the banks for the comfort of anglers:

View of back end of pond from my shed. I sat in a shed around the midpoint of the pond.

View of entrance and entry counter from my shed.

I started by using plain white bread cut into 1cm by 1cm cubes as bait paired with a floating V-Rig. Learn more about my favourite rig here. 

The floating V-Rig. Used a marshmallow as my float as use of floats and bobbers were not allowed in this pond. 

I used plain white bread first as I didn't want to waste time without my bait in the water. In the meantime I am cutting up more bread and adding some artificial flavours to them.

Crushed dried breadcrumbs. You can make your own by drying bread crusts under the sun and crushing them into fine pieces.

Once the breadcrumbs are added to the cubed bread pieces, I added some banana essence and mixed them together by hand.

Also added some strawberry emulco syrup. You can make a bomb rig by packing more cubes of bread around a hook baited with cubed bread.

Using Chinu type hooks. I find them to be more forgiving compared to conventional J-hooks.

As I was cutting up more bread, I noticed that there are a lot of small bait fish pecking at my bread when using a floating rig. From my observations, there are a lot of small tilapia living in this pond, like A LOT. They pecked at my bait till the marshmallow came detached with my line and the bread packed around the hook were all eaten up. I then switched to plain bread with a bottom rig set-up to avoid bait being stolen by the small fishes as they tend to dwell more on the surface.

While preparing and flavouring the bread, the line was suddenly peeling off my rod! I had a fish on! Plain bread, second cast, and within the first 20 minutes of fishing? The odds were phenomenal. The fish was darting really quickly so I assumed it was a small one.  I fought it for about a minute before it popped off.  Oh well, these things do happen. 

Fighting the fish for a brief moment before losing it.

I recasted with my fully prepared strawberry flavoured bread. Again with a bottom rig. I let it sit for rougly 15 to 20 minutes each time before I rebaited. A dry spell hit me as I go fishless for hours.

At about 4pm, I just couldn't take it anymore. I decided to do some hand lining while my bait sits in the water. I noticed a lot of tilapia were feeding close to the bank. I baited some small hooks with bread and casted it out by hand and held the line with my hands. It didn't take long for them to show up:

Caught using a hand line. 

Some type of tilapia or cichild. I can't be sure. Let me know what species it is in the comments if you do!

Most payponds condone you pole fishing or hand line fishing by the bank without extra payment, but be sure to ask the operators! Such types of fishing can be a small break from your main fishing as they give you something to do while waiting for the bigger fish to take the bait from your main rod. It also does the paypond a small favour by eliminating small fishes from the pond so that they do not disturb anglers' baits (which this pond needs to work on big time).

Another one; barely hooked.

I gave my hand line catches to a local boy who seems to be also hunting for small tilapia at the same pond. My guess is that those fish are to be consumed.

By roughly 6pm, my line went tight again and I finally hand another fish on! It too came off the hook after a short fight. I think I didn't set the hook hard enough by jerking the rod straight upwards after the fish has taken the bait, the hook isn't embedded in the fish's mouth deep enough and it gives them a chance to spit the hook by violently shaking their head. Tough luck, despite using Chinu hooks instead of J-hooks, things like this will still happen so be sure to set your hook right.

At about 7pm, as I was reeling in my line to change baits, I realized that I has snagged something. It was fighting back by pulling out line! It turns out I accidentally snagged a Patin by its tail:

Even I was surprised. 7.38 kg Patin snagged.

I took it to the weighing counter anyway. It was 7.38 kg in weight. Not my biggest fish but hey at least I ended the fishing session with a good note. I packed up and left after that since I ran out of bait as well.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts:

The pond lacked fish activity on the surface, i.e. there were not many fishes "boiling" on the surface of the pond. Patin catfish are known to do that and the lack of "boils" tells me either there is not much Patin catfish in the pond; or they could be inactive due to the hot weather. The operator also did not turn on the agitator (pump) for the pond throughout the pond's operation. I think this could be the main reason Patin are not "boiling" on the surface due to lack of dissolved oxygen in the pond. Since I hooked up twice, I think that there are fish in the pond, just that they are not active enough. The water quality seemed decent. My only comment is that there are too many, like WAY TOO MANY bait fish sized tilapia disturbing my bait when using a floating rig. I advise anglers to switch to a bottom presentation to avoid them stealing all your bait. I hope the operators could take notice of this and address the issue. It is not fair to say that a paypond is not worthy of visiting based on one sole fishless visit. I might just come back and try a variety of different baits before jumping into conclusions.

Until then, tight lines and until next time,

Wisey