Back again to Rompin & Tioman (termed 'Romman' by SGRubberFrog) after a long hiatus since Oct 2022.
This time round, we stayed at a new Surfing & Diving Centre Resort for the first time because we actually screwed up our accommodation booking!! LOL. Its called the Sunsurf Sea Sports Centre. Place was quite unique, made up of used cargo containers. Rooms were quite decent, except that the mozzies there were gigantic!! But funny, we did not get bitten much. We suspected the mozzies were actually males!!
This is the little resort we were putting up for our entire trip.. A short stroll to the jetty where we alighted and boarded our boat over the 3 days of fishing..
Funny Catches This Time Round.....
The weather and current for the entire 3 days of fishing were actually close to perfect.. There were no strong winds, the water surface was mirror flat almost the entire 3 days.. Current was slow but not dead... maybe a tad too slow for the bottom fishes to bite..
We were basically doing the standard package programme.... Casting and topwater action on the first day from Rompin to Tioman, bottom baiting and jigging the entire second day around Tioman and a mix of bottom and casting on the last day back to Rompin.
For the first time also, I decided to use short Kevlar leaders instead of wire leaders for my Pintails in this trip... Told Captain Jacky and Deckie Ah Yong, whom I knew for years, that I think they will work fine.. They all sniggered and told me, unlikely the kevlars will do the job..
True enough.....it was an expensive lesson for me... Two Jackson Pintails, lost to the mighty Tengiris, as their teeth sliced through the Kevlar like hot knife to butter...
Ah Yong and my kakis laughed so loud that probably the other fishing charter boat near us at the casting spot could hear..
Yong quietly handed me a short wire leader loop knotted to a swivel and smiled at me.. Well, all I can say, nothing beats the tried and tested...
My wife had a pretty interesting encounter with the eels too!! LOL. She was doing her usual bottom baiting when she caught an eel on her rig.. Cursing and swearing after freeing it by cutting off the hook from her Apollo rig, she set up a new rig and dropped it back down.. Just to realised that she got another bite...by another eel....and guess what? The SAME EEL!! With the old hook still attached to the eel's mouth!!
'She needs to buy 4D (local lottery)!' Ed laughed..
'Maybe she can hook back the Teng that got your Pintail'
'Very funny! Guys!!' I retorted..
On our last day back to Rompin, we encountered a school of Dorados... They were really hungry and searching for some quite bite..
Yong was our hero who was actually live baiting for Tengirris. Ended up, he hooked on 2 Dorados. Captain Jack also managed to get 2 with his live baiting.
Near to a floating buoy for a ujang (undersea FAD for fish gathering), Yong also spotted some interesting fish hovering near the surface.
'Tee Poh!!' He shouted, and he immediately changed his rigging from a live baiting lure to a bait-casting rig.. How fast can he get??
He carefully casted a piece of fish meat near those mysterious fishes and reeled the bait slowly back on the surface...
'Bam!!'
He let the drag squealed before reeling the fish in close to the boat and lifting it up directly with his rod...
'Tripletail!!' Cap Jack says...
So, 'Tee Poh' is the local name for Tripletail.
One after another, Yong continued with his success after the first.... a total of 4 Tripletails were hauled up.. It was the first time I encountered Tripletails in Romman Seas.
Overall I think our CR was average.. It could be our poor angling skills, but I rather choose to blame it on the obviously less fish bites this time round.. I am really convinced that the Romman seas are likely overfished.. Or perhaps weather has changed so much that fishes are dwindling..
I am not sure when will be my next trip back to Romman, but I can sure say, it's getting less interesting with each trip.
Hopefully, someone can share some interesting CR for Romman soon to spice up my fire for this 'once a fishing paradise for anglers' in Malaysia.