Fresh Water Fishing in Grik

This is my first fresh water fishing as an adult. I remember following my family to fishing ponds back in Brunei. Freshwater fishing is very different from seawater fishing. It is really more technical and the variety of equipment will quickly put your seawater equipment into the useless bin.

Our freshwater adventure started in the wee hours of the morning. Ah San who has a surprisingly comfortable Triton 4-wheel drive provided the transportation. We dumped all our gear at the back of his truck and then left for Grik, our freshwater fishing destination. In total, there were 4 of us including Mui Soon and John Pang.

Grik is located near Tasik Temenggor, a famous freshwater fishing lake. However we are not fishing at Tasik Temenggor, rather we will fishing at the myriad of ponds, rivers and lakes found surrounding Grik.




1) Our first fishing site. Er...you can see that John has a live frog hooked to his rod. It is our first time using live frogs as bait. It requires a different kind of hooking mechanism to hook a live frog, I will show how in the future.

2) The frogs in a plastic bag. They are pretty quick, so unless you have extensive knowledge on how to hold them, I'd recommend a quick and fast throw to the ground to knock them out for a couple of minutes ;). It is good consideration to use fake baits in the future, it reduces the hassle of buying live frogs and you don't have to kill them to get fish.


3) We found a nice place to fish after looking for a couple of hours. This place was hidden in a dense bush, we hack through and found a trail leading to a small clearing which was perfect. Didn't get our lines snagged on any bushes while casting.

4) You can see that we are in a palm oil plantation. These are the places where you find a network of lakes, ponds and rivers where Toman and other freshwater gamefish thrives. The locals over there told us they have caught before Toman and catfish with heads bigger than my fist!

5) The coolest way to ride is to stand behind the truck. Er...although we got whacked by a couple of palm oil trees when we weren't paying attention, ouch!

6) Sadly, this is not the fish we caught. I wish it was. We quit during lunch time as we were getting hungry. Ah San's friend owns a restaurant and they whipped up a good meal for us. This freshwater fish was the tastiest that I have ever tried. I do not know what type it is but mmmmmmmm....i don't mind having it again!

7) We saw a local fisherman with a load of catch which he sold to a few restaurants. You can see a snakehead fish called haruan I think. Correct me if I am wrong. The others are local freshwater species of catfish.

8) Ah San and Mui Soon talking about the fish that got away. Mui Soon's line just kept dragging, his gear was quite good which goes to show how strong the fish is. Ah San got a bite too, but he was using monofilament and the fish got away by cutting the line.

9) The place we had our lunch. Nice food.

My first visit to Grik and by far the most enjoyable fishing trip I've ever had even though I didn't get a bite. I would love to try freshwater fishing again. It is more technical than sea fishing as it requires a certain amount of accuracy in casting and technique to prevent snagging. Looking forward to my next trip!