Our merry group of anglers (of various profession and angling experience) met up at the Gunung Semanggol rest stop on Friday night. Some of us still have our ID tags on, obviously rushing off just after work. This shows how much passion they show for angling.
After a quick dinner, we head off to Tg. Tualang to meet up with Uncle Benny. He showed us our beds for the night. Due to the lack of hotels in this sleepy town, we rented rooms from the Tg. Tualang Hokkien Association.
The pictures above shows the place we had for the night. Overnight sleeping arrangements can be made with Uncle Benny. 
They haven't even showered and were already prepping their gear for the Peacock Bass assault tomorrow. 
Part of our attack arsenal - our meagre but much prized lures. 
Can you tell which one is Rapala? One of them is a lookalike. 
All the gear prepped up! There were 3 Abu Garcia's (I think a C4, C5 and Record series), 2 D.A.M., 1 Daiwa Megaforce and 1 Daiwa spinning reel. The spinning reel didn't see much action. To tell you the truth, I fell in love with baitcasting reels after really learning to use them. Their ability to repeatedly cast coupled with distance and accuracy is just beautiful. Although spinning provides you higher ratios at much less cost, they just can't catch up with the castability of baitcasters. 
Our trip organizer (Steven) to the left and FS to the right. They are at Level 10 (on a scale of 1-10) in angling passion. Sometimes you just can't help but catch their fever!
Uncle Benny, with the Air Kuning lake and his boat as the backdrop. What a beautiful place. I hope everyone will help to maintain this beautiful place. Please do not pollute the waters and destroy the fish stocks.
Our small boat took 3 person powered by an electric motor (a thruster). Very silent motor indeed although much less powerful than an engine. John Pang and BH showing the intensity of their focus on the mission.
BH with his 1st Peacock Bass. Small specimen but ferocious. This was the 2nd after John Pang caught a similar sized one. 
The mid-day heat was too much for us to bear. We took refuge on a man-made island in the middle of the lake (man-made as this used to be a tin mining lake). 
This is me and John Pang taking a break. Notice our full head-gear...definitely not for show but to protect our faces from the unrelenting sun. You can see I'm sporting a new shirt (from my usual long sleeved t-shirt). I got this specially for it's anti-UV properties. It's a Columbia Titanium with Omni-Shade. Got it on discount (still pricey) but it was definitely worth it. It worked it's magic on the hottest part of the day. Can't wait for their next big discount to get their fishing series, a much lighter material with a bigger vent across the back. 
Finally! A big one! John Pang was just using his 5'6" casting rod coupled with a Daiwa Megaforce (with Twitchin' bar) on 20lb monofilament and there was suddenly a strike. He was maximising the 7.3:1 ratio of his Daiwa through a Storm Wildeyed Minnow 12cm in natural colors when the strike happened! 
Darth Vader a.k.a John Pang finally landed this beautiful 50cm specimen! 50cm!!! According to Uncle Benny, the biggest this year was a 59cm specimen!
Darth Vader without his headgear. Notice the red eyes, stripes on the body, bump on head of the fish. Beautiful I tell you...just beautiful. Definitely worthy of it's Cantonese nickname of "King Fish".
Landing the fish on a water soaked cloth to prevent scalding from the heated fiber boat. The lure was 2/3 of the way in the fish's mouth. 
And finally, the measuring. My camera could not take the fish from head to tail and show the detail of the measuring tape. However I would show you this picture above where the longest part from head to tail was 50cm. 
Definitely not the last big fish! BH caught another whopper with a Rapala lure. It was shy of 50cm. Beautiful!
After a super great day we were in need of a shower and refreshments. Uncle Benny was very kind to offer us the use of his shower. You will feel the passion of a true angler once you step into his humble abode. There were rods, lures, fishing magazines and posters in the hall. 
The famous pose with Uncle Benny. Thank you for your services and hospitality! It was a great trip and I would definitely go again in order to get my PB license!(Uncle Benny provides fishing guide services in Air Kuning. His contact details are below.)
Uncle Benny,
017-5888106
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