The Party Is Over, Again.
Update: 10 Oct 2019. It’s happened again. Fish here although aplenty are no longer receptive to artificials such as lure or fly fishing.
The pond has seen a lot pressure from bait fishing (bottom fishing) and that’s about the only effective way of catching the fish here now. We see this same thing happening to nearly all catch and release ponds. Once the fish are used to being “fed”, they loose the instinct to hunt. And being an easy method of catching fish, these fish gets caught repeatedly and many suffers damage from getting hooked deep.
The only way to continue attracting lure or fly fishers is to not allow bait-fishing or a less effective method, keep re-stocking new fish.
Looks like we’ll have to wait for the next attraction to get our quick-fix.
Originally posted on May 31, 2019
5 trips to this pond in a month! That must be a record of sorts for me. Anyways, I’m in between trips so why not…
The first time was when I got invited to try out this new catch and release – private booking only, new offering.
I then got some buddies together to try out the big, fly-eating mangrove jacks and golden snappers. Soon more friends’ curiosity was piqued and they too wanted to check the place out.
And then they added GTs in and we just had to go fish again. Excuses!
GTs Added To The Hard Pulling Big Snappers and Mangrove Jacks in LS Fishing Pond
Welcome to LS Fishing Pond. You may have seen my introduction article on this pond in our SPORT FISHING ASIA post – possibly one of the ugliest commercial fishing pond in the country. Don’t expect much in the looks department, everything is manmade in a crude kind of way.
With the aesthetics out of the way, let’s get down to the serious business of fishing. And trying to get hard-pulling saltwater fish to eat our flies.
There are three ponds here, a common everything-goes-pond, a giant grouper (up to 120kg in size!) guaranteed-catch-pond, and the one that got us here – a sport-fishing pond, with good size mangrove jacks, golden snappers, giant trevally and barramundi in sizes that will give a good pull on fly.
There are also some pesky groupers in the pond. Remnants from when the pond stocked giant groupers along with the barramundi.
What Are The Attractions Here?
Decent size saltwater fish that chase and eat flies!
As far as I know, the pond owner has said they’ve never fed the fish in this pond with anything. Letting the fish prey on the baitfish found in the pond.
Anglers using live-bait also inadvertently feed them as well.
We Got Bullied By The GT in LS Pond
GT are GT no matter where you put them, they still go fast and pull hard.
The challenge in a pond setting is perhaps they may be actually harder to fool as they’ve been caught and release multiple times. So that calls for going down on tippet size to the lightest we think we can get away with, and hopefully not get busted.
Although not monster sized, got busted we did when we first fished the pond for them.
We’ve now settled for mostly 20lb bite tippet for the fish here. There are some instances where we still get busted off but generally that could be the best compromise for getting the most bite rates.
Casting Challenge
Never catered to fly fishing before, LS Fishing Pond presents all sorts of back-cast obstacles.
There are fence within 10-feet or less behind you all around. Either that or other structures and low dangling electrical wires.
You really need to mind your back casts which would be either high, or low side-arm casts. Pretty good practice for fly fishers actually!
Those who do not have the habit of looking at their back casts will spend time unhooking their flies from objects, untangling their snagged lines, or just spilling out profanities every now and then.
Good roll casts should get you to where the fish are as the pond is not very big and we’ve caught fish close to the edges, too.
Another option is using a two-handed setup here, either switch or spey if that’s what you do. That will make worrying about backcasts less worrying.
Good Practice Before a Trip
For those of you who’s never fished saltwater before, or messed with big powerful fish eating your fly, this place and its fish could be good introduction to what it feels like and what you may need to do.
The fish when they eat your fly, will remind you not to lift your rod (trout strike) and to either stop and hold, or continue to strip – until the hook sets and line zipping through your fingers.
What Weight Rods?
Fly rods of #6, #7 to #8 will work, depending on what flies you want to throw at the fish. The bigger or heavier the fly, the bigger the rod.
What Lines?
Any lines can be used as the pond is not very deep and with sloping edges. However, I do favour intermediate or sinking lines.
Some Flies That’s Been Used With Success
Clousers or clouser minnow and streamer type flies appear to be the most consistent producers here as there are baitfish in the pond that the larger fish prey upon.
No particular colour noticed to have any advantages.
Where Is It?
LS Fishing Pond is located in Banting Klang, Selangor. Close to Jugra and Carey Island.
Google maps location: https://goo.gl/maps/akhBXTPUjTXmmxLz5
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