Trout Fishing Borneo Style
Fat Kat Suterra Harbour KK
When offshore boating conditions are bad back home in Britain, one of my fall back positions is to go afloat fishing for trout. On a recent visit to Sabah in northern Borneo, the last thing I expected was to be offered the 'same' alternative, and for the same reason. The difference with doing a spot of trout fishing Borneo style is that it takes place not in freshwater, but out on the South China Sea. With a tropical storm forecast and sea conditions becoming increasingly uncomfortable, the boat we were fishing from would have had to have been throttled back to the point where travel time out and back offshore to our intended marks would have eaten up the entire day. So rather than battling on for no good reason out to the deeper offshore reefs more than 10 miles from base for some light tackle fishing for big hard fighting snappers, the decision was taken to try a bit of trout fishing Borneo style instead.

Sharing the name ‘trout’ and having a covering of spots on the back and upper flanks is about as much as European brown trout and those around the shallower parts of the Borneo coast have in common. Coral trout are a reef fish found in that corner of the world, which I have caught before off the coast of Queensland in Australia. These are highly prized and particularly valuable fish, which people in the far east it seems are quite literally prepared to risk their lives for. Commercial fishermen from the Philippines in particular have paid a heavy price fishing for them over the years. Using explosives to indiscriminately kill and stun the occupants of the reefs, many Philippino’s have drowned diving down to collect dazed and damaged fish, while others have had limbs blown off handling the explosives. Cyanide fishing is another technique used. In the live fish markets of Hong Kong, a typical coral trout can be worth as much as the average man on a Borneo street might earn in a week. That’s a huge inceptive.

Suterra Harbour complex KK
Not un-expectedly then, as a result, a great deal of damage has been done both to coral trout numbers, and to some of south-east Asia’s shallower reefs where these fish once thrived. Off the coast of eastern Borneo the coral trout population is still reasonably healthy, with many of the reefs that were decimated now returning to near normality. But as in any situation where you have a valuable commodity which can be harvested, there will be those who live only for today willing to exploit it to extinction if they could, as we know only too well from the problems monofilament gill nets pose to fish stocks, and in particular bass stocks in home waters. Coral trout are prized fish to eat, and they are prized fish to catch, particularly with the light tackle we were using which allowed them to give as good an account of themselves as their European freshwater name sakes.

Like all fish, I’m sure coral trout can be given some specialised approach to bring bigger numbers to the boat, though with little experience of them to fall back on, I have no idea what that approach might be. Because of the snaggy nature of the reef and the presence of other equally hard fighting reef species including trevallies and snappers also around in good numbers, we decided to take the simplistic broad appeal approach of putting down baits which most fish on the reef were happy to eat, and on rigs that gave us the best chance of offering them in the main feeding zone with the least chance of getting hung up. Fish baits on 3/0 hooks tied to 18 inch long 40 pound bs droppers above a 12 ounce lead seemed to do the business well enough. Most fish however falling to the bottom hook suggests some reluctance to move too far up from the cover of the reef. Braid on the reel is also a must.

The boat we fished from was a 38 foot fully covered catamaran with a near 17 foot beam named ‘Fat Cat’. Edwin Pong skippers the boat out of the plush Suttera Harbour complex at Kota Kinabalu. But the boat is actually operated by an Australian lady called Shelley Blew who is based at the Langkah Syabas Beach Resort at Kinarut. I had previously spent endless hours trying to sort out a boat for fishing resulting in numerous blind allies and broken promises. Then one morning at breakfast I got talking to a couple who were raving about a fabulous meal they had enjoyed the previous evening in the restaurant of a small complex run by Shelley and Peter Cantwell down a track next to a big tiger beer advertising hoarding on the main road from our hotel into KK. I decided to drop in and investigate further. My only wish is that I had discovered Shelley and Fat Cat at the start of my stay rather than is so often the case when it’s virtually time to go home.
Dawn Coral Trout
Dawn into fish

After a few early problems in the worsening conditions getting the anchor to hold, Edwin eventually had Fat Cat positioned where he wanted her, and the baits were in free fall plummeting through the 270 feet of water we had beneath us down to the reef. Disappointed at not being able to get out to the deeper marks beyond the 350 foot line where hard fighting red snappers to over 20 pounds can be caught, Edwin chose this as a compromise mark which while it was not deep enough for the bigger snappers, was not too deep to rule out the coral trout either. And sure enough his reckoning was dead right. The first three fish to hit surface were all coral trout. When the crew saw them they were really in party mood. I don’t know what happens to all of the fish caught, but what I can say is that Shelley sorted a nice selection of the better fish out to have cooked for us at the restaurant that evening, and even sent a car around to transport us there after we had all got cleaned up back at our hotel. The food on the boat and the civilized manner in which it is served was also impressive.

PW big Coral Trout brace
While we were finding the coral trout, Edwin was pulling up a seemingly endless stream of reasonable quality red snappers. As so often happens on boat trips, despite everyone using identical rigs and sharing the same bait source, for some unknown reason, fish are not distributed evenly around the place. Not that we were complaining with the fish we were catching. It’s just that all the better snappers seemed to fall to his rod, though I’m sure he would be feeling equally hard done to at missing out on all the coral trout. Occasionally one of the rest of us would hook into something which would make an un-stoppable power dive into the reef and be gone. On the light tackle we were using, these fish were difficult to control, all adding to the fun. Some were un-undoubtedly good sized snappers. We had quite a few trevallies too which for their size can certainly pull your string. Then I had a really good coral trout - the best they had seen on the boat in many a long time in fact, which gave a particularly spirited account of itself.

Borneo might sound a little off the beaten track as a holiday destination, but in actual fact it is now starting to be marketed as a package holiday venue. We spotted our package while scanning Teletext advertisements on the TV and decided on the spur of the moment to give it a go. I’m not sure I would go all that way simply for the fishing. But as part of a wider package I wouldn’t hesitate. Don’t bother as I did taking your own tackle as this is all available on the boat or from a well stocked tackle shop in the Centre Point complex in KK. The quality of the bottom gear aboard Fat Cat was fine, and they had good trolling gear too if wahoo, bonito, trevallies, mackerel and barracuda are your thing. The occasional marlin and sailfish can also put in a show depending on your timing, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

The wildlife aspect of what’s on offer to mix in with the fishing on Borneo makes this a truly unforgettable package. Watching turtles coming ashore and laying their eggs is an experience not to be missed, as is white water rafting on the Padas River. We were offered the chance of trying body rafting on the last set of rapids. This means going through the rapids feet first laid on your back wearing just a life jacket and a helmet. When you are bobbing along at river level, what might seem like a reasonably tame piece of water when viewed from above suddenly looks mountainous, particularly as you grab a good lung full of air just before the first wave hits. As a non swimmer I have to say that this experience has made me feel a lot more confident about the safety equipment we carry aboard our boats back home. For the rafting they provided us with full padded life jackets of the type carried by passenger boats. I’m not knocking inflatable life jackets because I have done a lot of in-water training wearing them, but in light of the rafting experience, I would feel more comfortable with a full life jacket from now on.

PW first Giant Snakehead
It had been hoped to get up into the jungle to do some fishing on the rivers, and possibly one of the lakes, but access proved very difficult. When we did make it up river about 80 miles at the top of island, crocodiles, snakes and a chance encounter with a family of Sumatran jungle elephants didn't help, while the rivers to the south where we did the rafting were far too turbulent to fish. But all was not entirely lost as we made a short stop over at Kuala Lumpur on the way back where I met up with a group of local enthusiasts who went out of their way to ensure I at least got a taste of Malaysian freshwater fishing before heading for home. I had wanted to take a guided boat on a huge jungle lake to the north known as Tasik Temengor where they catch giant snakeheads, jungle perch and mahseer, but the logistics of setting it up in the short time available put paid to that. Instead, I was taken to Tow Foo fishery close to the airport where the usual lure fishing only rules were specially waived allowing me to fish small dead baits for giant snakeheads.

The whole snakehead family are bizarre looking fish. In some ways they reminded me of pike, particularly in their body shape and layout, though their colours and marking set them way apart from any other freshwater fish I have ever seen. The techniques best used to catch them were also reminiscent of pike fishing. Fish baits offered on a short wire flowing trace is as good an approach as any, and it produced virtually a take a throw, though not all of these were converted into fish on the bank through a combination of not giving them long enough once the run had started, and in the early part of the session using mono traces until we managed to get hold of some wire. After that it was every egg a bird. They fight a bit like pike too, though in these warm turbid conditions they seem to have a bit more go about them than pike of similar size. We didn't manage anything big, though elsewhere, they can reach weights of 20 pounds and more. Judging by the pictures we took, our fish wouldn't even have made half that weight. But very satisfying none the less, and a great days fishing which quite literally came out of the blue.