Saturday, October 17, 2009

The Iowa state university fishing experience

In Ogden Iowa, there is a very nice lake formed by the glacier. Fishing at this lake had never been a lucky experience for my friends and I. But there is another attraction. The park is beautiful and the water is clean for swimming.

There are a couple of beach volleyball courts and barbecue sets in this park. The photo above showed our volleyball games. Dwen & I Vs Fred & fendi who had been worthy opponents during our stay in ISU in early 90s.

The locals are friendly and most of the time they will join us for a game or two. Eating barbecued corns and chicken in the cold spring after a bit of swimming was one the best way to relax...

Iowa state University fishing experience


The photo above shows one of the thrilling fishing site in the vicinity of Iowa State, the Boone Dam. This place is most popular for its huge schools of catfish and carps.

Rambo , Roslim & I were lucky that day to bring back few carps. However, because the weather was a little bit cold, none of them caught our baits. Therefore, what Rambo did was brought the line near to the carps and retracted the line quickly. Snagging it was, that gave us half a dozen of big carps home.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Iowa State University Fishing experience

I arrived in Iowa State University in1990 to study engineering. Not long after Jai, maman, bob, and bro duan and I managed to get a place to stay at 2017 sunset Drive , Ames, our seniors had invited us for a fishing trip.

We were taken to a nice dam in Boone to fish for catfish and carp. The bait we were using were raw corn for carp and night crawler for catfish.

Then something funny happenned. An officer from the state ranger approached bob and asked for fishing license. Barely speaking a word of english , bob handed him his passport. The officer looked so confused that he finally asked us to get a license. We were even more confused because never could we imagine that fishing would require a license like driving.

That day we caught few big catfish and carps. The nice fall weather was hard to tell but certainly one of the unforgettable experience of our life times.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Menjala near krubong river dam

The next day on 4th hariraya, wai and me went to the river again. Only this time we brought together our jala or the fishing net. The water level is not very deep accept near the water gate.

After a couple of throws, wai started to catch fresh water shrimp and petutu. Later on i catch 2 red tilapia which caught me by surprise because, all this while i had never caught any red, only dark tilapia.

The nylon in my net was koind of old and it disintegrated everytiime i hold it tight in my hand. After almost an hour we caught enough for meal for our entire family.

Wai was funny, everytime the jala was caught between the rock in the river, he will dive and call for the legend's saying" batu belah batu tertangkup". That accelerated my way back as i started to imagine of the crocodiles that used to roam in krubong river.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Krubong Water Dam 3rd Raya 2009

It has been a long time since I fished in the dam. My bro acip, had just bought a fish trap made of nylon but he had yet to try it out since he is going to Masai to visit the inlaws.

The water was a bit murky. My 2 sons and 3 other cousins were following in dak wai's Kembara. I swam in the dam and set up the trap using a bamboo pole and a noni's branch. The bait used was bits of belacan shoved in an old sock. Perfect for petutu or udang.

While waiting for wai to menjala, the boys were swimming and diving for big kepah. They caught like 20 kepah. That night they had kepah for dinner. That was the first time.

The next morning, After offering the Suboh prayer, Wai finally arrived for inviting me to take a look at the trap. I learnt something today. I caught nothing except for a few small prawns. The trap had gone upside down due to strong underwater current.

When he came back, dak din told me that the trap should be set perpendicular instead of parallel to the banks. For sure I will try that again when I came back to krubong.