ANGLERS HOOK A DIRE WARNING

By : REBECCA CHONG    Pictures : VICTOR LO

FOUR things are clear from the recent Sabah international fishing tournament. Sabah still has very good fishing grounds and its anglers are the best in the region. But fish are getting smaller by weight because of overfishing. And foreign contestants are having second thoughts of the competition.

The biggest catch was a giant grouper weighing 54kg (119 lbs) which won the first prize for Chock Vui Min, David Teo and Ng Soon Hin as a team. They won 15,000 ringgit ($4,760). This year’s tournament offered 225,000 ringgit of cash prizes. Sabah anglers won them all.

Contest officials however said they were surprised by the giant grouper which was 20kg heavier than last year’s winner. But they said other fish were far smaller by about half of what fishermen caught in the past although someone hooked a 75kg fish two days before the contest.

GIANT.....Chock Vui Min and his giant grouper.

Still there are a good variety of fish such as barracuda, amber jack, ruby snapper, trevally and spanish mackerel in Sabah waters.

Wilfred Lingham, the president of the Sabah Anglers’ Association blamed overfishing of fries for the dwindling number of giant fish. Bigger fish feed on them but hundreds of fishermen at Kimanis, about 60km from Kota Kinabalu, have been hauling in fries by the tonnes with their nets. Fried in batter, the fries are a delicacy

Last month’s competition attracted 140 anglers, 26 more than last year. Thirty-three of them were from Hong Kong, Macau, the Philippines and Singapore. There were 18 peninsular Malaysians and 89 Sabahans. But the number fell short of the 200 which the Sabah Anglers’ Association had expected. There were 172 competitors in 2010.

Lingham said foreign competitors might have shied away because the two-day, three-night tournament in its 15th year might not have made “economic sense” to them.

“So we will hold it for four days and five nights next year,” he said and added that better prizes were in the offing.

BANNED.....Wilfred Lingham with a banned reel.

Lingham noted that many of the foreign participants came about three weeks before the tournament to take in the sights of Sabah and to familiarize themselves with the fishing ground around Pulau (island) Mengalum which is five hours from the Sutera Harbour Resort in Kota Kinabalu.

He said competitors felt that the seven or eight hours of fishing time were too short and contest rules dictated that they had to fish some 20 nautical miles (37km) off Mengalum. That is a journey of about 16 hours from Kota Kinabalu.

Next year's event will be held during the second week of May to allow contestants of the Labuan international fishing tournament, which begins earlier, to join. And contestants can fish anywhere they like, according to Lingham.

There were some false moves. Officials confiscated two banned electrical fishing reels and six manual reels just before the start of the tournament during a boat inspection. The electrical reels cost about 4,000 ringgit each. The organizers returned them to their owners after the contest. (Insight Sabah)