Fly Fishing for Snakeheads Bangi Style

Fishing for snakeheads (haruan) has always captivated me for no reason. I've got these buggers using worms, spinner-baits, frog lures, slash-baits, pencils and poppers. I've caught them in ponds, lakes, rivers, plantation irrigation water ways and even drains. Lately I've been catching them using home-tied flies fashioned as poppers and crickets...

The cricket

There's a guy out there somewhere in Malaysia who has been described as "an asset" to an international fly fishing forum who goes by the nickname Dron.fly. This guy is a genius. I see that he specializes in foam fly tying and he posted a tutorial on how to tie a foam cricket fly. He got 3 versions of his cricket flies and each new version looks a lot better than the latter... Well, since snakeheads eat crickets and I love catching snakeheads, I gave Mr. Dron.fly's recipe a try... Of course with minor modifications. Here's what I did...

Materials: black 2mm foam, brown 1mm foam, leftover foam, goose feathers glazed with head cement, a hook, Rembau goose biots and 2 fibres from a pheasent tail...

1. Wrapped leftover foam on a hook
2. Tie in the glazed goose feathers to form the hind feelers
3. Tie in the brown foam bottom and the black foam top
4. Create the segmented body
5. Bottom view of segmented body
6. Split the head open with a pair of scissors
7. Tie in 2 legs prepared from the Rembau goose biots and 2 antennas from the pheasent tail fibres
8. Tie in more brown foam as wings
9. Fold back black foam and tie to form head... Finished cricket fly...

Do this a bunch of times and you come up with a family of cricket flies. Do this a bunch of times and you also have an arsenal of snakehead lures. Look at this bunch a bunch of times and you get the shivers to fly-cast for snakeheads...

Brown foam bellied cricket bottom view

A family of cricket flies

Red bellied and black bellied cricket flies

To quickly and surely know whether these babies are snakehead attractors, one has to cast them in waters teaming with snakeheads. If no strikes occur, I'm better of casting them in a swimming pool at a hotel... Here in Bangi, this drain is the place.

Fly-testing drain...

Just step to the banks and you see them swimming and striking at dragon flies flying near the surface. Step a bit closer and the water ripples as they run for cover in deeper and darker parts of the drain.

Red bellied cricket to be tested

I started casting approximately 6.30pm today just to see if the crickets were any good. After 10 minutes this happened...

Kapaw!!!! Fly rod went bent, fly reel went screeching...

People passing paused to see the fight. It lasted a few minutes as the fish took the cricket for a joy-ride. The cricket took me for a joy-ride as well...

A good size female haruan
Proof of the good cricket

Upon inspecting the fish, I found out that it was a she and that she was pregnant. Yep, some fish out there is her husband. So the only thing to do is release the wife back... Man was she happy to be released.

See the belly, full of haruan eggs...

After giving her back her freedom, I stayed on and caught a juvenile snakehead. This fish was half her size but fought just as hard as her. But I didn't get a good hook up and the teen snakehead got away after being hooked for about a minute or two...

The red bellied cricket

After fishing, I went to a grocery store in front of the drain. I was there earlier to see the butcher to have a snapper and baramundi cut for my wife. I put the fish cuts down on the ground beside my trusty car and enjoyed a drink I picked up at the store while gazing at the drain. As dusk approached, I drove back home forgetting the snapper and baramundi cuts on the ground. At home, as I stepped out of the car, I realized what happened and like a mad snakehead, I rushed back to the drain to get my fish cuts. Once again at home, I inspected the cricket and saw that one leg was a bit broken... Heheh... Washed it up, put it on a fridge magnet and am planning to put it in the hall of cricket fame... Funny thing is that I went fishing for snakeheads and came back with a bag of barramundi and snapper...