Borneo roadtrip
Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 3:59 pm
Hi mates,
I’ve just arrived home from Borneo and the best way to deal with post-holiday blues is to write a report ☺. So here it is:
Some of you may have seen from a previous report that I was in Sri Lanka recently with my extended family. I wasn’t quite ready to head home when our holiday came to an end, so I decided to pop in to Borneo on the way home. My dad and brother were keen too, and a bit over a week ago we arrived at our guesthouse in Kota Kinabalu (the capital of Malaysian Borneo), which was right next to a fish market:
The cheap accommodation suddenly made sense – it stunk. But at least there was plenty of delicious street food nearby:
I was keen to get out of the city asap, so first thing the next morning we hired a car and started driving. The plan was to head north along the eastern coast, cut through the central highlands to the west coast and explore a couple of national parks, then make our way back to Kota Kinabalu along the northern coast. I’d marked a couple of river mouths on google maps that looked pretty fishy, and that’s where we headed. The first spot required a bit of a walk along a pretty interesting beach:
It was very rapidly eroding away – there were uprooted trees everywhere:
Anyway after about an hours walk we finally arrived at the river mouth and were greeted with this:
A huge mining operation, which had no doubt trashed the ecosystem there and would make fishing a waste of time – dang. So we made the long trek back to the car, disappointed but still hopeful the next spot would deliver. And luckily, after a bit of trial and error and another long walk, we came to this beautiful little inlet:
This spot looked super fishy and I was sure it would hold fish, but two hours later all we had to show for our efforts was this little cod:
There was life everywhere:
But we couldn’t raise a scale. My dad decided to tie on a big stickbait and over the next half an hour he had three massive explosions behind his lure for no hookup - it just wasn’t our day. And when the sun started to set and these creepy cows started giving us some dirty looks:
We decided to call it quits. I would have liked to fish this spot again, but we had lots of Borneo to explore and only a week to do it, so the next morning we started making our way inland towards south-east Asia’s largest peak – Mount Kinabalu. The drive through the mountains was beautiful and the views were insane:
I was super keen to explore some of the freshwater streams and rivers in this area as Borneo is home to some pretty incredible freshwater fish including golden mahseer and giant snakehead, but unfortunately heavy recent rain had turned all the larger rivers into late-coloured deluges:
And all the smaller rainforest streams into raging torrents:
With freshwater fishing off the cards, we decided to make our way to a little hostel at the base of Mount Kinabalu:
It was pretty grotty:
But the views from our balcony were unreal (when you could see through the mist):
And the fresh local produce was a treat:
The cool temperate rainforest at these higher elevations was a nice change from the heat and humidity of the lowlands, and it was home to some very cool invertebrates (that snail was the size of my palm):
And these cheeky silvery langurs:
After exploring Mount Kinabalu we continued on our way west to a coastal city called Sandakan, which is most well known for its floating shanty towns in the local bay:
We based ourselves in Sandakan for a few days while we explored some of the national parks and wildlife sanctuaries nearby. The main reason I went to Borneo was to see orangutans, which are rapidly disappearing as a result of the palm oil industry. You can see the devastating effects of palm oil everywhere you go in Borneo (this is a recently cleared patch of rainforest):
Luckily there are still a few patches of pristine rainforest:
And we were lucky enough to see both orangutans and proboscis monkeys (which are endemic to Borneo):
We managed to get really close to a group of proboscis monkeys – they’re one of the weirdest animals I’ve ever seen:
From Sandakan we decided to head north to Borneo’s most northern tip. We checked into a little bungalow on this gorgeous beach:
And started doing some exploring. It didn’t take long before we found this beautiful rock ledge:
It dropped down into some very deep water and just screamed big pelagics, but we only had our 2-5kg travel sticks so we could only flick around little hards. And didn’t take long before I came up solid:
A nice little grassy sweetlip – not a bad start. Over the next hour we pulled in a few nice little reefies:
But when the heavens opened and I got drenched by a couple of massive waves, we decided to call it quits. We weren’t too phased – it was just nice to get a few fish on the board. The next morning was our penultimate day and I was keen to head to another river mouth that I’d found on google earth. So after a typical Malaysian breakfast:
We made our way to our spot:
This place was beautiful, and some heavy rain over night meant there was a really fishy dirty water line forming:
I knew there would be predators lurking around this dirty water line, but it was just out of casting range, and limited bank access meant we could only cast into the dirty freshwater. I didn’t think there was much hope of catching a fish in there, but I thought maybe if we waited the tide would push that clean water within casting distance. And sure enough, as soon as we were able to work our lures between the dirty and fresh water, my dad had a hit:
Only tiny, but if there was bait in the area, perhaps there were predators too. And it didn’t take long before I came up solid too, and up popped possibly the weirdest fish I’ve ever seen:
I’ve never seen anything like it before - it looked a bit like a furry stone fish that could walk along the sand (using those strange feeler-like fins). It was bizarre. While I was trying to get him back into the water without spiking myself, dad yelled out that he was finally on to a decent fish:
A beautiful jack – only small, but a nice fish. Things were finally starting to happen so I decided to put on a slightly larger lure in case there was something bigger lurking, and after a few casts it was hammered. This was a good fish and it was making my little 2500 stradic sing, and when I saw a big silver flank in the shallows I though I might have hooked something pretty special. But I was a little disappointed to see this guy pop up:
A dirty barracuda – still a cool fish, but not what I was hoping for. But I can’t complain, I was pretty lucky to land him with only a 10lb leader. Unfortunately by the time we had released this guy, the dirty water line was out of casting range again, so we decided to head home on a relative high. We didn’t land any trophies, but it had been a ripper day, and the sunset back at our beach bungalow was spectactular:
The next morning we started the long trip back to Kota Kinabalu, where we were catching a flight home. We explored a couple of beautiful beaches on the way:
Drove through some pretty wild weather:
And dropped off our faithful steed (this car was actually the biggest piece of sh!t, I can't believe it made it all the way around Borneo):
And all too soon we were in a cab on the way to the airport. It was a brilliant trip, and I’d love to head back there with a bit more time to explore properly. Borneo has some serious fishing potential – black bass, spot tail bass, barramundi, jacks, threadfin salmon, mahseer, snakehead…not too mention all the pelagics and reefies. Just don’t make the same mistake as us and head during the wet season ha.
Cheers!
I’ve just arrived home from Borneo and the best way to deal with post-holiday blues is to write a report ☺. So here it is:
Some of you may have seen from a previous report that I was in Sri Lanka recently with my extended family. I wasn’t quite ready to head home when our holiday came to an end, so I decided to pop in to Borneo on the way home. My dad and brother were keen too, and a bit over a week ago we arrived at our guesthouse in Kota Kinabalu (the capital of Malaysian Borneo), which was right next to a fish market:
The cheap accommodation suddenly made sense – it stunk. But at least there was plenty of delicious street food nearby:
I was keen to get out of the city asap, so first thing the next morning we hired a car and started driving. The plan was to head north along the eastern coast, cut through the central highlands to the west coast and explore a couple of national parks, then make our way back to Kota Kinabalu along the northern coast. I’d marked a couple of river mouths on google maps that looked pretty fishy, and that’s where we headed. The first spot required a bit of a walk along a pretty interesting beach:
It was very rapidly eroding away – there were uprooted trees everywhere:
Anyway after about an hours walk we finally arrived at the river mouth and were greeted with this:
A huge mining operation, which had no doubt trashed the ecosystem there and would make fishing a waste of time – dang. So we made the long trek back to the car, disappointed but still hopeful the next spot would deliver. And luckily, after a bit of trial and error and another long walk, we came to this beautiful little inlet:
This spot looked super fishy and I was sure it would hold fish, but two hours later all we had to show for our efforts was this little cod:
There was life everywhere:
But we couldn’t raise a scale. My dad decided to tie on a big stickbait and over the next half an hour he had three massive explosions behind his lure for no hookup - it just wasn’t our day. And when the sun started to set and these creepy cows started giving us some dirty looks:
We decided to call it quits. I would have liked to fish this spot again, but we had lots of Borneo to explore and only a week to do it, so the next morning we started making our way inland towards south-east Asia’s largest peak – Mount Kinabalu. The drive through the mountains was beautiful and the views were insane:
I was super keen to explore some of the freshwater streams and rivers in this area as Borneo is home to some pretty incredible freshwater fish including golden mahseer and giant snakehead, but unfortunately heavy recent rain had turned all the larger rivers into late-coloured deluges:
And all the smaller rainforest streams into raging torrents:
With freshwater fishing off the cards, we decided to make our way to a little hostel at the base of Mount Kinabalu:
It was pretty grotty:
But the views from our balcony were unreal (when you could see through the mist):
And the fresh local produce was a treat:
The cool temperate rainforest at these higher elevations was a nice change from the heat and humidity of the lowlands, and it was home to some very cool invertebrates (that snail was the size of my palm):
And these cheeky silvery langurs:
After exploring Mount Kinabalu we continued on our way west to a coastal city called Sandakan, which is most well known for its floating shanty towns in the local bay:
We based ourselves in Sandakan for a few days while we explored some of the national parks and wildlife sanctuaries nearby. The main reason I went to Borneo was to see orangutans, which are rapidly disappearing as a result of the palm oil industry. You can see the devastating effects of palm oil everywhere you go in Borneo (this is a recently cleared patch of rainforest):
Luckily there are still a few patches of pristine rainforest:
And we were lucky enough to see both orangutans and proboscis monkeys (which are endemic to Borneo):
We managed to get really close to a group of proboscis monkeys – they’re one of the weirdest animals I’ve ever seen:
From Sandakan we decided to head north to Borneo’s most northern tip. We checked into a little bungalow on this gorgeous beach:
And started doing some exploring. It didn’t take long before we found this beautiful rock ledge:
It dropped down into some very deep water and just screamed big pelagics, but we only had our 2-5kg travel sticks so we could only flick around little hards. And didn’t take long before I came up solid:
A nice little grassy sweetlip – not a bad start. Over the next hour we pulled in a few nice little reefies:
But when the heavens opened and I got drenched by a couple of massive waves, we decided to call it quits. We weren’t too phased – it was just nice to get a few fish on the board. The next morning was our penultimate day and I was keen to head to another river mouth that I’d found on google earth. So after a typical Malaysian breakfast:
We made our way to our spot:
This place was beautiful, and some heavy rain over night meant there was a really fishy dirty water line forming:
I knew there would be predators lurking around this dirty water line, but it was just out of casting range, and limited bank access meant we could only cast into the dirty freshwater. I didn’t think there was much hope of catching a fish in there, but I thought maybe if we waited the tide would push that clean water within casting distance. And sure enough, as soon as we were able to work our lures between the dirty and fresh water, my dad had a hit:
Only tiny, but if there was bait in the area, perhaps there were predators too. And it didn’t take long before I came up solid too, and up popped possibly the weirdest fish I’ve ever seen:
I’ve never seen anything like it before - it looked a bit like a furry stone fish that could walk along the sand (using those strange feeler-like fins). It was bizarre. While I was trying to get him back into the water without spiking myself, dad yelled out that he was finally on to a decent fish:
A beautiful jack – only small, but a nice fish. Things were finally starting to happen so I decided to put on a slightly larger lure in case there was something bigger lurking, and after a few casts it was hammered. This was a good fish and it was making my little 2500 stradic sing, and when I saw a big silver flank in the shallows I though I might have hooked something pretty special. But I was a little disappointed to see this guy pop up:
A dirty barracuda – still a cool fish, but not what I was hoping for. But I can’t complain, I was pretty lucky to land him with only a 10lb leader. Unfortunately by the time we had released this guy, the dirty water line was out of casting range again, so we decided to head home on a relative high. We didn’t land any trophies, but it had been a ripper day, and the sunset back at our beach bungalow was spectactular:
The next morning we started the long trip back to Kota Kinabalu, where we were catching a flight home. We explored a couple of beautiful beaches on the way:
Drove through some pretty wild weather:
And dropped off our faithful steed (this car was actually the biggest piece of sh!t, I can't believe it made it all the way around Borneo):
And all too soon we were in a cab on the way to the airport. It was a brilliant trip, and I’d love to head back there with a bit more time to explore properly. Borneo has some serious fishing potential – black bass, spot tail bass, barramundi, jacks, threadfin salmon, mahseer, snakehead…not too mention all the pelagics and reefies. Just don’t make the same mistake as us and head during the wet season ha.
Cheers!