Location 1 - Biotope of Chocolate gourami

It was a sunny Saturday, just the right weather for some jungle bashing and fish netting. And this time round, we were off all the way from Mersing to Pahang. Hopped along in the wagon were me, Nicholas and wife and Zhou Hang, with a sound plan stopping over a few locations which we've planned for little walkabouts, that's right - Biotopes of Chocolate gouramis and Cryptocorynes.

A good 2 hours of the morning was spent on the highway before we turn into pebble tracks. The drive was bumpy and carried on for another 30minutes. We were traveling slowly deeper into jungle. The tracks are new and construction was going on. It seemed like a big compound was going to be cleared up. The wagon finally stopped at a road with a small mud path running parallel down to it. Our leader, Zhou Hang flew off with his gears immediately. This was where he found chocolate gourami on his previous trip.

We geared up anxiously and followed him down the path. Struggling and bashing through a thicket of lalang, what appear before us was a beautiful flooded plain, with crystal clear water and lots of aquatic plants. Further in are the swamps and beyond that, a large Palm Plantation. Needless to say, this beautiful habitat will probably be destroyed soon for expansion of the plantation or perhaps, to make way for broader road.

There are plentiful rasboras and barbs. But as we don't want to get wet so early, we could only stand on the fallen log stretching out with our nets. The big log had somehow fallen nicely across from one end to the other. Rasboras are too fast and soon, we were tired with all our fruitless attempts. It was getting bored when two brown shadows appeared in my net among the dirt!

I had swiped my net underneath the thick clumps of dirt attached to the log and there they were - two chocolate gouramis! We were overjoyed and that seems promising for the day's first catch. But to my dismay, the next few scoops brought up nothing but more dirt. Time is running short and we have to get going. And so, I decided to walk right to the end of the log for more tries. It must be my lucky day. Among the dead leaves at the bank, I scooped up one of the largest chocolate gourami of the day! The fish had some nice greenish, circular pattern that is not seen on the usual ones that can be bought from the local fish shop.

Well, so much for this location. We moved out of the area and sped off to the main road and continue with our trip.