Sport Fishing Explorer Trip #2 - Ready for battle

2nd trip on Ah Jiang's boat. After being totally under-geared from my first trip, I've upgraded my gear to suit the fishing conditions at South China Sea. Armed with the correct gear, I still think I've got lots to learn from the seasoned fishing kakis. As advised by another kaki on the last trip, I went to find a new seasick pill. This one is supposedly non-drowsy and I found it in UK. Will see if works this trip...

My first fish only came late the first night. Turned out to be a Russel's Snapper. Good sized fish. What a fish to break my rod and reel's 'virginity'! As we were doing bottom fishing mainly, fishing with large sinkers is new to me. Been using ball sinkers all this while and now have to use size 10-16 sinkers to get the bait to the bottom. Cranking it up also takes quite an effort! Good thing I bought the 2-speed reels!

The next day, I managed to catch a table-sized Grouper, Eng Ko (Blackspot Tuskfish), a few Spanish Flags and Brown-striped Snapper. Most of the fish were table-sized only, nothing spectacular. In any case, I was just happy to be out in the sea, catching fish was a bonus.

Later in the afternoon, I was at the side of the boat with the bait down at the bottom. Suddenly, there was a sharp pull and instantly I striked! Fish ON! This fish seemed stronger with its pulling power and was taking a bit of line. Slowly I pumped it up and I saw a while sheen. Definitely not the bottom-dwelling species. It turned out to be a Diamond Trevally! Woo hoo! Big one too! It's been a long time since I caught a Diamond Trevally.

Early next morning after breakfast, I continued to fish. This time I managed to hook up another Eng Ko. Bigger version than my first one.

My haul for the trip

While catching this fish, I felt the reel moving side to side on the reel seat. On closer inspection, it seems that the reel seat became loose. I asked Alvin whether is this normal and he said no, it should not move at all! He asked me to bring it back to Gina to have a look.

On this trip, the seas were pretty rough out there. Quite a few anglers and non-anglers became really seasick and were bed-ridden for almost the entire trip! I'm so glad I stuck to my regiment of 8 hour seasick pill-popping!

Although my haul for this trip isn't that great, I'm happy to be out fishing and enjoying the mini-holiday! As usual, the other anglers were scoring big on large fishes of all types. Here's me posing with somebody else's Cobia.

Gear used:
Rod - Expert Graphite JigForce PE3-6
Reel - Accurate DPX500N
Line - Sufix 832 50lb
Bait - live prawn
Rig - Apollo style (day), Ranggong style (night)

Fish ID - Eng Ko aka Blackspot Tuskfish (Choerodon schoenleinii)
            - Chermin aka Diamond Trevally (Alectics indicus)
            - Orange-Spotted Grouper (Epinephelus coioides)
            - Kee fish aka Brown-Striped Snapper (Lutjanus vitta)
            - Ikan Tanda aka Russell's Snapper (Lutjanus russellii)
            - Tee Boon aka Spanish Flag (Lutjanus carponotatus)