Think I will be using this jig more often now!
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Battle scars
As I was cleaning up my fishing gear, I had a look at my Shimano Butterfly jigs. Yes, some bite/scuff marks from the Bonito and Cencaru that hit it yesterday.
Think I will be using this jig more often now!
Think I will be using this jig more often now!
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Desaru on Badol boat #3 - Mad weather and madder anglers!
Another Tenggiri hunting trip on Badol boat at Desaru. 4 of us made our way in 2 cars and cleared immigration and customs. Was taking Sang's car and we were chatting until we missed a turn to the highway to Desaru. After a U-turn, we were back on the right road towards Desaru.
Usual breakfast and began loading up the boat. All this while, the skies weren't looking too good for fishing. Dark clouds and thunder can can be heard at a distance. This time, it was only boatman Zam and another deckie as Badol was doing another charter on freshwater. We motored out about 5 mins when we reached an unjam. Zam suggested we try for baitfish at this spot. We drifted around and dropped our sabiki but no baitfish to be found. All this while, Zam was checking his phone for weather updates.
Since the weather wasn't too favourable, he asked us whether we want to stay close and do bottom fishing or continue further out to Tenggiri spot and risk getting caught in some bad weather. After a brief discussion, we anglers decided we came here for Tenggiri, so lets go hunt them. So off we sped into the sea with the swells picking up. Was really a bumpy ride for about 45mins till we reached our fishing spots.
At the spot, I could already see 2-3 other boats fishing there and their boats were rocking pretty hard! I could tell it's going to be a hard days fishing! We jigged for baitfish and started to put the live baits out the back of the boat. At this time, Sang was already out cold from seasickness. After 30mins or so, one rod started to twitch. Boatman Zam took the rod getting ready for the strike but the fish pulled away last minute. Sensing the miss, Zam slowly reeled the line back and WHACK! The fish took the bait! Fish ON! Woke Sang up to fight the fish as it was his rod that was hooked up. Groggily he grabbed the rod and fought the fish. I think the adrenaline must've overcome the seasickness! After about 20mins going around the boat's engine, finally the fish gave up. One gaff and the fish was up! Tenggiri! Weighed in at 9.5kg! A monster!
While jigging for baitfish, the deckie also had a bite. Took a while to bring the fish up as the gear used was very light. After much coaxing, the fish finally came up and it was a Tenggiri! On sabiki! Zam had also hooked up a Tenggiri on handline and it was a decent sized one as well! 3 in the cooler before the storm! Awesome!
Come lunchtime, the heavens opened and the winds picked up significantly. We hunkered down under the roof and waited for the storm to pass. It was really rocking and even I threw up. My seasick pills usually keeps me from throwing up but the rocking was that bad that I couldn't stop it.
The storm passed and we continued to fish. Calvin was jigging with a metal jig and scored a medium-sized Tenggiri. He was quite happy as it was his first Tenggiri on jig. He even managed to catch a big-ass Squid on the metal jig!
I tried jigging again and at one point I tossed my Shimano Butterfly jig near the ship's anchor line. As my jig was falling, immediately I felt a tug and a fish was on. Wasn't big and I quickly reeled it in. Turned out to be a Bonito! Next cast was towards the same point. Again as my jig was falling, another hit! This time it turned out to be a XL-sized Cencaru! Subsequent casts yielded nothing so it was back to jigging for baitfish and waiting on the live-baited rods.
As I was using my sabiki, I could feel that the baitfish were hooked up and slowly reeled it back up. Felt a bump and slack line. reeled up to find the sabiki has been busted off! Looks like the Tenggiris were 'snacking' on the baitfish on the sabiki. This happened to me twice!
A short while later, the live-bait rod screamed! Fish ON! This time, I took the rod and played the fish. Not too bad, just that the fish kept going under the boat's engine threatening to bust me off on the props. After careful manoeuvring, managed to bring the fish boatside for a gaff shot! Up it came and another decent sized Tenggiri.
With 5 Tenggiri in the cooler and quite a bit of Cencaru, Kembung and Selar, we called it a day. Thunderstorms, lightning, rough seas, crazy winds, seasickness...etc. The things we do the cure our fishing itch!
Gear used:
Rod - Eupro Salty Fighter PE0.8-2.0
Reel - Shimano Saros 2500F
Line - Spiderwire Invisibraid 20lb
Bait - live Kembung; Shimano Butterfly jig (Phantom Squid colour)
Rig - leader to wire-traced double hook
Usual breakfast and began loading up the boat. All this while, the skies weren't looking too good for fishing. Dark clouds and thunder can can be heard at a distance. This time, it was only boatman Zam and another deckie as Badol was doing another charter on freshwater. We motored out about 5 mins when we reached an unjam. Zam suggested we try for baitfish at this spot. We drifted around and dropped our sabiki but no baitfish to be found. All this while, Zam was checking his phone for weather updates.
Since the weather wasn't too favourable, he asked us whether we want to stay close and do bottom fishing or continue further out to Tenggiri spot and risk getting caught in some bad weather. After a brief discussion, we anglers decided we came here for Tenggiri, so lets go hunt them. So off we sped into the sea with the swells picking up. Was really a bumpy ride for about 45mins till we reached our fishing spots.
At the spot, I could already see 2-3 other boats fishing there and their boats were rocking pretty hard! I could tell it's going to be a hard days fishing! We jigged for baitfish and started to put the live baits out the back of the boat. At this time, Sang was already out cold from seasickness. After 30mins or so, one rod started to twitch. Boatman Zam took the rod getting ready for the strike but the fish pulled away last minute. Sensing the miss, Zam slowly reeled the line back and WHACK! The fish took the bait! Fish ON! Woke Sang up to fight the fish as it was his rod that was hooked up. Groggily he grabbed the rod and fought the fish. I think the adrenaline must've overcome the seasickness! After about 20mins going around the boat's engine, finally the fish gave up. One gaff and the fish was up! Tenggiri! Weighed in at 9.5kg! A monster!
While jigging for baitfish, the deckie also had a bite. Took a while to bring the fish up as the gear used was very light. After much coaxing, the fish finally came up and it was a Tenggiri! On sabiki! Zam had also hooked up a Tenggiri on handline and it was a decent sized one as well! 3 in the cooler before the storm! Awesome!
Come lunchtime, the heavens opened and the winds picked up significantly. We hunkered down under the roof and waited for the storm to pass. It was really rocking and even I threw up. My seasick pills usually keeps me from throwing up but the rocking was that bad that I couldn't stop it.
The storm passed and we continued to fish. Calvin was jigging with a metal jig and scored a medium-sized Tenggiri. He was quite happy as it was his first Tenggiri on jig. He even managed to catch a big-ass Squid on the metal jig!
As I was using my sabiki, I could feel that the baitfish were hooked up and slowly reeled it back up. Felt a bump and slack line. reeled up to find the sabiki has been busted off! Looks like the Tenggiris were 'snacking' on the baitfish on the sabiki. This happened to me twice!
A short while later, the live-bait rod screamed! Fish ON! This time, I took the rod and played the fish. Not too bad, just that the fish kept going under the boat's engine threatening to bust me off on the props. After careful manoeuvring, managed to bring the fish boatside for a gaff shot! Up it came and another decent sized Tenggiri.
With 5 Tenggiri in the cooler and quite a bit of Cencaru, Kembung and Selar, we called it a day. Thunderstorms, lightning, rough seas, crazy winds, seasickness...etc. The things we do the cure our fishing itch!
Gear used:
Rod - Eupro Salty Fighter PE0.8-2.0
Reel - Shimano Saros 2500F
Line - Spiderwire Invisibraid 20lb
Bait - live Kembung; Shimano Butterfly jig (Phantom Squid colour)
Rig - leader to wire-traced double hook
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Double hookup!
Decided to go for a quick morning session at usual kayak launch point. Wanted to go find new fishing spots with my fish finder. After pedalling around the suspected area, I just couldn't find the distinctive markings of underwater structure. Oddly enough, my hook and sinker was snagged at some spot! Reading the fish finder really takes some experience, sometimes the structure is so small and indiscernible on the screen.
But was rewarded with a fly-past from the air!
After giving up on searching for new spot, I headed back to my usual spot. Baited up and dropped the line down. A few minutes later, tap-tap.....tap-tap..... I slowly held my fishing rod and on the next tap...Strike! Fish ON! Tried to quickly reel it in but alas, it managed to get snagged to something. I gave the line some slack and waited. Tried to reel again, no luck. Gave some slack again, waited longer. Tried again...... darn, still stuck. But I can feel that the fish is still hooked. Ok lah... no choice. I reeled up tight and started pumping the rod, hoping to either pull the fish out or break the line. Well, what do you know, I managed to pull the fish out and it turned out to be a Kaci (Painted Sweetlips). Nice sized fish!
Had a few more hookups but the fish were all small sized so I released them. I had 1 rod in the rod holder while holding on to another fishing rod. Then as I was contemplating to head back to shore when the rod in the rod holder began to bend! Fish ON! I placed the rod that I was holding on my lap while I grabbed the one in the rod holder. Just as I was leaning to grab, the rod on my lap flew away as another fish grabbed the bait! I quickly lunged forward to grab the flying rod just before it went overboard! Phew!! This fish was pulling hard and thought it was going to be a big fish so I left the other rod in the rod holder, hoping that the fish will still be there when I've landed this fish. Fought the fish till it finally surfaced. #@!#$!*^&%$! Marine Catfish aka Ikan Duri! Not very big but from the way it fought, it sure felt like a big fish! So with the fish at the surface, I grabbed the other rod and reeled it up. Yes! The fish is still there! Not big so reeled it in quick and turned out to be another type of Eel-Tail Catfish aka Ikan Sembilang. Luckily, I was using a size 1 circle hook on this rod and the hook was nicely pinned at the corner of the catfish mouth. So this was my first, if not chaotic DOUBLE HOOKUP! With rod in each hand, I pedalled back to shore to unhook the fishes as they have some nasty stingers if one is not careful! After unhooking and removing their stingers, I gave the larger catfish to a shore angler and kept the smaller one plus the Kaci for dinner.
Gear used:
Rod - Shimano TCurve Tropical PE1-2 & Shimano Eclipse Telescopic PE0.8
Reel - Shimano Saros 1000F
Line - Fireline Crystal 10lb & Spiderwire Fluorobraid
Bait - Mussells
Rig - Apollo style
Fish ID - Kaci aka Painted Sweetlips (Diagramma pictus)
- Ikan Sembilang aka Eel-Tail Catfish (Plotosus canius)
But was rewarded with a fly-past from the air!
After giving up on searching for new spot, I headed back to my usual spot. Baited up and dropped the line down. A few minutes later, tap-tap.....tap-tap..... I slowly held my fishing rod and on the next tap...Strike! Fish ON! Tried to quickly reel it in but alas, it managed to get snagged to something. I gave the line some slack and waited. Tried to reel again, no luck. Gave some slack again, waited longer. Tried again...... darn, still stuck. But I can feel that the fish is still hooked. Ok lah... no choice. I reeled up tight and started pumping the rod, hoping to either pull the fish out or break the line. Well, what do you know, I managed to pull the fish out and it turned out to be a Kaci (Painted Sweetlips). Nice sized fish!
Had a few more hookups but the fish were all small sized so I released them. I had 1 rod in the rod holder while holding on to another fishing rod. Then as I was contemplating to head back to shore when the rod in the rod holder began to bend! Fish ON! I placed the rod that I was holding on my lap while I grabbed the one in the rod holder. Just as I was leaning to grab, the rod on my lap flew away as another fish grabbed the bait! I quickly lunged forward to grab the flying rod just before it went overboard! Phew!! This fish was pulling hard and thought it was going to be a big fish so I left the other rod in the rod holder, hoping that the fish will still be there when I've landed this fish. Fought the fish till it finally surfaced. #@!#$!*^&%$! Marine Catfish aka Ikan Duri! Not very big but from the way it fought, it sure felt like a big fish! So with the fish at the surface, I grabbed the other rod and reeled it up. Yes! The fish is still there! Not big so reeled it in quick and turned out to be another type of Eel-Tail Catfish aka Ikan Sembilang. Luckily, I was using a size 1 circle hook on this rod and the hook was nicely pinned at the corner of the catfish mouth. So this was my first, if not chaotic DOUBLE HOOKUP! With rod in each hand, I pedalled back to shore to unhook the fishes as they have some nasty stingers if one is not careful! After unhooking and removing their stingers, I gave the larger catfish to a shore angler and kept the smaller one plus the Kaci for dinner.
Rod - Shimano TCurve Tropical PE1-2 & Shimano Eclipse Telescopic PE0.8
Reel - Shimano Saros 1000F
Line - Fireline Crystal 10lb & Spiderwire Fluorobraid
Bait - Mussells
Rig - Apollo style
Fish ID - Kaci aka Painted Sweetlips (Diagramma pictus)
- Ikan Sembilang aka Eel-Tail Catfish (Plotosus canius)
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