I've been out of action from fishing as I hurt my right hand during a fall. Even for this trip, my hand still hurts, but what to do when the fishing itch is so strong.......
This is the same group of kakis that I fished with the first time in May. Since they had another extended trip, I asked if I could tag along again. It's refreshing to fish as a group with everyone sharing the catch, because this way all the anglers will give way to the person hooked up.
Based on our last fishing trip where squid hunting was my forte, I came prepared for another round of hunting with some new squid jigs. Bought all these from the tackle shop in Tokyo.
I had also purchased a new fishing rod. Met a secondary school mate at a tackle shop who is now manufacturing fishing rods and he recommended me the Black Market jigging rod. I was looking for a PE2-4 overhead rod anyway but this one was quite out of my initial budget. After some demo and persuasion, I caved in and bought it. So this trip was to test the rod.
Haze has enveloped Singapore and was rather glad to be out at sea, although the haze was only slightly better out there. We steamed off in the afternoon and arrived Hosburgh Lighthouse around 6pm. We stopped at the first spot around dusk to drop a line to see if any fish were biting. Was pretty quiet on the first spot as we were using live prawn as bait. Soon there was a shout that someone had hooked up. Rod was bent nicely and line was peeling off. After reeling the fish in, everybody was disappointed when it turned out to be an Ah Seng! Haha... not a very good start.
After dinner, we set off to catch squid to use as bait. When we reached the spot, we were told to rig the squid jigs for bottom. So as I opened my pack of squid jigs, it became horribly entangled. As I was trying to untangle the lines, other anglers were already starting to get in on the action. Some very nice sized Arrowhead squids were being brought up.In my haste to untangle the lines/jigs, the mess got worse! So the deckie suggested I cut the lines and re-tie the rig. So after he re-tied for me, I quickly dropped my 3-jig rig over. As soon as it hit bottom, I could feel the pull of the squid! Quickly reeled it up and there it was, nice big Arrowhead squids!
Everybody was now pulling in the squids, depending on how many squid jigs they had on! Some had 2 jigs, 4 jigs even 5 jigs! Most if not all jigs had squids hanging off them as they were reeled it. The squids were thick as thieves at that spot! This was the definition of 'lok jiak'!!
When my 3-jig rig reached the surface and only had 2 squids hooked on, I would just release some line back and the surface squids would attack the last remaining jig and get itself hooked up! That is just awesome!! Some of the squid were quite big, some measuring 35cm!
Squirting Squids!!
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| Full House! |
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| Size 12 shoe, squid is about 30cm! |
We caught so many squid that all the bait tanks were overflowing and we had to choose the bigger ones to put on ice straight away as they were too big to be used as bait. This non-stop action lasted for about 3 hours. I've never experienced such insane squidding action!
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| Underwater shot |
We left the squid spot even though they were still getting hooked up. It's time for some serious fishing. We proceeded to the next spot and began fishing. Baited up with the smallest big squid we could use and dropped them over. Soon we had some hook-ups. Some Ang Chor were landed and Trevally.
Then my rod bend over hard! Quickly grabbed my rod and set the hook. Fish ON!! This fish was big as it began stripping line out of my Shimano Talica 8 II. I let it run a bit then began reeling the fish in. Changed to low gear to get more power into the cranking. Soon the fish reached the surface and I saw that it was a HUGE Barracuda! At least 1.5m long! The deckies got ready the net to scoop the fish but realized the fish was too big for the net. So brought the gaff instead. I had moved back a bit for them to grab the leader to control the fish. The fish was at the surface and began flipping and trashing in the water. The deckie tried to gaff the fish but somehow missed and the fish managed to flip and severed the leader. Ow mannnnn!!!!!!! The deckies were rather apologetic but I was kinda ok because Barracuda isn't really a good eating fish. But it would have been awesome to take a picture with it. So my Black Market rod's virginity has been popped by a badass "wham-bam-thank-you-see-you-later" Barracuda!
30mins later, my rod begun to twitch. I quickly grabbed the rod in my hand and waited. Reeled in slowly but couldn't feel any tension. Reeled in a bit faster then suddenly the rod loaded up! Gave it 2 quick strikes to set the hook and fish ON!! This fish felt heavy and took out some line. I thought it was another badass Barracuda but shortly into the fight, I could see my braid line going out into the horizon. It means that the fish has swum up to the surface, and the fish that usually does that is the Queenfish. True enough, as I reeled in closer to the boat, it jumped out once to confirm that it was indeed a Queenfish. This time the deckies gaffed the fish on the first try and swung it on board. It was BIG! According to the scales, it was around the 7kg mark! Woo hoo!!
Later in the night, an angler at the front of the boat began shouting that he was hooked up. We didn't think much about it until he said it was a monster! All of us quickly reeled up our lines and he began fighting the fish. Took him about 20mins to battle the fish until the fish surfaced. It was a White-spotted Wedgefish aka Kemejan. Fish was gaffed and landed. Looks to be about 5ft! This was one of the target fish of some of the anglers. Looks like we are at the right spot. Re-energized, we lowered our rigs down again to fish. Caught a few Ang Chor and I too managed hook up a decent sized Crimson Snapper aka Ang Kuay.
Bite slowed and so I went to sleep. Woke up in the morning to breakfast and boat captain told us we are going to try for Chermin. We reached a Chermin spot and were told to use Apollo rigs with live prawn. It was a quiet 10-15mins before all hell broke loose! One by one, anglers were getting hooked up and can hear drags screaming away! At one time, we even had 5 multiple hook ups! All scrambling around the boat to prevent line entanglement. When the first fish came up, it was a large Chermin. Heck, all the subsequent fishes were XL size! And when these fishes are of this size, man are they fun on light to medium tackle. I was holding my rod in anticipation when I felt a light tug. I already had my reel on free spool so I let the fish take the bait and counted to 3. Moved the drag lever to strike and lifted the rod up to set the hook. Fish ON! Straight away the fish goes beserk and peels off line. You don't want to put too high drag cos the fish's mouth/lips are rather soft. Just let them run and when they stop, begin reeling them in. They'll 'move' you around the boat so make sure you maneuver to avoid entanglement. That's when angler teamwork comes in. The angler next to me automatically reels up to make way so that there's no entanglement and he gets to fish straight away after I'm out of the way. Fished was gaffed up and rig re-baited and down it went again. As soon as the rig touched bottom, another fish was hooked up. Same fight and another Chermin was landed. We went on like this for the next 2 hours with almost 40 fishes landed! I hooked up 6 fishes and lost 1 when the fish dashed right under the boat and cut me off.
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| Chermins came thick n fast, no time to put into ice box! |
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| Repair after being busted off! |
We moved off after lunch to another spot for bottom fishing. According to the boatman, this spot also attracts some Tenggiris. I started bottom fishing but was rather quiet for 1hr. 2 anglers were jigging and they managed to hook up a Tenggiri each. So I thought I might as well give it a try as the bottom action was quiet. Tossed out my 40g green jig and began jigging using up/down motion. After 5-6 times, I changed to a 60g blue jig with a treble hook end. This time I cast out and began left/right retrieves. One my 3rd cast, as I was reeling back, the jig got smashed and I was hooked up. Fish ON! I tried to control it but the fish was peeling off line like nobody's business. Then it changed direction, heading towards the boat. I quickly reeled back and when I felt the tension, the fish sped off faster, right under the boat! Dipped my rod under the boat but was too late, my main braid line got cut off under the boat. Damn!! That was a good fish. Adrenaline pumping action but so disappointed to lose the fish.
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| Bait or food? Hmmmm..... |
After re-tying my leader, I put on the Halco Twisty 30g Chrome and began casting again. Fast retrieve, slow retrieve, up/down and sideways.... nothing was interested. So I went back to bottom fishing. Baited up with a live squid and dropped it over. About 15mins later, rod bent over and I quickly grabbed the rod and strike. Fish ON! Reeled it up easily and it was another Ang Kuay.
At night we returned to our squid spot and they were still there! Squid after squid were hooked up until the bait tanks were full again.
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| Squid haul after 2nd night! |
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| Squid sashimi, thanks to Shaun! |
Night fishing was patchy again, with about 6 Ang Chor caught. I had rigged up my 2-hook sliding rig to use for the large live squid. It worked out pretty good. Stuck the rod in the rod holder and waited. A short while later, the rod bent over and I gave it a strike. I could feel the fish hooked and began reeling, then the line went slack...Dammit! Reeled back to check and the 60lb mono line had been severed. Damn Barracudas! Couple of minutes later, the angler beside me suffered the same fate, line cut by Barracuda. As the night wore on, I decided to catch some shut eye. When I woke up in morning, I was told that another 2 anglers managed to hook up the Wedgefish. That makes it a total of 3 Wedgefish caught on this trip so far. These fish were around 5-6ft that they had to put it straight into the ice-maker machine.
We repeated our pattern again the next morning, catching lots of Chermins and occasional big Kaci. A few Areolate Groupers were also landed. Changed a few spots after that but was quiet. The quiet was punctuated with a few hookups which gave the rods a good bend but turned out to be BIG Ah Seng's!
The last night was spent catching squid again and we caught enough to use as bait only as our ice boxes were overflowing with squid and we had to leave space for any fish that would be caught during the night.
We moved to the spot and the current was very strong now. I had to use a size 18 sinker to reach bottom. Things were rather quiet when my rod had a few taps. The boat captain was standing next to my rod and he was watching it also. When the fish finally took the bait, he began reeling and I jumped up to continue. The fish surfaced and it was our first catch of Orange-Spotted Grouper, can you believe it! Wasn't big, just around 1kg.
Things began to quieten down approaching midnight and the boat captain said he'll move to a spot closer to Hosburgh Lighthouse to do some bottom fishing. When we reached the spot, the current was still very strong and there was a lot of leaf/debris flowing. We dropped our rigs and waited. We caught a few smaller Ang Chors and then a rather big oil slick flowed by. Damn! My fishing lines were all coated with the slick and I just quickly reeled up and tried to clean my line. I decided not to fish in those conditions and went to sleep.
I was woken up at 4am by my kaki telling me that they are heading back to S'pore already. So all the fish were put out for photo-taking and cleaning. All the ice-boxes were emptied and fish laid out.
Looks like we caught about 120+ pieces of large fishes among the 14 of us. All the fish were cleaned and the more desirable fishes were bagged and balloted out to each angler. And then whatever fish was left was up for grabs. All our ice boxes were full to the brim and we still had like 15 fishes with no takers.
Our squid catch was estimated to be about 200+ kgs! We took what we wanted and the rest was left to the boat crew to use as bait.
We reached the marina at 7am, earliest ever! Because we had run out of storage space for fish. This was an insane fishing trip!
Unusual catches
Gear used:
Rod - BlackMarket Slow Jig PE 3-5
Reel - Shimano Talica 8 II
Line - Fireline Tracer 40lb
Bait - Live prawn, live squid
Rig - Apollo, ranggong
Fish ID - Chermin aka Diamond Trevally (Alectics indicus)
- Orange-Spotted Grouper (Epinephelus coioides)
- Ang Chor aka John's Snapper (Lutjanus johnii)
- White-Spotted Wedgefish (Rhynchobatus australiae)
- Queenfish (Scomberoides commerson)
- Ang Kuay aka Crimson Snapper (Lutjanus erythropterus)
