Back in Kuching again after missing out on the Tenggiri the last trip. Seems that we were too early in the Tenggiri season.
This time we were taking Sea Wonder, sister boat to Ocean Shadow. Sea Wonder is a smaller boat, max 10 anglers.
As luck would have it, when we arrived at the jetty, it was super low tide and the boat could not berth at the jetty. So we had to take a smaller sampan to get onto the boat.
After that, it was a 6hr journey to the fishing grounds. Everybody was excited because we heard from previous trip that the Tenggiris were being caught in large numbers.
Reached the spot around 1am and began fishing. We were using ranggong rig as the previous fishing reports were that the Tenggiris were feeding close to the bottom. Every angler deployed their rigs with frozen sardine as bait.
Waited and waited............... the only fish that were caught were Ah Sengs! Not a good beginning to the trip!
Some other creatures came for a visit!
A few more hours passed by with no signs of the Tenggiri so went to sleep.
Woke up in the morning and we set off to another spot for bottom drift fishing. Changed to my trusty 2-circle hook Apollo rig. Reached the spot and I saw on the fish finder very nice arches. Quickly dropped my rig baited with frozen squid down and as soon as it hit bottom, BAM! FISH ON! Nice fight and up came a big Ang Kuey.
Re-baited and dropped the rig over. Reached bottom, did one crank up and BAM! Fish ON again! Another nice Ang Kuey!
Other anglers were also getting Ang Kuey and a few Groupers as well.
Circle hook at the corner of the fish's mouth, every time!
+++++TIPS+++++
I'm quite happy to use circle hooks now for bottom fishing. One has to resist the temptation to strike when you feel the fish taking the bait. Free-spool and let the fish take out some line without tension. Count to 5, engage the drag and sweep the rod up. Once the rod loads up, reel up as per normal.
+++++TIPS+++++
We moved a few spots during the day and continued catching various types of fish, including this prized catch!! Emperor Snapper aka Ang Sai.
Another species, Red Spot Emperor aka Leng Chiam
Larger version!
After sunset, we moved to the next Tenggiri spot for the night. I was still doing bottom fishing with my Apollo rig and caught this juvenile version of Leng Chiam. Fish released to grow bigger.
Re-baited and dropped the rig over again. Put the rod in the rod holder and waited. Suddenly my rod bent over hard and sprang back up! Grabbed the rod but nothing there any more. Put on another squid bait and down it went. This time I was holding the rod. 2 cranks up from the bottom and a fish took the bait hard! Fish was taking out line on my Talica 8 II. Slowly reeled the fish up and I could tell it was no bottom-dwelling fish. It's the fish we've been waiting for! Fish surfaced and it was a whopper Tenggiri! Fish gaffed and boated. Awesome!!
With that first fish on deck, all anglers began switching out to ranggong rigs with wire traces. I was rather surprised that my circle hook held on to the fish nicely. On closer inspection, the circle hook was nicely pinned at the corner of the mouth, therefore sparing the FC leader from the nasty fangs! A bit lucky I guess!
So the first bite that I missed was most likely a Tenggiri too, just that the hook failed to set.
Soon we were getting hit left, right, centre with multiple hookups all around the boat. Sometimes with a bit of manoeuvring, we could avoid the crossed lines but sometimes the fish plays dirty and gets a few anglers lines all tangled up.
The best move I find is that whenever an angler near me hooks up, I'll watch how the fish is swimming. If the fish is strong and zig-zagging all over the place, I'll quickly reel up my line and wait till the fish is on deck or find another spot on the boat that is free. Tangled braid is a bitch to unravel!
My next hit was rather different. The fish took the bait and ran, peeling line out. Managed to turn it and began reeling back. Then suddenly the fish stopped fighting! I just reeled back without any fuss and this is what greeted me.....
Half a Mackerel Tuna! Obviously the Tenggiri had the other half!
Another angler also had his prize stolen!
As the night wore on, Tenggiri after Tenggiri hit the deck and into the icebox. Quite a few times, while I was in the middle of tying new wire rigs, the fish took the bait. Had to throw down the wire rigs, grabbed the rod and strike and pumped the fish up. Talk about bad timing!!
The hot action started from about 9pm till about 1am. The bite slowed down after that with some occasional hookups. Total Tenggiri I caught for the night was 14! Majority of the Tenggiris were in the 5-8kg range with a few in the 10kg range.
Morning drifting started pretty slowly as we headed out to a wreck. A few 1kg Groupers were landed and I caught this pretty fish. Looks like a Spanish Flag but it's a Five-Lined Snapper (Lutjanus quinquelineatus).
And then another colourful fish was hooked. When I saw the blue spots, I had high hopes it was the infamous Coral Trout (Plectopomus leopardus) but it turned out to be a Coral Hind (Cephalopholis miniata)
We drifted and changed a few spots during the day, catching bottom dwellers in the range of 1-2kg.
I took the time to tie about 10 sets of wire rigs for the Tenggiri tonight.
Everybody was waiting for sunset, wanting a repeat of the action we had last night. We headed off back to the area last night and waited.
Like a switch, the Tenggiris began feeding. They were feeding pretty close to the bottom, which was rather unusual for the species. Soon, rod bends and screeching drags were heard again! Even a huge Cobia decided to join the party! As always, Cobias tend to tangled up everybody's line but I was lucky to have reeled up before the ultimate braid "char bee hoon"!
Medium version on top VS XL version at bottom!
Catching the Mackerel Tuna was actually quite fun. They are quite powerful for their size. Their scorching runs actually made me think I had hooked up to a >10kg Tenggiri! But when they come near the boat, you realise that it's only half the size of a Tenggiri! Awesome fun!
The bites were slower tonight but I still managed to land another 7 Tenggiris. Had a few bust-offs where my FC leader was cut. 30 mins before the boat was due to head back, I was getting hit after hit. But each time, the hook failed to set. Either I was too slow or didn't get a clean hookup. Happened 5 times and I failed to add to my Tenggiri tally.
Finally the boat horn sounded and we began the 6hr journey back to the jetty.
Back at the packing facility, we could finally see our trip's haul.
Total Tenggiri count - 105 pcs! Full ice boxes to bring home! Yeah!!!
All the hardworking anglers that managed to achieve such a great haul!
The jigging anglers on this trip were kind of disappointed as bait outfished the jigs by quite a margin. The jigs that worked were the heavy sinking pencil type. I guess this was because the Tenggiris were feeding rather close to the bottom with a rather strong current. So the usual jigs can't get down fast enough and was night fishing too.
From the solunar chart above, we can see that the Tenggiri feeding started just after the 4th tide (low) and lasted about 2-3hrs on 4th and 5th May. Our first night was a bust because we reached the spot only at around 1am, which was already approaching the top of high tide.
From my observation, it seems like the fish starts to feed for 1-2hrs on both sides of the top or bottom of the tides. Will see how true this theory is on my next fishing trip.
Gear used:
Rod - Blackmarket Slow Jig PE3-5
Reel - Shimano Talica 8 II
Line - Sufix 832 50lb
Bait - Frozen squid, frozen sardines
Rig - Apollo style (day), Ranggong style (night)
Fish ID - Orange-Spotted Grouper (Epinephelus coioides)
- Ang Kuey aka Crimson Snapper (Lutjanus erythropterus)
- Spanish Mackerel aka Tenggiri (Scomberomorus commerson)
- Coral Hind (Cephalopholis miniata)
- Five-Lined Snapper (Lutjanus quinquelineatus)
- Mackerel Tuna (Euthynnus affinis)- Emperor Snapper aka Ang Sai (Lutjanus sebae)
- Red Spot Emperor aka Leng Chiam (Lethrinus lentjan)
