Fifth Time The Charm

[DaFrogman]

Boy its been a real long time since I posted a Catch Report, in fact in the past two months, I have had to cancel 4 trips. Work has been incredibly busy and the family side has been pretty full too.

BUT, last week, I promised myself that on Thursday, no matter how damn tired I was, I would load the boat up and get out on the water if the weather was cooperative…. Thursday duly swung round and work was so busy that I had zero time to prep for the trip as usual on Wednesday night. I was lucky that the chief asked for us to launch at night around 9pm, which gave me a little breathing space to get the boat and fish gear ready after work on Thursday afternoon.

Even then it was a blur of last minute stuff like the lack of a suitable tow vehicle for the boat which saw me finally getting a tow ball eye welded and fitted on my Patrol at 5pm on Thursday. Luckily Ah Yong, the welder/machinist is a good buddy of mine and he had everything ready by the time I turned up so that there was only a bit of adjustment left to fit the ball.

I raced home after that to prep the gear and elected not to take my jig gear with me this time as DaChief would be running his Miya Epoch CX-4 HP, so all I needed was a battery for him. So running the minimal in terms of tackle i.e. my OJ4000P/GF755H, ABM655H/GF410 and my spare reels and rods, I loaded the Gaffs, boat props, M-Oil, Life Jackets, Coldboxes, Termnal Tackle and the other heap of stuff into the Patrol and headed off to pick up Ishak as he was leaving his car for the missus to use.

We reached the beach at around 7.30pm and met up with Ismail (Ishak’s other brother) who would be the final element of the crew. We loaded the gear on to the boat and fixed the props on, doing all the last minute checks as usual and then grabbed a quick dinner before we rigged the trailer up to the Patrol and towed the boat to the petrol station to refuel. After loading 500+litres of fuel on the boat, we headed back to the beach to wait for DaChief to join us.

With the arrival of the DaChief and the usual loading of gear, we launched at about 2230hrs and started out on our way to the dropoff. Our target was an area where there had been good reports of big Ruby Snapper and grouper. In fact this was the same area where we had that phenomenal jig/bottom trip with Mikey and Wongsy last year.

Conditions were just about perfect with very calm seas that allowed us to run with spotlights blazing at an average of 50km/h to the first spot some 92km offshore. Even then there was a light haze on the water which affected visibility slightly until the moon popped up low on the horizon to add its ghostly halo to the starlight.

The spot we were heading to had just been passed to us by a friend, but after I crossed referenced it with the available coordinates on my GPS, I found that it was pretty much close to a bunch of other spots we already had. Nonetheless, after a pretty much uneventful trip, at 0030hrs we reached the coordinate and dropped to sounder speed to look around.

Sure enough there was a lovely little bump on the bottom which was around 520ft deep rising some 30ft off the bottom. Ishak sent down an exploratory Apollo rig, but nothing came up except for the armour plated little red snapper that we have nicknamed “Kereta Kebal” or “Armoured Car” for its thick sharp scales.

So we decided to motor around at sounder speed towards some other nearby spots to have a look around, when with all eyes on the sounder, a great thump announced that we had hit a submerged log and Ishak slammed the throttles into neutral just as I watched the starboard engine lift up on its shock mounting system as the log impacted with the gear case. Thankfully, there was no damage, aside from my frayed nerves and we proceeded on, but this time with 2 pairs of eyes keeping a lookout for more flotsam.

I think it was the third spot that we found what we were looking for…. A small deep reef marking fish at the bottom and up to 50ft from the bottom in 420ft of water. We all sent down our rigs and I rigged up DaChief’s Miya to his rod and plugged in the power. My own heavy duty Apollo rig had just barely touched bottom when I felt the fish nibble, so I let it nibble a little more and dipped the rod tip to wind in 4 quick cranks and sure enough it came up tight on what felt like a decent Ruby….. After little drama and much head shaking, up popped a nice ruby in the 8kg range.

I had just boated the fish when Ishak struck hard and I watched the Carbontex drags on my Jigger unload smoothly under 22lbs of drag as Ishak used the lockup on my 755H to subdue the fish quickly…. End result was an even bigger Ruby in the 12kg range… by then everybody had rigs down, but it was Ishak who next scored again on what seemed to be an even bigger opponent, with the drags once again taking their toll after letting the fish run about 4 times… This time round it was a nice FAT grouper that was around 14kgs…

I kinda lost track after that, but everyone boated fish and DaChief’s reel got a good workout. I grabbed a nap at around 5am when the bite seemed to die down, but was woken up at dawn by Ishak telling me to send a rig down…. The daytime bite seemed to pick up after 8am and we boated a few more nice Ruby’s and some more nice grouper along with a whole bunch of the dark coloured Kerisi mostly in the small 1-3kg sizes, with some in the bigger 6-8kg versions. Ishak also managed to entice a nice 12kg Amberjack to his bait after switching to an FC leader. I hasten to note that I was fishing standard mono of identical poundage and Ishak clean outfished me for the big fish, on the same baits. I usually fish FC but since the bite was pretty good, I was contented with using mono.

All in all we filled the big commercial coldbox and the smaller one too. The seas were like a mirror for the whole trip and in fact it was a bit hot given the lack of wind and cloud cover. Everyone was happy with the catch, which included a extremely rare daytime MJ caught by DaChief in 400ft of water at 1230hrs and also a valuable species of deepwater grouper highly prized by our Chinese kakis.

I’ll just post the pics up and hope you guys enjoy.

Regards,

Saimee

[layman]

Hi Saimee,
Congrats on your good catch! Its always a great pleasure reading your Catch Report
sure makes one itch....

cheers..

[physlo]

It's been a long time since we heard from you. And suddenly...bang, here comes a wonderful write-up. Good catch dude.

Hahaha...why the sudden change to electric reel? It beats all the fun cranking those heavy sinkers.

Regards
physlo

[Makaira]

Yo Saimee ...... a fantastic catch report as usual!!!!!

[edylie]

Yo Saimee,

Awesome catches and report. I have digged this report too

Check out on digg website

search for "brunei"

Cheers,
Edy

[tmlim]

Welcome back, Saimee. It has been a while since I last read your wonderful Catch Report.

[fishguy360]

Excellent fishing Catch Report once again from Saimee!

[ophio]

Its sure have been a long time since you summited a Catch Report ,or should I say go out wetting a line or two ..haha . Hey nice write up Saimee ,and do fill us in more often ya .

[MarkR]

Great stuff!!!...wish we had that kind of fishing in Singapore waters.

[DaFrogman]

Guys,

Thanks for the kind comments.... my seeming absence really has been due to a bunch of work and stuff like that. Also, I have now agreed to undertake the major reel repair and service work part time for a local tackle shop, so that means that even after day job work, I have stuff to do... boy it gets tiring..

The catch was pretty good and I have to say that we were lucky with the weather, bcos that night after we got back and the next day, conditions turned real ugly real fast.... I understand that a charter crew/convoy with some Spore anglers decided to cut their trip short and head back to shore early because of the sudden degradation in weather conditions. But with Typhoon Man Yi wandering towards the Philippines (boy its a big storm), I reckon that will eliminate any chances this week to fish.

In any case I just tonight towed the boat to a friends workshop to do a lot of maintenance work on the engines. Boy, am I knackered. Glad you guys enjoyed the Catch Report, this year has turned out pretty tough in terms of conditions, time to fish and even the fish themselves... I've only caught 2 MJs this year... and no Amberjacks yet... NOT GOOD...

See ya'll later.

Saimee

[Akudou]

Nice writeup Saimee and obviously a great outing catch for you guys. Wish i was along too.hahahah. This weekend looks bad dude? Cos since its Public holiday i plan to headout.

[DaFrogman]

Felix,

That typhoon is a big one and should hit Japan sometime today or tomorrow, but the aftermath of its path may still mean that this Sunday the conditions will be shot down....

In any case, the boat is now down for maintenance work and we are not contemplating a trip.

Saimee

[scarpie]

Did I read that right - 92kms off shore in a skiff at night?

RESPECT!

[DaFrogman]

Originally Posted by scarpie

Did I read that right - 92kms off shore in a skiff at night?

RESPECT!

Ahhh Chris mate,

I am not that suicidal yet.... Skiff???? 92km???.... No way dude..

The boat we currently use is a locally built 33footer running twin 175 outboards.... the 92km is right though.... The dropoff gets interesting from 80km out onwards... past 100km and you find yourself in 1500ft+ of water..

Saimee.

[stickbom!]

I see you finally got to wet a line buddy. Good for you I've settled your score with Ben... and heard about the next container load of parts coming soon You da man.