Catch Report : Rico II @ SCS

[Daiwa_Siao]

Followed by previous enjoyable trips, a group 8kakis from Sincere gathered with my two personal friends and went out with John on the 23-25 Oct.

23/10/2006 :

Day started with a gathering at Sincere as early as 8am!!! even though my instruction was to gather at +/- 10am. I guessed this is a result of lacking in some serious fishing activities since Jul when almost the same group that went to Pemanggil. 6 was fully gathered by 9+am and waiting for our mini bus transport. At 10am sharp, when the bus arrived with our 2 remaining kakis, our bags & gears were swiftly loaded onto it with some last minute purchases going on. We move off to MCC at 10.20pm after packing our chicken rice lunch. The last peson arrived on his own at about 11.20 despite being informed by me to reach there early. K n n z....

John started the engine with 10hopeful anglers looking for another unforgetable trips to the blue waters of SCS . Custom clearance was a bliss and cleared after about 1hr of waiting. From there, John move in a straight bearing after navigating through the infamous busy channel of cargo ships in Singapore waters to the first spot to jig for baitfish.

If I can remember correctly, the trip took about 3hours before the lines are dropped at a wreck and very soon, John's blue live bait well was filled with an assorted varieties of seklar, tamban, small hardtail etc etc before the last light . All had their own share of duties with about 5 persons jigging and another 5 helping them to unhook the bait fish caught. From there we head to a wreck about 1hour away and anchor were dropped.

From there, heaving gears & some serious fishing begins. First fish up was a nice table size mangrove jack, neatly brought up by both the angler and the person pulling the leader to start off our night . Bite rate wasn't fast & furious and soon 5 'cow shit whisker' aka batfish were netted in close interval. John made the decision to shift spot as this wreck was not producing quality fish. Off we went to another nearby wreck.

This wreck was the spot that provided 90% of our total catch of this trip. A 3kg ang chor was caught at the front of the boat and soon a combination of big trevally, cobia, 'white fish', jemulat and the normal pest like sharks, roti prata and the damned barracuda . Very soon one of big red icebox was filled to the bream with sunrise approaching.

Two ang chor was caught in close sequence by one of the new comers! Just before day break, another new comer caught a 5.5kg cobia and neatly gaffed by John with me being the leader man

This wreck had my hands numb from all the pulling of leader with only a slack time of 3am-4am of no bites.

No live squids is caught and our 2kg kelong sotong was running out fast.

24/10/2006

Day started brightly and weather is excellent, John wanted to go another wreck a few hours away and target the ang kways and garoupers. I think we reach the spot at about 10am and the water there is so clear & blue that we can see deeply into it. From a distance I saw a storm approaching . I keep quiet to myself and hope it's just an illusion .

First line dropped produce 2 respected size ang kways and also followed closely by 2 very good size, orange dot deep sea garouper. What makes my red eyes were both garouper were caught at the left & right size of me .

Very soon, the calm and blue water around us started to have ripples and sign of wind are approaching. I looked up and a bad feeling engulfed me deep inside. With bite rates so fast & furious (perhaps with the atmospheric pressure effect), this unavoidable storm was going to spoilt this spot catches. Soon rain started to fall and bite rate completely stop even we use the better quality sotong. As the storm passed, John wanted to re-anchor and the dreaded thing happened!!!!

His anchor caught some things near the wreck. And his newly installed winch(anchor retrieving machine) was having a hard time retrieving the anchor. He tried moving the boat around to unlock the unknown object provide no results. With the winch working over-time and through his experience, he managed to catch a glimpse of the stuck object. With water clarity so perfect, all of us saw his anchor was badly entangled with a trawler net!!! . Still the winch was pulling hard and finally the anchor was brought up to his bow.

John spent about 30min hanging himself (macam Tom Cruise starring in MI) and cutting the nylon ropes. When everything was cleared from his anchor, he proceed to do what he intended to do initially (re-anchor). When he tried to drop the anchor from his wheel room, the winch doesn't respond. Turn on/off several times doesn't move the winch an inch Fianlly he narrowed down the problem. The hydraulic pump used to operate the winch was leaking oil. The shaft & the gear cannot work in unison .

With our trip started off brightly and in the middle of our 3D trip, we were left with a dilema 2 co-organiser had a short discussion with John and we decided to continue fishing with manual retrieving of the anchor with 6 men + 2 crew. He offered us the option to go to another spot and drop the anchor. Try to retrieve it manually and if fail to retrive he will cut the ropes and lose the anchor. We finally decide to do some drifting at this spot but the bite rates are severly affected by the storm that has passed. Somehow the current turned dead. Lines dropped were self tangling with the langong/mainline. Even apollo rigs were not doing better . We decided to move back inshore and catch some live sotongs.

On the way, we reach the hard tail spot over a small wreck. We had <1hr of catching giantic hard tail before the last light. Soon a basketful of hardtail were caught & it provided a fun time for all onboard to compensate for the unfortunate event that spoilt the entire trip. We reached the live squid spot at 7pm. Current was slow and current will be picking up soon. Very little live squid were netted and it puzzled everyone. Oct should be a time when live squid is plentiful and with the new moon phase, we should be netting live squids after live squids.

Perhaps it's a sign from above asking us to go back. With the night still early and another ice box only 1/3 full, we stayed till 11pm. During this time not a single worth mentioing fish was caught even with live squids were used. Current was raging, 1KG weight still layang. John check his tide table book and stronger current was expected towards day break and that time will make pulling up the anchor more difficult. He decided to head back at 12mn.

25/10/2006

Normal journey back was expected to be 3hrs but with strong current moving inshore, the ETA time to Changi ICA cut short to 2hours

At such weird hours, we managed to clear custom quite smoothly although this 60ft boat have to navigate through that narrow channel of Changi point ferry jetty With depth as low as 2m at some parts, I seriously hope he didn't damage any parts of his boat.

We finally reach MCC at 3am+ and with a few rounds of photo taking, we left his boat fully satisfied.

Boat is in good conditions (as usual) with a few noticable improvement. Cook is great and helpful. John has done his best in such difficult & presurrized times. He had fufilled his promise(although sometimes forgetful ) and had our icebox filled with a wide variety of respectable size fish, technically with one night of serious fishing. This is our group best trip so far and hoping many more to come next year

One last word before I take another nap is metal jigging can have hook up in SCS waters. My friend got a hook up (Jemulat) but lost by the boat side

[octopus]

Daiwa_siao, great detail report on your trip ya. Very good catches also. Congratulation. You guys must have a lot of fun then. Golden and Red snapper... saliva dropping now...