Its been a slow month....

[DaFrogman]

Well, as requested by our esteemed bro RK, I am now posting a few pics of 2 trips we had in the last month or so.....

Fishing has gotten a bit slower and the weather has gone nuts, plus my work commitments= Its been a slow month....

Details on the trips aren't that good, I have a lousy memory once past 2 weeks....

Trip 1

Well, having had reports of good diamond and golden trevally fishing and some good ACKs, we headed out to a few spots that were producing.

As I recall we were once again using our smaller single engined vessel and we headed out in 3 foot seas to a spot some 50km out from the ramp. By the time we had picked up some live bait and got to our spot, it was about 8pm and the seas were up to 4ft, not quite comfortable in a 23footer.

At the time, the current was slow, but the wid had picked up and was changing direction quite a bit, making parking a mini nightmare. We were between tides and the bite was off, but we sent down the lines anyway.... Nothing happened for about 30 minutes, so we pulled anchor and then headed to about 5 other spots to drift and test fish.... still nada, even though the sounder picture looked good.

So we went back to the first spot to wait for the tide to change or whatever, but the wind and current was making parking a pain, so we did the usual and had dinner, then aside from myself and another kaki, the other three crashed out. Nothing much except for small Mr Bararacuda.

About midnight, the wind changed direction just as the tide started building up and the boat swung gently into the "zone" above the spot. I changed baits (with a 1 foot wire bute leader) on my ranggong and snet the rig down, 4 cranks up, put rod in holder to light a cigarette and of course, WHAM!!, rod does the U.

5 cranks on the rod whilst in the holder to secure the hook and then rod out of holder, pump, crank, pump, crank, drag goes out...... repeat that 3 times before I had the fish coming up on my 665. Was wondering whether it could be Mr MJ, but up popped Mr ACK, all 5kg of him with the 5/0 VMC hook just catching his lip.... hmmmm thats not too bad I thought.

So rerig again with a double hook rig, new bait, down it goes, 4 cranks up, holding the rod, twitch, twitch, drop tip, crank in and...... hey I'm tight with another fish.... wooohoooo..... this one felt much smaller and without much drama I had boated my second ACK, only around 3kgs.

Rerig again, send it down, 4 cranks up, nothing yet, put rod in holder to light another cigarette, my rod does a quick mini U.... hmmmm.... finish lighting ciggy, take rod out hello, there is something there, crank up, some head shaking, but mostly dead weight, so reckon its a Grouper and hey presto..... up comes a 4kg grouper.... I thought I was on a roll, then the wind changed and the boat moved.....ARGHHHHH!!!!.... no more fishies.... The current died down then, so in sheer protest, I rerig, send down bait and take a "nap".

Nothing much after that till dawn, then we moved spots and using livebait, caught a bunch of silver and golden trevally....and a blacktip shark. Trevally were in 3-5kg range, shark was about 30kgs..... Can't remember that well, but I think I got 3 Trevally and the crew caught the others....

Had to head back early after that 'cos of home commitments in the afternoon.


Trip 2

Headed out in one of the bigger boats, with triple engines, target was Amberjacks at one of our batch of drop off spots. This time we brought our portable kitchen which is basically a "Steam Boat" stove, big pot and the usual assortment of Bawang Merah/Putih, Chili, Limau Kasturi etc etc.... The plan was to cook the first decent fish we caught....

Spot 1, nice structure, no fish on sounder, we moved on.
Spot2, nice structure some fish, but the spot had some really high structure which posed serious snag problems, so we moved on.

Spot 3, structure good, sounder pic good, so we anchored in 300ft of water. Some marks on the sounder were at about 100ft off the bottom so they were likely Amberjacks. But also good marks just above the reef. Problem was once again shifting winds and no current.... so after some drastic reanchoring, i.e. we dropped the anchor right on the spot and moored the boat real tight to the spot (at the risk of snagging and loosing the anchor), we settled down to fish.

1st fish came 5 minutes later, a nice kind of red snapper in the 5kg range, followed by another and another, I got the 4th fish, then the 5th fish, all in the 3-5kg range..... then the bite died down, so we took the first fish, gutted, cleaned it, chopped it up and popped it into the boiling pot of water with some assam Jawa and salt and the onions and chilli..... very nice, it was a big fish, so everybody was pretty full at the end of that.

The current was a goner now, so I decided to take a "nap" since it was about 1am and I wanted to catch the 4am "traffic". At 4am, still no current or tide change, but sent down a whole kembong, hung it about 40 ft off the bottom just in case Mr Amberjack decided to call, then lay down to "rest" my eyes.

Just as dawn peeped over the horizon and the sky started to light up for a beautiful sunrise, my rod did the U..... That got my eyes open wide extra fast as a I cranked the rod to set the hook and began my little struggle with whatever was down there.... first run by the fish was kinda like an Amberjack, but by the second run I knew it wasn't Mr AJ.... called it for a decent Kerisi Bali and yup thats what popped up 5 minutes later.... a nice 5kg specimen. That woke up all the crew except the 2 captains who carried on serenading us with their version of the "Sound of Thunder".

Crew began pulling in some nice KBs and another few red snapper, but no Mr Amberjack. I clicked on the sounder and saw the marks at 170ft of water, so sent down another whole bait. After 15 minutes of nothing, rod got hammered, but my strike cam up empty.....hmmm.......

Our "Captain Amberjack" woke up, he is the AJ specialist on the boat holding the current record of 22 Amberjacks in 2 hours, looked at me and asked me why I wasn't using live bait.... ughhhhh good point. So he rigged up his own rod with a livebait and I watched him send it down and crank up 20 cranks..... sure enough, WHAM!!!.... XH Seeker Rod bent over, EX4/02W having drag ripped off, lots of grunts and pump, crank, ten minutes later a 8kg AJ is gaffed nicely.

So I send down a livebait, 20 cranks up and immediately the bait goes into panic mode, followed by twitching, crank in and Ughhhh Miscue... bait comes up looking molested but no Amberjack. Change baits, send it down same thing, bait comes back molested, but untouched...... Was getting pissed at this stage, third time, I don't get my bait back and Mr AJ wanders off with breakfast and a smile on his face.

So am now officially very annoyed with myself, so out comes the FC leader and my favourite Gamakatsu 6/0 hooks on a twin rig, send down the bait, wait for Mr Amberjack to molest THIS rig.....hehehhe.... sure enough twitch, twitch, bait in full panic, but this time as I drop the rod tip and crank I come up tight, REAL TIGHT..... drag comes off the 665 at full drag and I apply the requisite thumb break on the spool edge as I pump and crank as hard as I can, Mr AJ does not give up easy and carries on trying to get to the reef for about 6-7 runs, but after that he starts coming up slowly until I get hold of the leader and gaff him myself... Hey a 10-11kg version not bad.....

After that, things go pretty quiet so we head to another set of spots 22-30km away, where we run into a commercial longliner. Captain Amberjack jumps on board to see what they caught and discovers that they have a mound of nice big Kerisi Bali in the hold from their mornings work..... no wonder the spots we checked out were empty, they had been hammered already

But after trading some food and drinks, we get 2 new coordinates from the Longliners captain and we head to the nearer coordinate to have a try.... they had not hammered this spot and almost immediately we caught a bunch of Kerisi Bali and reef fish on the drift..... Then the other captain who I shall just call Capt Mechanic, suddenly found himself very preoccupied with the outfit he was using; my Kaikon 4000 and my Penn Tuna Stick, which was bent very very U...... after asking for a Gimball and getting the requisite questions on the strength of his tummy muscles and his manhood, we buckled on the gimball for him and with a load of pumping, cranking, grunting and swearing, with us "encouraging" him all the way... he hauled up his XH Apollo rig with a 8kg Amberjack and a 7kg Kerisi Bali attached to it.... now wonder my rod was bent.....

Then as usual, after a good fight, the fish went quiet so we turned for home to get back before the low tide would make it impossible to get the boat on the trailer.

The pics are below, sorry there aren't that many, but I was in a hurry after we got back for both trips 'cos I had promised "She Who MUST be OBEYED" and my own little crew that I would take them out jalan-jalan to the playground...

Enjoy,

Regards,

Saimee@DFM

[dorado_02]

Hi Bro Saimee,
As always, you will make our saliva drop with your catch report. Very good catch indeed. What life bait did you use ? and you mentioned "the bait goes into panic mode", do you really feel it or what ?

Thanks Bro,
Cheers.

[AmbeRjacKHunter]

Saimee,...aduh..very quiet but panjang cerita nya. Guess those sizes kind of make up for the low figures huh.

Still not too bad lah.... and Very Good Father lah you

Salam
Bro RK

[DaFrogman]

Karim,

Yes, you can definitely feel the bait panicking when its being stalked down there, it starts twitching and giving small tugs as it tries to get away, same thing when Mr Tengiri is around too.

RK,

Well, I tend to get long winded thats the problem, actually the pics of my share don't reflect the total fish, just that at the time, my freezer was still pretty full

Well if the weather improves, I will probably try another trip this Thursday, hope that the sea condtions really do improve for Mr E's big trip over here to Louisa.

Regards,

Saimee

[physlo]

Hi Saimee,

As usual, nice catches you have over there. I'm requesting to my boss for a transfer to Brunei..ha..ha so i can fish alongside with you. Seriously, i do hope the weather will improve in the next couple of days. I have encourage those going for the trip to take a midnight shower mix with 7 kinds of flowers for 7 consecutive days. Guess that might work.

Meanwhile tight lines and see you soon.

Cheers!
physlo..

[jason]

Yo Physlo
I have already changed my underwear to red for the past few weeks for better weather......



Cheers
JAson

[physlo]

Originally Posted by jason

Yo Physlo
I have already changed my underwear to red for the past few weeks for better weather......

Cheers
JAson

No..no..no... salah liao....red underwear represent "disaster". Go back and change to a green immediately.

[jason]

green means seasick......Don want!!!!
I better stick to rainbowcolor........


Cheers
Jason