Brunei The Hantap Jackpot

[DaFrogman]

The sea had been calling the crew and I for the last month, with pretty calm conditions and only some rain to worry about. But due to a bunch of commitments, we were unable to head out.

Last Saturday, finally saw us prepping the boat and even then we launched very late at 9pm since Mr Kingfish had to run a last minute errand to the other side of the country.

But launch we did, with the merry band of pirates that form most of Team Hantap. This time, we had along the captain Mr Kingfish (Ishak), capt 2 i.e. Mr MacGyver (Kahar), Mr Fibreglass/Pangsai Fish(Zul), Mr Formula 1 (Ismail), Mr Anchorman (Fendi), Dafrogman and a new dude called Jun.

Sea conditions heading out were pretty good, with 1-3ft seas and widely spaced swells. Our plan was to fish the deeper step of the dropoff and meet up with another vessel belonging to Ishak's friend (Ah Fatt) who is also a very hardcore and experienced boater and angler.

The main area was roughly 86-90km offshore and we stopped at about 5 different spots along the way to have a look at on my Furuno and then drop an Apollo rig down, but with quiet sounder pictures and no bites on the rig, we bypassed these spots and eventually found 3 vessels already in the area, all crewed with guys we know and some of them in the midst of hauling up a fish.

We quickly located Ah Fatt’s boat and pulled alongside him to ask him what the conditions were like and if they'd caught anything. The reply was "No current, lots of Ruby Snapper and Grouper". They had not anchored and were just slow drifting over the area. Ishak asked me to send down my standby ranggong rig and so I chucked the baited rig over the side and waited for some time for it to hit bottom some 470ft below.

Less than a minute into the drift I felt the hit, reeled in and struck hard... these ruby thingies don't fight that hard at all, but from 467ft and with heavy sinkers on a drift, lets just say that it ain't easy cranking on a 665HXM and the latest DFM Psycho Lite rod. The ruby was pretty small maybe 3-4kgs, but at least it seemed the fish were biting...

With that small success, everyone scrambled to grab an outfit and I saw almost all my gear being used.... We caught maybe half a dozen more ruby snapper on the drift over the next half hour or so including a nice 7kg specimen and with the wind freshening up in the slack current, Ishak got bored repositioning the boat and decided to anchor over a promising spot we had found on one of the drifts.

Anchoring proved to be the right decision and over the next hour or so, we hauled up another bunch more ruby snapper, a weird looking eel and a few smaller fish. It was during this time too that a mystery something whacked my braid mainline and lost me about 100m of braid…man what a pain…. The same thing happened to 3 others (all on my reels too ughhh) and I hypothesised that it was the dreaded Barracouta…. But when none were landed, I began wondering…
After rerigging. my next bait got hammered on the way down, and I cranked hard to strike, a few moments later a mackerel tuna materialised and I reckon that this was what was hammering our braid. I think Fendi also got a Mack Tuna too.

When Zul saw me haul up the mackerel tuna he asked me if I had brought my jig gear and when I said “Yes”, he dived to the back of the boat to retrieve my little Twinpower 8000PG matched to a Genesis AJ Special PE5-7. He next pilfered my tacklebox to retrieve the jig bag and grabbed a 300g lumo jig of indeterminate origin (i.e an el-cheapo lumo special) to commence jigging. But half an hour later, no results for the jig, so I changed to a lighter jig for him with the slack current.

By now, it was about 2 am and with the bite slowing down a bit and the wind shifting the boat, Ishak decided to pull anchor to recce the immediate area more and reposition the boat. We found three other spots in the area, but one of them looked really good, with a small trench in the bottom and a ridge on one side of the trench.

So we reanchored and held point until we were only 10 metres from the spot and everyone went lines down with Zul electing to keep jigging. I caught another ruby in the 3kg range and I think Fendi caught another big ruby along with Ismail.

But later as Ismail was reeling up what he said was a small fish, his rod suddenly bucked riiiiigghhhhttt over and the AVET EX he was using started to sing. He tried upping the drag, but I shouted at him not to do that since I knew his rod was a pretty light one. I think that Ishak and I already suspected what the fish was and he jumped to the back to take the outfit off his brother who was struggling and in a bit of a panic…. So now Mr Kingfish was in his element, playing what we both thought was a biggish AJ…. After about 10 minutes of finessing the fish on lighter drags, up popped Mr AJ, all 12kgs of him…. Hehehehehe.

That only drove Zul even more nuts as he asked me to change jigs yet again and he carried on jigging with the lumos, using the dragon spotlight to make them glow like iridescent pisang raja….

The next person to be AJ ambushed was Kahar, using my Carbontex Kaikon and the Tuna Stick…… And he was using an extra heavy duty Apollo rig, but the problem was that he was using those generic VMC hooks, which I have broken and straightened in the past on big fish. Well, as he hauled his rig up to check baits, same thing happened, the AJ hammered either the bait or a small fish on his rig and the Tuna Stick buckled over.

The problem was that Kahar, being Kahar, had hammered the drags down and the fish was still taking line…. That’s 30lbs of drag folks and I told him to lighten the drags before the rod exploded or the hooks straightened, but he tried to “Jack” the fish up with the rod instead of reducing the drag and as I predicted, all of a sudden, POP!, slack line. As he reeled his rig up all I could do was smile as Ishak gave him an earful about not listening…. Sure enough the middle hook in his 3 hook Apollo had been straightened… there ya are folks, if you wanna hammer your drags, make sure your terminal tackle can handle it. Needess to say, after that, I found my supply of Gamakatsu Octopuses being heavily “requisitioned”.

Not long after that Ismail had a repeat of the earlier AJ attack and once again, Ishak took over to control the rampaging fish. With the softer rod and lighter drags, he succeeded in boating yet another 12kg AJ after 10 minutes of finesse fishing. I think Ishak’s experience shows here, since he has not only caught the most Amberjack amongst our team(over 30 AJs) but is also the holder of the biggest record; a 26kg fish he boated a few years ago… He once said that he used to catch AJs on only 40lb mono years ago with a TLD 2-speed and a medium action rod… that’s pretty good if you can land a 26kg AJ on 40lb mono…..

By this time, dawn was fast approaching and I watched Ishak grab some sleep, happy with hammering the 2 AJs, he would need the rest as he was driving the boat for the rest of the day. I put the 3 other Rubys I had caught in the coldbox and decided to take a short break too, hauling sinkers in that depth of water is just knackering guys, my left bicep was sending emergency signals to me…..

As the sun cracked the edge of the horizon, I sent my rig down and decided that 7 more rubys would do before I took a nap myself…. By then, my 665 had started to make some decidedly uninspiring grinding noises and I prayed that it was just the usual right spool bearing issue and not the AR bearings.

What followed next was a classic, my rig touched bottom and I raised it 4 cranks to clear the bottom. THUMP!!.... ahhh a ruby, crank pump, crank pump… phew crank, crank… 2 minutes later a 3kg ruby…. I was now using single hooks, though the eyes of a whole Slimy Mackerel and then through its back, with a half hitch securing the leader to the nose, send bait back down, crank up, THUMP!!, hey that was fast, wind, crank another 3kg ruby, rerig bait, back down again… and so on, till I finally had 10 fish in the space of about 40 minutes… OK, put fish in coldbox, definitely time to take a nap….



To be continued-

[DaFrogman]

All this time, Zul had been jigging away next to me and as I put my head down to rest, I told him to just try the bottom, bouncing the jig there and just as I closed my eyes I heard him make an exclamation and cracked open one eye to see him strike hard with the rod bent on a fish…. Yup, ruby on jig time….hehehehehe….. the fish was a nice 3-4kg size and I helped him unhook it and we exchanged shouts of “SUCCESS!!!”. He caught 2 more rubys on jig through that session.

I finally took my nap and about an hour later, I woke up as Ah Fatt came by on his boat to say that the spot behind us was also yielding green jobfish. We also the saw Capt Fred’s Apollo approaching our area from the distance. We decided to shift to another spot a bit further to the west with slightly deeper water.

When we reached the area, we saw that Ah Fatt was also in the area and so we began scanning the bottom along the dropoff step to see what was down there. We came on to a spot that seemed to mark reef on the bottom and a lot of interesting marks midwater and in the lower third of the water column, so Ishak decided to drift the spot. I told Zul to drop the jig down and Kahar, Fendi and Ismail also dropped their Apollo rigs.

But, having seen the marks on the sounder, I elected not to fish and instead closely watched Zul as he worked the jig. I had already rerigged him with a 250g pink jig. As he worked the jig with a sideways sweep, he suddenly cursed as he missed a strike, I said jig faster and on his second sweep, he came up tight and struck once before struggling to get the rod butt in the gimball plate at his waist.

The 15lbs of drag I had set for the Twinpower sang out and we were serenaded with the wonderful sound of braid screaming over Fuji Sic guides as the AJ powered straight down. Zul hung on and began working the fish up, but I could see that it was a bigger class of fish then the night before. Nonetheless, with me shouting “SUCCESS BRADA” at him and the rest of the crew exhorting him to stop being a whimp, the leader finally came into view and I grabbed one of my brand new AFTCO gaffs and pulled the fish into view. Sure enough it was a real nice AJ in the 15kg range. I sank the gaff in its shoulder and hauled it aboard to the cheers of the crew and Zuls flushed face…hehehehehe

By then Zul was well and truly hooked himself…on jigging.

Without waiting to check the jig or take a pic, he chucked the jig out and sent it back down…. I was a bit worried since I had not had time to check the jig or the leader and midknot, but Zul was just too much in a hurry… Sure enough, he had 3 missed strikes and then on his 4 strike, he hooked up and struck once, only to come unbuttoned from the fish as he struggled to get the rod butt in the plate. Kahar shouted at him to strike properly before putting the butt anywhere and I told him that next time, strike 3 times hard and sideways.

The next strike Zul made no mistake and did the classic “exactly like on the Cyuuk video triple strike” to set the hook and the reel really began to sing… this fish seemed even bigger and Ishak leapt to the front of the boat to take the rod from an exhausted Zul. As Ishak worked the fish up, it powered back down 6-7 times, each time running around 50m….big fish dude…. And then disaster struck, POP!, slack line and I wondered what had given way, the leader or one of my knots (hey I never tied a midknot before). As the line came into view, I saw that the leader was still attached and upon checking, I found scuff marks on the frayed leader end where it had rubbed against the rough mouth of the first fish. Ahhh well, another lesson learned and paid for with a lost fish and jig.

I rerigged for Zul with a 270g pinky and white AG jig and tied a new assist hook to match the length of the jig, trimmed off a foot or so of slightly marked leader and retied to the owner tuna ring. Off went the jig and Ishak repositioned the boat as Zul jigged away. At the rear of the boat Ismail hauled in a smallish red snapper and got blown away by another AJ.

Zul missed the next 2 strikes as the fish nailed the jig on its way down to the 500ft bottom, as he cranked back up, sweeping the rod diagonally and cranking, the jig came to another crunching halt and he struck 3 times to set the hook. Before he could get the rod butt in the plate, Kahar with a big grin on his face grabbed the rod and Zul let him have it as he was pretty tired by then….

Kahar began to pump the hell out of the fish and I had to repeatedly warn him not to high stick the rod, as I really didn’t want to bring back 2 pieces of my Genesis AJ Special. This fish was also of a large variety and to the crescendo of braid screaming its protest as it ran over the Sic guides, interceded with Kahar’s grunts as he pumped when ever he could, 10 minutes later I saw the leader yet again and moments later gaffed another AJ in the 15kg range. Now it appeared that Kahar was hooked too, and I inspected and retied the leader to the jig before he sent it down.

PART III next-

[DaFrogman]

Ah Fatt came alongside to enjoy watching the action and we told him to use pink jigs, but he didn’t seem to have as much success as the dynamic Zul. In the meantime, Kahar was booed from the rod due to his unsuccessful “ugly” jigging style and Zul took over jigging duties again. Once again, after 3 drops back down from midwater, Zul got hit, this time really hard and Kahar took over the fish pumping role again (hey tag team jigging new technique laaa). This fish took longer maybe 15 minutes and the strain could be seen in Kahar’s face as he lifted the rod and tried to gain line on his muscular adversary. I took this opportunity to grab my camera to take a few shots of Kahar under pressure and I think that Ah Fatt took a few still shots and had his video cam running too.

Soon enough, leader came into view again and this time Kahar told me not to gaff the fish, instead he pulled the leader in himself and as the fish reached the side of the boat, he grabbed it by the gill plates and leaned over for a classic photo where the fishes head was bigger than his own…..

As Kahar lifted the fish on to the boat the size of it was impressive and I scratched my head on how to fit the 6 big AJs into our already large coldbox that was pretty chock full of rubys and the AJs from the night before. Good thing we brought 18 blocks of ice with us…..

I retied the leader again and this time also inspected my midknot which seemed to be holding up fine, the Seaguar no.16 FC was shorter but also seemed to have held up well to the abuse. Zul dropped the jig down one last time and commenced jigging as usual, but a little slower. 3 minutes later, the last AJ for the morning smacked the cojones off the jig and Kahar once again took over fish pumping duties as I went for my camera again. This final fish was smaller and took only about 6 minutes to bring up to reveal itself as a 12kg version.

After that Ishak decided to move on despite protests from the crew…. He said he wanted to leave the fish to get bigger and I agreed. We recced more of the area and then made our way towards Apollo in the distance to see what they had and as we approached I hailed them on Channel 16 of my handheld Icom radio, but with no response, we came up close to her bow where a group of anglers were gathered with Cheng and another dude both holding rods that seemed under considerable strain… We weren’t sure what they had then, but after exchanging a few pleasantries, we moved off and decided to start the run home.

As we had about 90+km to run home, I decided to strip Ishak’s Jigger 3000 which I rebuilt for him last year after it had basically been destroyed by the heavy use that Kahar and crew had subjected it to. The reel was now refusing to engage in gear and I retrieved my reel toolbox from the tackle box and began breaking down the right sideplate as Ishak motored along at a slow speed whilst checking the sounder for new spots. I figured that the reel might be used in some of the shallower spots we would fish on the way home.

As I sat on a coldbox and placed the parts on the liferaft mat at the rear of the boat, Ishak spotted Ah Fatt also on his way back and decided to give chase, with a quick enquiry to me on how fast he could go, I told him to run at 40mph… which he duly did. Somehow, during the bouncy ride, I managed to strip the reel, figure out the problem….. there were actually three problems- too much salt in an unwashed reel, encrusted salt jamming the movement of the yoke and the yoke plate and finally, the auto yoke engagement arm (unique to the jiggers) had been displaced and jammed under the AR gear beneath the main gear. I had to strip everything down to the AR gear and I also discovered that the AR dog was not engaging properly. Took me 20 minutes to fix with Ismail helping out by cleaning the salt out with liberal squirts of WD 40. Finally got the reel back together again, but knew that I would need to do another overhaul on it when I got back.

By then we had neared one of the first spots to fish on the way back and with most of the crew now snoring, I lifted out Kahar’s Apollo rig on the Kaikon Tuna Stick combo and rebaited it in readiness for the last sortie of the day. As Ishak gave me the drop rig order, I sent flicked the baits into the water and chucked the sinker out wide to avoid tangles.

The water was only 240ft deep here and as the rig touched bottom I pulled the sinker free of the mud on the bottom and bounced the rig along the bottom. Moments later I was rewarded with a nice thump on the rod and struck to set the hook. A momentary struggle ensued before the fish became more of a dead weight and I called it for a Grouper… sure enough a nicely marked 5kg spotted grouper emerged and this energised Kahar from his stupor to take over. But that was the only fish from that spot.

With both commercial coolboxes full, Ishak decided to head home and an hour later, we retrieved the boat at the ramp to take pics and clear the gear.

Hope you gals and guys didn’t fall asleep reading this,

Saimee

[ophio]

As usual ..Sweet !!

[stickbom!]

"After that Ishak decided to move on despite protests from the crew…. He said he wanted to leave the fish to get bigger and I agreed."

Wise move guys~! Otherwise there will not be any left for Ol' Mikey *LOL* By the way... I'm glad the guys have been bitten by the jig bug! At least I won't feel so lonely on the boat the next time I swing by

Fantastic CR Saimee... keep em coming bro.

[edylie]

Solid CR Saimee. Seems like July is AJ Season in Brunei Drop off?

Those ruby snappers are very good eating!

Getting those fish on jig is really fun ... i am so envy!

Cheers,
Edy

[12345]

DFM wrote:

I hailed them on Channel 16 of my handheld Icom radio, but with no response,.......Sorry boss, saturday night Ah Fatt asked to lock at channel 10 and we have great fun with non stop action 4got to shift back to channel 16.
Next time will remember to switch on the other SSB radio.

Wow nice catch dude, we only manage to land 3 ruby at 2kg range but a lot of big Krisi especially 5-7kg range.

[NightAngler]

I hailed them on Channel 16 of my handheld Icom radio, but with no response,.......Sorry boss, saturday night Ah Fatt asked to lock at channel 10 and we have great fun with non stop action 4got to shift back to channel 16.
Next time will remember to switch on the other SSB radio.

Sorry for off-topic,,is channel 16 the designated emergency channel in brunei waters too? If yes,,is it normal to do have casual radio communications with channel 16 in brunei waters?

For my case, I use "dual channel" mode slection(receiving channel 16 messages as well as selected channel) since i don't have 2 radio onboard. Not too sure whether "dual channel" is available for handheld though

[NightAngler]

DFM,,as always,,thanks for the great CR.

[dayday]

Power,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,rrr Bro DFM & Team Hantap,,, Jackpot It Is,,,

[DaFrogman]

Sorry for off-topic,,is channel 16 the designated emergency channel in brunei waters too? If yes,,is it normal to do have casual radio communications with channel 16 in brunei waters?

For my case, I use "dual channel" mode slection(receiving channel 16 messages as well as selected channel) since i don't have 2 radio onboard. Not too sure whether "dual channel" is available for handheld though

Hey YS Dude,

Hows it going man?. Anyway, I think (and stand to be corrected) that Channel 16 is the international hailing channel. Certainly I noticed that even the Shell vessels use it for initial hailing and then agree to switch to another channel. As for the dual channel monitoring, Yes my handheld can do that.

Hehehehehe..... Eh Cheng don't worry laaa, in the end no problem just get close with Apollo, at least got to see your boys at "work". I think I realise why they not look so friendly now after the earlier run in with you know who.

Regards,

Saimee

[sunburned]

Hi Saimee,

You have a way with words. It was one of the longest and most interesting CR's that I've read in a while. Congratulations on the good trip out!

Cheers,
Sunburned

[Din]

DFM,
Reading the report,i can imagine the sense of excitement amongst u guys!!
Really power catches la brader!!Keep it coming man!Cheers

Rgds,
Din

[MarkR]

Hi DFM,

Great CR, nice pics and very nice AJs!

Wondering if the Ruby's will take jigs aggressively at the drop off? Most of them landed on bait ya?

Tight lines

[htchng]

superb!!!

[DaFrogman]

Mark R,

Dude, I can't say for sure what the propensity of Rubys is for jigs, but Zul did jig a lot at night with the lumos and didn't get anything, not even the AJs. But the three rubys he did get were during the wide open bite just after dawn broke.

I also suspect that he did not target the bottom as much before I told him to bounce the bottom more, he was hoping more for midwater Tuna and AJs. If we get another go at the spots there, I we will try bottom bouncing a bit more at night to see if it works.

Saimee

[physlo]

Saimee,

As usual, what a great write-up and a good haul you have there. Happy fishing dude.

Cheers!
physlo

[12345]

Saimee

Don't worry, next trip we'll fish that spot again.
Eh....from that spot to your spot bearing 0 degree, if we pass by "maybe" will drop our jig oh...hehe.....just kidding

Did u guys try to explored western part? a few good spot there, think next trip we'll head there depth 571-700ft.

[stickbom!]

Saimee... tell the guys to lob a grenade at Cheng if he's seen hammering your AJ "spot"! hahahaha

[DaFrogman]

No worries guys,

Its all good, part of fishing man.... If its Apollo or any small boater, I got no problem.... My problem is the longline boys.... They wiped out some of our favorite spots already.

Maybe heading out later, 'cos DaChief wants to do a hit & run, but I gotta reassemble a few reels first. Hope the weather holds, a lot rain last night.

Saimee

[MarkR]

Mark R,

Dude, I can't say for sure what the propensity of Rubys is for jigs, but Zul did jig a lot at night with the lumos and didn't get anything, not even the AJs. But the three rubys he did get were during the wide open bite just after dawn broke.

I also suspect that he did not target the bottom as much before I told him to bounce the bottom more, he was hoping more for midwater Tuna and AJs. If we get another go at the spots there, I we will try bottom bouncing a bit more at night to see if it works.

Saimee

Hi Saimee,

That's interesting. Rubys hantam jigs like no tomorrow at some places and can put up a good tussle if the water isn't too deep. Maybe the bigger ones are more aggressive and will take jigs better...gotta find out where the "nest" is to catch the mamas and papas. What's the biggest Ruby you guys have landed?

Tight lines,

Mark

[DaFrogman]

MarkR,

Well dude, the biggest was only around 8kg, I heard they can get much bigger. The fish that did eventually hammer the jigs weren't that big 3-5kg range.

As I think back to the dawn part of the trip it may have been that the wind shifted slightly and moved the boat over a different spot where the smaller rubys were having their breakfast... Usually I fish from the rear of the boat and keep an eye on sounder, GPS and compass, but this time round I was at the front section and did not get to monitor the navigation.

We are not heading out later, which is good, 'cos I gotta respool two reels...

Y'all take care now.

Saimee

[12345]

Mike,
Don't worry we'll Catch the big AJ (15kg n above) and reserve small one 4u..haha

[stickbom!]

Mike,
Don't worry we'll Catch the big AJ (15kg n above) and reserve small one 4u..haha

wah... dun like that leh... boh next time dun help you bring rod to Brunei liao!

[rascal]

Woah! What a great catch report DFM. U should compile your catch reports along with pictures into a book simply entitled "Memoir of DFM, the Angler". It will be the next best-seller. Keep on fishing and the reports coming dude.

Cheers!