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Guys and Girls,
I decided to write this CR almost as a mini diary of the before during and after of one of our trips… There is probably a bunch of boring detail on prepping the boat for the trip and other stuff but it is a reasonably accurate representation of the effort we put in for a trip.
The weather and sea conditions had basically locked out any thoughts of fishing for me over the last month and a bit….. That was until a week ago, when all almost overnight, the sea went to flat calm and light winds. Of course as Murphy’s Law would have it, last week also saw other family commitments preventing me from heading out to sea.
So the crew and I planned to hit the sea this Thursday just passed and we started preparing accordingly. Over the last weekend, I completed some minor maintenance on the boat’s engines and everything looked set to go.
But Mr Murphy would once again step in to throw a reasonably sized spanner into the works, as at the last minute, the usual tow vehicle for the boat broke down. After a bit of frantic phone calling, I managed to secure my Dad’s Nissan Patrol to tow the boat.
Of course when I went to pick up Dad’s Patrol up on Wednesday night, Mr Murphy was sitting right down next to me when the “Water in Fuel” warning light came on in the Patrol, which meant that I spent the next half hour blowing the Patrol’s diesel fuel system and it was 9.30 pm by the time I finished that little chore. So with the smell of “Eau le Diesel” wafting from me, I picked up Ishak and we headed off to refuel the boat. We filled the 12 fuel containers in the Patrol (about 320 litres of regular) and transferred it into the boat’s main tank. I was a little tired by then but that means I got pretty unfit over the holidays (carrying that much fuel back and forth and loading it on the boat is great exercise). So, with fresh internal and external fuel filters and separators, I thought we had got passed Mr Murphy…..I was wrong.
The next day, everything looked good except for one leeetlllllee problem….. Mr Murphy had played with the weather and sea conditions which had just literally overnight, decided to go from flat calm with light winds to become blustery winds and 4 foot swells. After consulting a bunch of weather sources including real time wave height indicators, I powwowed with the crew and we decided to head out anyway.
So on Thursday afternoon, after work, we loaded the last of the gear, ice, fuel and bait and then launched with a crew of 4 at 5.30pm at low tide and had to push the boat out of the shallows before we could get her moving…whew….
Leaving the boat ramp area, we were greeted by fast 4 foot swells and medium chop. The wind was blowing but not as strongly as I feared it would. The ride was going to be pretty bouncy but we managed to run at a 47kmh average to a spot 30km offshore to pick up bait. The water seemed very cold and we managed to pick up a bunch of bait leaving about 30 live baits in the tank with the rest being put on ice for later. As we resumed our run to the main fishing area, both the wind and the swells ominously picked up a little more.
35km later and having had one or two of my vertebrae rearranged, we got to the first spot in the main area. The sounder picture looked ok, so we tied up and dropped down the first baits. I was using a Maxima Ultra Green 60lb leader and my favorite Gamakatsu twin hook rig.
After not getting anything for a couple of minutes, both Ishak and I cranked up a bit to see if the fish were holding off bottom. The sounder picture did show marks some 40-50ft off the bottom. Ishak got hit first and shortly boated a nice fat 3kg ACK. A minute or so after that, I was rewarded with a solid thump on my rod and reeling in came solid with what felt like a decent fish… and it was another ACK around 4kgs.
After that more fish were boated, mainly Sulit Merah or Japanese Reds, I got another 3 solid fish, and lost another one to something big with teeth…(the Taxman=either Barracuda or Shark). Zul in the front managed the only MJ for the night, since he was using the chum sinker and doing his own personal bottom chumming act.
The sea conditions by this time had deteriorated considerably with the swell up to around 6 ft and the wind picking up even more. We decided to make a move for another spot before the conditions got really bad and shifted about 5 km off to a wreck. We were hoping for MJs, but I think the water must have been freezing down there, ‘cos the baits I reeled up were ice cold and that’s probably why the fish were feeding that far off the bottom.
Unfortunately, the wreck was a big zero that night. Aside from pesky baby barracuda, nothing else. So for the first time in a long time, I took a serious nap whilst night fishing. I did wake up a few times that night, to check on the boat, ‘cos the sea conditions were just plain nasty….the swells were so big that at times I lost sight of an oil rig in the distance and the wind was whistlingly strong and COLD…..freezing in fact.
At dawn, I woke up sharp at 6 a.m. and whilst the swells and wind had died down a little, the boat was still pitching and swaying like a belly dancer on acid. The main problem was that the wind, current and swells were all pretty much fighting each other, so the boat was moving in four different directions at anchor; a sure recipe for seasickness and indeed our most senior kaki was out for the count from the night before.
But we never say die and with everyone else asleep, I changed my leader to my daytime rig with FC and sent down a bait. The surface current had picked up a lot and the bait drifted out further on the drop then I wanted, but bottom current was pretty minimal… a good sign for the fish. After bumping the rig along the bottom a little, I raised it about 15 feet from the bottom to avoid the wreck below and was almost immediately rewarded with a thump and lots of head shaking as I brought up the first decent Kerisi Bali for the day.
Waking up the crew, we sent down more rigs, but it was pretty quiet after that…weird. So I shortened my leader a lot…. Down to around 8-9feet only and decided to risk fishing really close into the wreck…. And I was rewarded once again with a bump and thump that turned out to be a nice 2kg red spotted grouper-one of my favorite eating fish in the perfect table size. I kept up this process and in the space of about 20 minutes, boated 4 more red grouper and one red snapper all in the 2-3kg range.
With conditions dying down to a more sane state, we decided to breakfast and then re rig for drift fishing a few nearby spots. Pulling anchor at about 8 am., we then drift fished 3 other spots, but the fish were a little smaller aside from a decent red snapper and a few Kerisi Bali. I did however get to add to my red grouper collection…. We continued to drift fish most of the morning before refueling from our fuel reserve and heading back to the ramp in time to catch the high tide.
At the ramp we were greeted by the rest of the crew who had not gone with us and after getting the boat on the trailer we pulled her up to park under a shady spot and had an impromptu picnic on the boat.
All in all a below average trip under normal conditions, but a reasonable catch given that most of the night wasn't fished. Sorry there aren’t that many pics, but after the picnic we had to haul ass some, 'cos there was a squall line with serious rain coming in.
Regards,
Saimee
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Power Catch Guys,,, 
Originally Posted by fishpullipull 
I wish Stickbom...i wish.I'm worried cos his rods n reels are like some parts of a giant crane.....really big buggers 
this is getting better 
Now we have SAMSONS in Malaysia 
Hey Hon-su the Samson Slayer want to come try 
..me include...can't verify that but I if I were to rely on my depleted memo....cant recall seeing any trademark of a typical AJ...perhaps still early days for that size .... again I may be wrong here...same issues on GTs, Sagais & Gerpoh...