Fishing at Nenasi in early June on King Chong's boat

Being really sick this month (June) didn't stop me from doing what I love most. I'd a fever of 38 for two days before the trip, lost my voice, was coughing madly and choking on phelgm but there was absolutely no way I was going to miss this fishing trip which I had been looking foward to. No way - no one (and there were many) and nothing (threats, exhortions, well-meaning advice) would stop me from going on this trip.

Not sure if other anglers feel the same but I feel akin to a soldier when I take up my rod and reel - my weapons against the fishes of the deep. The pic below is a shot of the "weapons" (each person brought or 1/2 sets) that the 8 of us used on the trip. Mr Brad and Ms G-Loomis set is amongst them but not my penn reel and shakespeare rod set which I'd kept after the first day.

On the first day, I landed about 3 groupers, 1 of which is the largest grouper I've caught to date. I caught the fellow somewhere late morning when I was just sitting there holding on to my rod to make sure it didn't get tangled with the other anglers' lines. I felt a jerk on the end of my line and I sprang up like a jack-in-the-box from my sitting position while jerking upwards on the rod to set the hook. The greasy grouper didn't stand a chance against the Bradmis whichI worked slowly and steadily - the grouper did give several hard jerks along the way up to make for its hideout but the hook had been set firm and pretty soon, it was lying on the floor of the boat. I am bringing my camera for the next trip and checking the shots after it's taken - the photographer this time had a Canon SLR and I can't say I am pleased at all with the picture below showing only half my fish!



The rest of the afternoon was quiet and I was too sick to go sabiking or jigging with my second rod and reel (the penn set) even though it was all set up. I tried for a while though but the rod tip of the shakespeare rod was too soft (this is the first time I've taken the 10 year old made in usa thing out to nenasi) and could not impart my actions effectively to the jig or sabiki. My friend on the other hand caught an ebek when jigging, filling me with hapless envy. The next trip in August, I'm determined to land me an ebek through jigging too. About 4pm, the boatman decided to take us to a tripletail spot as it was the triple tail season but unlike my previous trip to Rompin, this boatman didn't bring us to any secret spots and the deckie this time was most lazy and unhelpful. If you asked me, even though I paid about SGD100 more for the last trip, it was worth it because it was non stop tripletail action for an hour. Here, it was, "not enough bait fish", "catch your own bait fish" "wait for an hour without action". If I hadn't a prior experience that I could use for comparison I might have thought that this was normal fishing. Anyway, I did manage to catch 1 big fat bastard of a triple tail - that's me with Ms G-Loomis bent right over.

And the size of the tripletail on the other end? Only this. These fishes may not be too large in length but they are pure muscle as I've said before in my previous catch report (click here), and must not be underestimated. I was considered lucky to catch this tripletail because there were those who had a bait on without a bite at all fishing at the same spot as I was. However, it isn't about luck alone - it's about what I learnt from the past experience at Rompin from the very experienced boatman and deckie - tripletails go for bloody meat. Not just bait fish, but baitfish sliced and as bloody as possible. So try to slice up your bait fish instead of leaving them alive.



The next day, the boatman brought us for tripletail in the morning which I thought was strange because from my experience at Rompin, tripletails feed the most about 4-5pm. However, I wasn't going to be the smarty pants around since I still can't connect my leader to braided line with an FG knot (I'm hopeless at it!) so I joined the group near the unjung, used my hook to tear at the meat of my live bait till there was blood and lowered the bait into the water. Thanks to my fantastic ZeroRh+ sunglasses, I could see some distance into the water and as I was reeling back my bait to check on it, a fish came swimming out of nowhere heading for my bait. I stopped reeling and to my delight, the fish took my bait. I counted to five and jerked hard upwards to set the hook (oh, believe me I've learnt never to not set hook after that cost me the first prize in the fishing competition in Sabah). My friend's wife next to me said that the fish didn't look like a tripletail and from the action below, I could tell she was right. Despite the size of the cobia, it didn't have half the strength and fight of a tripletail. Anyway, this was a really small cobia, even compared to the one I'd caught before (click here) and it didn't go for any runs or put up much of a fight. Still, I was happy to have caught the cobia because cobia porridge is great! :)



These were all the fishes that our weapons had conquered - out of the pile, I caught more than half of the fishes. Haha. Okay, there's my cobia, my tripletail, my 3 groupers....and also, 1/2 of all the Huang Xiao Jies (the yellow tailed/finned bait fishes on the right which taste great deep fried - not sure what the eng name of the fish is). After catching the cobia, the rest of the afternoon was so quiet despite the boatman changing spots that I changed the rig to sabiki on the Bradmis and enjoyed massacring the Huang Xia Jie clans in the sea. Sabiki-ing when it's quiet can be very fun but one must learn how to remove the fish from hooks oneself or one would be an annoyance when one reels up 3 to 6 squirming small fishes on sabiki. 1 of the other anglers who had a lousy day the day before and today (1 fish each day) said that he wouldn't mind the huang xiao jies so while everyone ate lunch I sabiki-ed and he stood by unhooking the fishes. It was fun - not serious angling but still...fun :)

Anyway, how we divided the fish was by lucky draw with 8 piles for 8 anglers so that no one would go home empty-handed. However, as a concession, each of us were allowed to pick one fish we had caught to be put in our pile and of course, I picked the largest grouper I had caught to date and here it is after a 3 hours journey back in an icebox from Nenasi to my kitchen sink.

Here are the rest of the fishes that I got in the pile - not too many like the last few times but quite enough till the next fishing trip! :D

I can't wait till the next fishing trip! :D