Angie "fishing" in Sedili !

[dBs™]

My first offshore posting in HLF

7 of us, boatman n 2 deckhands set off to a choppy sea on the morning of 15th September 2007.
Unfortunately ... this will be a word "intensive" report as the normally photo intensive Angie was down with sea sick.
Weather condition was simply not on our side. Even boatman did not foresee the sudden change in weather.
Sea was very choppy most of the time. Night fishing was almost impossible as by then most of us were down with sea sick.

Catch rate for this trip I would consider so so only.
The whole sea seems to be swamp with baracudas, cobia n bamboo shark.
Plenty of baracudas of varied sizes were landed.
1 x 3kg grouper, 1 x 2kg parrot, 1x 3kg tenggiri, 2 huge todak, few cobia n bamboo sharks, 1 stingray and 1 giant trevalley
were among other catches.
A 22kg Marlin was landed. A big surprise for us as it took a bottom feeder rig with dead prawn.
It's my 1st sighting of it in real life.
I had to pull myself up, grab the cam n beedeo the landing.
The guys had wanted to cnr the fish but deckhand was too swift to gaffed at it.

A double digit cobia managed to escape the fate of being captured alive !
It surfaced but managed to bite through a 30lb wire leader.

The normally abundance selar were missing in action.
Not a single selar on this trip.
Wonder if the recent earthquakes in Indo has affected the fishy ?

Though I didn't fish much this trip, I caught an arrow squid with a squid jig when sky turns dark.
With a long slice of the freshly caught squid, I landed a 4kg baracuda.
After which I find myself sleeping in the cabin yet again.

I did enjoy this trip nevertheless as i know how an angry sea is like now.
Had to call off the trip as early as 8am as it started to rain on us.
Raindrop getting bigger n bigger ....
Most of us were not feeling too good after 1 whole night of rocking from left to right,
we told boatman it's time to bring us home......

Happily I started packing but I was shocked.
I realised I had no more than 3 pics n a beedeo clip and we are on our way home !
However .... I took a precious pic of the eng ko hurr ( parrot fish) for my best friend Jess.
So ...naturally by now you know the fish not caught by me.
You'll have to wait for my next offshore trip .....

Here's the limited n precious pics

[Jess]

Seems you guys had a fruitful+dreadful( my poor Angel) trip, eventhough no parrot for me.
After watching the beedeo, i noticed a bad gaffing of that poor Marlin.
Those deckhand should be educate to handle such catch once encountered.

[Peace]

Wow, a marlin on a bottom feeder rig using dead prawns, that's gotta be something rare. Sorry to hear about the sea conditions, the barracudas didn't seem to mind it. The sea can never be too predictable, even with a bright sunny day before you. Have to be prepared for the worst every time, and that's where having an old bird for a boatman becomes crucial.

That's still not a very bad catch overall, I think it's just a case of back luck to encounter such bad weather. Thanks for sharing the video too.

Edit:
Upon second look at the video, the fish appears to be a Longbill spearfish. Look at how the dorsal fin extends to the back near the tail.

[Tere]

Angie why the deckhand gaff the marlin?

Marlin population getting lesser and lesser already. Must catch and release these fellas or else next time no more big marlins already.

Actually it depends on the length of the leader and the depth of the water. Its quite determine what is really bottom. From my experience, I've tested before. The water seems calm with no current above 15ft, but there's a strong sweeping under current at 20ft or vice versa. Thus how bottom was the bottom feeder is quite difficult to determine. Usually for Marlin fishing, in malaysia they use about 5m to 10m leader on Ballon. Therefore if the water is 50m deep, the bait might be at 10m depth.

One thing that not much people know is that in order to catch Marlins. You need to be at the front where Hot Air Currents and Cold Air Currents meet. When you're at that point, look out for baitfishes and you should be able to see Marlins slashing through them. But very often, these fronts comes with very bad sea state. Not much people can handle these kind of water conditions.

The other thing is that when there tectonic plates movement i.e. Earthquake or Typhoon, fishes will move out of the area and do a tempolary migration. Somehow they ish smart de. Just recently, I was talking to my Charters in Terengganu. Told them that the Super Typhoon was gonna hit Taiwan, couple of days later, I was told that their catch rate was exceptionately good about 1-2 days after I asked them to do the observation.

Remember ah ... next time put Marlin back ... so I can hunt for them and tag them.


Edit: By the way Angie ... fishy fishy leh ? Me try to cook Marlin Steaks Can take the head stick in front of my car too kekek beri fierce.

[desleyhan]

Hey so sorry to hear the bad weather conditions you have to go thru'.

But that shouldn't dampen all of your spirits as I think the hooking up of the Marlin/Longbill spearfish had compensated it right?

Good catches mah .... Take care!