Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Spratly 2009 - Jig Fest

While we spend most of our time popping the reefs with the small boats, we jig most of the time while on board Sea Maiden I, and of course bottom fishing. Again, jigging were more productive at Dallas compared to Mariveles. We had several unstoppable trains with Stella 20k and also Dogfight; of which we lost the battle to corals and Barracoutas.

Damn the Barracoutas... they were EVERYWHERE!!! Alan was totally the champion of Barracoutas. The annoying part is, they tend to whack your main lines and leaders. What's even more annoying is, once hooked they fight like dead weight!! It's like reeling in a bag of rubbish!
The Barracoutas were so abundant that, Bruce and I decided to play with FIRE and try our new jig... Sevenseas Hooker, Anatahan... The SUPER ATOMIC DARTING REACTION!! Anyway we didn't use it long. After landing 2 Barracoutas, I retired the jig back to the bag :-p Hehehehe...

Anyway, speaking of unstoppable trains, we had a few from jigging and also live baiting with flying fish. But they were not meant to be... All in all, we jigged the usual Big Eye Trevallies, Barracudas, baby Dogtooth Tunas, etc. Most of the jigging action were at night as we spent most of the days popping the reefs.


There were some decent size fishes landed from jigging and 1 decent size Dogtooth from bottom with a tiny piece of bait meant for Kelisi.

And the same angler, landed a decent size shark on jig.

Andrew once again was the champion of jigging with a 22kg Dogtooth. When he hooked on to the Dogtooth, I heard him shout 'HELP HELP!!'. Straight away, I rushed over with the fighting belt and put it on and start snapping away with my camera.


And then there is DD with his 22kg Yellow Fin Tuna and also a decent size Dogtooth. Overall, DD landed the most fish, and rightfully so!! He's our one and only JIGGING MACHINE that runs on solar during the day, and moonlight after the sun sets.

And later, the crown was taken by Alan with his giant Barracuda!!

And now for the bomb of the trip... 45kg Yellow Fin Tuna!! Please go to Spirit of the Sea for more details!!

To sum it all up, we had an excellent trip with all round thrills. Company was excellent and the arrangements by Michael, top notch. The only down side is the wheather which turn nasty on the 2nd last night onwards. Wind was blowing one side, waves going another side, and current going a totally different side. It was so bad that during the last night, the captain couldn't anchor the boat AT ALL!! So we ended up DRIFTING and REPARKING the whole night through!!

Beside that, we also had a few freak high speed short storm. Freaky because everything was flying around and everyone was running for cover. High speed because it came within seconds and the wind was super high speed. It came so fast that one minute you are jigging with warm mild wind blowing, and next minute the wind turn bone chilling and it just started pouring within seconds. Short because it only lasted for 10 minutes.
SO all in all... SHIOK :)
Now that the trip report is wrapped...
Introducing...
GILBERT!!!!!!! Named by Brewst.This dude flew in the last night out of nowhere and decided to just chill with us all the way to Labuan.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Ken,

When would be another Sometimes can angler "Spangli" trip?

Probably some trolling session around Mariveles with Sea Baby 1 (white boat), targeting gigantic wahoo, best sashimi.

Warm regards

Isaac

KYFK said...

Hahahaha... that's gonna take a while. Spangli is not exactly next door!! We planning Lucornia and Maldives next.

Interested? :D

Brewst said...

KEKKEKEKE, i think we should do one Oil Rig before the end of the year la....wat say you bradder!

KYFK said...

I say ON KAU NEI!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Hi Ken, nice to meet you. My name is Max from Singapore. The last time we went to spratlys from KK, wah terrible the boat and deckies. We just came back from Lucornia on Crystal Coral, catch not good. Discussing to return to Spratlys but on a different boat. Can you recommend us the contacts of Sea Maiden 1? There is a huge white boat parked at KK, dunno whether is that Sea Maiden or not? Appreciate if you can help....Cheers