Fishing Report September, Target Red Bass and BFT

To change things up a little bit it was decided that we would head to the South in search of some Red Bass and Blue Finned Trevally. Previous months had been spent targeting Emperors with some success but a tougher challenge call us, so off we went at a gentlemanly hour.

Ryan starts off the day with a nice 'cuda

The fishing started off fairly slowly with Ryan getting a good barracuda as the first catch. We worked poppers hard for the first hour or so with little to show for it.

Small tigerfish probably looking for a mate rather than lunch

A few small fish were taken (tigerfish, Red Bass and Pink Snapper) on a gold Yo Zuri and the above pictured Secret Sauce "Long Cone" popper.
As the tide dropped we started to see some action with the Red Bass and Emperors starting to bite!

A good sized Emperor on the Secret Sauce Long Cone

Good Sized Red Bass

All of a sudden the fish were in a feeding frenzy with young Ben taking 3 Red bass and myself taking 2 Red Bass and a large Emperor all in the space of about 20 minutes. The action was HOT and the size and quality of the fish were excellent with Emperors over 50cm and Red Bass 60cm and over being wrestled to the boat. Our gear was taking a beating with Ben's split rings failing and the lures looking like they has been in a meat grinder!

Even the tiny Mackerel were in on the action

We took a good variety of quality fish on topwater including Green Job Fish, Blue Finned Trevally. Red Bass, Pink Snapper, 2 species of Emperor and a few other odds and ends. Ben managed on of the catches of the day with 2 pink snapper on the one lure!

Quality Blue Finned Trevally

We finished up the day with Ben taking an excellent Green Job Fish on a soft plastic and Ryan getting a 62cm Long Nosed Emperor in more than 100 feet of water!

Green Job Fish

Solid Sweetlip falling for the Secret Sauce

Unconventional approach but great result, thats one BIG sweetip

A truly awesome days fishing with arm cramps and a full cooler telling us it was time to go home with hours of daylight to spare. We might have to go to this spot again!

Fishing Report September, In search of sweetlip!

With a great weather forecast it was decided that Sunday would be a good day to get after some sweetlip (Emperor) at our local sand bank. My confidence level was low considering it was the day before the full moon and the tides were far from ideal BUT the weather was nice for a change so we headed out with great anticipation.
The real interest for me in the day was to try out some lures that I have been making, in the field. I had a selection of 6 poppers that had been water tested but not put in front of a fish before. I was reasonably nervous about it but also very interested to see if the lures were as good as I had hoped. All of the lures swam and popped very nicely and with some tweaking of the colour schemes will be deadly I am sure. As it was they caught fish on the first try on a day when many of the commercial lures were not working at all.

First timer Ryan with a top fish, just what we were after for dinner

As you can see from the picture, the day was beautiful and generally the conditions were good. The fishing was not at its best but we returned home with a good box of sweetlip and other assorted reef species.
On the lure front, the lure that worked for me was a bit of a surprise. The best performed lure was a natural wood coloured lure with a tiny bit of silver on each side. My idea with the lure was to present something that the fish wouldnt have seen, while showing the beauty of the wood.
On several occasions a large school of fish were seen competing over the lure, with the lure being hit by several different fish before finally getting a hook up - exciting stuff. The colours in the commercial lures that worked best that day were gold/brown/red varieties with the blue/green lures catching only one fish all day (Ryan's sweetlip pictured above).

My best lure for the day, who would have thought that this colour would be the best? Pictured here with a good sized (45cm) sweetip.

So a great day and some good fish and a even better BBQ with sashimi and grilled sweetlip the stars.

Fishing Report August #2 Full Moon, Friend or Foe?

So what is it about the full moon that drives fishermen crazy? Locally it seems that EVERYONE wants to fish on the full moon especially at night, bottom fishing. So what about  those of us who chase top water game? What then?
Well if yesterday's effort was anything to go by, topwater fishing on the full moon is hard work.  We set off mid morning due to unfavorable tides and started fishing about an hour and a half before low tide. As it turns out, this was the best fishing of the day.

Naoko with a great Green Job Fish. A superb catch on topwater!

There were several strikes from Emperor but no good hook ups until Naoko squealed as out of a school of competing Emperor a good sized GJF snatched her lure and took off. On 20lb line the fish put up a great fight but was eventually landed. First fish of the day and the best fish of the day!
Soon afterwards the rain came which put a damper on things for a couple of hours. Once the rain had cleared up we got back to fishing but with little luck. I personally fished 75% of my time with topwater lures and got skunked. Using the usually reliable Yo Zuri Hydro Popper, I caught zero fish. The other 25% of the time I fished several 4 inch soft plastics with better but not wonderful results. I landed around 20 fish of which about half were under 40cm and therefore released. The catch for the day included Green Job Fish, 2 types of Emperor, 4 types of Grouper (Black Grouper, Coral Trout and Coral Cod), Blue Finned Trevally and the always pesky Needle Fish (Long Tom/Datsu). As I fished the soft plastics, I switched back to poppers regularly and towards the end of the day, couldn't get a bite on the poppers to save my life. The fish weren't even following the lure but when I switch back to the plastics I would get bites straight away.
It got me to thinking, do the fish not attack on topwater so eagerly at the full moon? Or was it just coincidence that they were biting on plastics and not on poppers? Anecdotally I would say that when the fish are biting, poppers outfish plastics when it comes to size and quality of fish. Yesterday, the opposite was true. Was it the moon cycle or was there something else at play? What do you think? Let me know...

Are these the world's worst hooks?

I have a confession to make. Before last weekend's fishing trip I insisted that everyone upgrade their treble hooks to some 3X strong hooks that I had bought from Mustad. Previously I had had no problem with these hooks and they seemed to hit at a price:performance ratio that I was happy with.
As my regular readers would know I prefer to use Owner ST-66 trebles on all my lures but it can be an expensive exercise when at any time a large Red Bass/Barracuda/Shark is pretty likely to take a shine to your lure and barring a miracle you will never see the lure or your expensive hooks again. So the Mustad 1/0s seemed like just the ticket. WRONG!

One of the 7 or 8 hooks that failed in one session. The rust came in the week after fishing, it was brand new when it broke.

MUSTAD? I thought it meant quality

So with a boat full of fisherman using these hooks, we went on to lose 7 or 8 fish to broken hooks! Not all were big fish, some were but THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR TACKLE FAILURE! Some of the hooks broke without the guests even realizing that they had had a fish on! To say I was pissed off is a major understatement not to mention the embarrassment of having put these hooks on everyone's lures to start with! Oh well MUSTAD, all I can say is these hooks SUCK and I wont be buying or recommending any of your products ever again! Or at least till something changes.

Fishing Report August

Despite the complete shit weather that has been hounding the islands for the last two months, your intrepid blogger hit the high seas last weekend in an attempt to find something to eat other than frozen chicken - blaah.

Well the weather was crap, big southwesterly winds and a northerly swell made for an uncomfortable ride out to the fishing spot, add to that the heavy overcast skies and constant showers and you get the picture.

On the positive side we had 4 enthusiastic fishermen ready to do battle!

Unfortunately the fishing was really hard work. We tried our best for about 5 hours and yielded a very humble catch of about 60 pounds of fish.

Young Ben with a solid Long Nosed Emperor, not sure what the "tough" face was about though!

All in all it was a difficult day but we enjoyed a decent catch of Blue Finned Trevally, Long Nosed Emperor, White Snapper, Grouper and Green Job Fish. Looking forward to some good weather and really getting into the fish! Till next time...

Fish Species that we Love - Barracuda

I thought that it would be a good time to take a look at the species that we regularly catch here in Palau. First cab off the rank is the Barracuda

My best 'cuda to date caught on a Yozuri Surface Bull (120g)

 When I first came to Palau and fished primarily for GTs, I saw the Barracuda as a nuisance and great way to get my lures smashed or stolen. These days I appreciate them more for the sport they provide (especially the big ones) and the locals LOVE to eat them, so if there is someone we know having an important ceremony or family party, we donate them. Most times though, we release them if they aren't injured.

Most Barracudas are released as this one by Iwasakisan is. This one caught on a floating slider

 The classic way of catching the bigger 'cudas here is by trolling, they are often caught when trolling for Spanish Mackerel or Wahoo. For us though almost all are caught during topwater fishing in shallow reef areas on poppers or surface sliders.

Another beautiful 'cuda caught in 1.5m of water on a 125mm surface popper

There are two species regularly caught, the ones pictured are the larger of the two and are generally caught between 15 and 30 pounds with the occasional larger ones. To sum up my thoughts on the Barracuda; big, smelly, toothy and good fun!

2011 So far...

Its been a while since I posted a fishing report, why is that I hear you ask? The honest truth is that the internet service here in Palau is so poor that I just get pissed off trying to upload pictures and lost some interest in the blog due to that.
Anyway, as I am in Tokyo at the moment, i thought that I would give a brief report on the year so far.

Decent fish caught form the beach on 20lb line and 4000 size reel. 

The wife and her first GT again off the beach

One if my favourite eating fish, Long Nosed Emperor. Holding it as close to the camera as possible! Actual length 70cm

Hajisan with a nice shallow water coronation trout, caught on a Kastmaster of all bloody things!

Hajisan with a DONKEY of a barracuda - his record fish 140cm+

The weather has been crap for most of the year so quite a few trips have been aborted. I only fish for fun so if it blowing a gale, I generally give it a miss. We have had some good catches with the most memorable day being the day the Hajisan got his big barracuda (see pic above), the crew and I caught 35-40 good sized 45cm - 70cm sweetlip, the barracuda, several good sized trevally and a few other random species (green jobfish, pink snapper, tigerfish etc) all in the space of 3 hours.
Brian and Ben were crewing for me on another good day which saw Ben get his first GT (around 20lbs) and Brian bring in a horse of a Red Bass (69cm estimated 15-18lbs). Brian's bass is the new boat record and the biggest RB I have seen landed. It put up a huge fight and actually broke one set of split rings on Brian's lure only to get hooked by the other treble (that had hooks almost straightened). The colour of the fish had turned almost to olive green, making it look like a PNG black bass.
Other highlights include a 4 foot bull shark taken on the kayak and my first MahiMahi.

H&M Update

Well readers due to the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan our team was withdrawn from the H&M event. Conditions on the day were deplorable and few fish were caught but the same team as last time got the trophy! Planning is underway to thwart their efforts in the next event....

2nd Hit and Miss Trophy on this weekend!

Readers will be thrilled to learn that the second Hit and Miss Trophy fishing derby will be run tomorrow. The field has increased to four boats and should deliver some close fought results in what lokks to be shithouse weather! Results to follow....

The lure with 9 lives, died. RIP

Well it took a long time and a lot of fish but I finally lost the first Rebel Pop r that I had ever owned.

Champion Lure accounted for at least 50 fish

I have blogged previously about the near misses that I had had with this lure but today its luck finally ran out. I had upgraded the hooks after the first time that I fished it, with some apprehension as it was only the crappy hooks that saved it a couple of times by straightening on runnaway fish.
Today my plan was to play around with some soft plastics that I had received, but after an hour I hadn't caught anything more than rainbow runners so I decided to tie on the popper. It took about 10 minutes before it was snaffled by a large trevally. The fight was looking promising but I was quickly running out of line and needed to drive the boat after the fish to try and stop it. Just as I had the boat in gear my main line (20lb) brushed the coral. I was bummed but there is nothing you can do and besides its always better IMO to lose a lure to a good fish rather than lose it to a snag/shark bad knot etc. I had only brought one other popper along with me and it was too big to use one my light outfit so I tied it on my jigging rod (Saltiga SA-JG66MFS), not ideal but better than nothing. After a few casts I hooked up on a small GT

Healthy little takka at 75cm

A move to a nearby reef resulted in a nice Blue Fin Trevally

The only fish of the day that didnt make it back into the water, a beautiful 64cm Blue Fin Trevally

After I had dinner secured (BFT) I went back to casting the soft plastics. All I can say is that I must suck at soft plastics, all I caught after that was 1 pink snapper.... I have a lot to learn when it come to soft plastics. At the moment for me, poppers are more fun and catch more fish! Weather permitting the new Orion Lures will be getting a swim, chasing some larger prey, stay tuned!

Orion Nambas 140 - First Look

This is my newly arrived Orion Nambas, a floating topwater lure, similar looking to the Big Foot but less dense and I am assuming it with work with a different action.

Nambas 140

Larger eyes than the Big Foot

I have some hope that this lure will be effective as I believe it will work with an action somewhat similar to the Heddon, time will tell!

Orion Big Foot 140 - First Look

If there has been a lure maker that I had always wanted to try, it was Orion. These lures are hand made from some kind of molded resin in France. I had read many things about them, mostly positive and I was eager to try a lure of European origin, for something different.

Orion Big Foot 140

I had read that these lures "don't look like much" and are "agricultural looking" and at first glance I would have to agree. The paintwork is messy and has bubbles in it, the cutouts for the eyes have not been sanded and generally the lure appears to lack any true craftsmanship.

Eye detail showing the rough finish

Having said all of that, I was prepared for a lack of "beauty" and to be honest, I don't really care about such things too much if the lure catches fish and is durable (things that I have heard that these lures are).

Apart from the lack of attention to detail with the finish, the Big Foot looks promising with good quality eyes and heavy duty wiring and an interesting shape. It is quite narrow and tall with a slightly more pointed nose than tail. Due to a good reputation among serious GT fishermen I am keeping an open mind and am hoping to try this lure in the near future (tomorrow if the wind drops!). Definitely not a lure for the fussy "jewel" type lure collectors!

Fishing Report, Nov 11 2010

A Return to Light Tackle
As I was preparing breakfast I realized that we had run out of fish! What better excuse to go fishing! My plan was to fish a nearby reef that has been heavily fished but to do so with light tackle and small lures. This can be an effective strategy locally because the predominant baitfish are small herring (around 70mm long) and for the most part I think most people fishing with lures do so with larger lures (like I normally do 100mm or longer) so the fish aren't as put off by smaller lures. Anyway, that was my train of thought as I got my gear together and headed down to the boat.
My lure of choice for today was a 50mm Rebel popper. I hadn't used it before but I thought for light tackle it might be effective. I mated this lure with a $30 Shimano Sienna 4000 reel and a cheep bass rod from Japan (also around $30) and some 20lb line that someone gave me. Cheap gear but good enough for what I had planned.
I motored out to the reef with about 2.5 hours to go before the high tide, the wind was calm and the swell was light. I took a few casts outside the reef and produced a couple of strikes without hookup and a small Coral Trout

A small Coral Trout, too small to keep @ 30cm

The fishing looked promising so I decided to head up onto the fringing reef where I wouldn't have to watch for open ocean swells and could concentrated on my fishing.
A few minutes passed and I hooked what looked to be a small GT, I was anchored at the time and he took me past a coral outcrop and broke my main line. "No big deal" I thought as it was a $5 lure and with such light line there is little you can do about stopping larger fish. As I was messing around choosing a replacement lure I noticed my lure floating nearby! "What luck" I thought and went to collect it. It wasn't long before I was broken off again by another fish, again the lure came to the surface within a few minutes! This must be the luckiest lure ever!
I was wondering why the lure had been release out of the fish's mouth so quickly and after a close look I noticed the hooks were bent right out of shape. Even with light line these hooks were too soft! I had no upgrade hooks of this size handy so I decided to persevere.
The lure worked really well with the light outfit, popping nicely and making a big splash. After loosing a couple of fish to straightened hooks, I caught one within my gear's capabilities, a nice fish in the Emperor family.

Great eating size of about 45cm

This was followed up by another fish of the same species but with slightly different colourations.

Same fish, same area, different colours

It was becoming clear what fish were biting! Several more of these fish were landed in the 40 - 50cm range. At some point they were in schools of 10 - 15 fish all darting at the lure! Fun Indeed!

An extremely aggressive fish that locals call "tigerfish". It bears close resemblance to a mangrove jack and fights the same way!

Another Tigerfish this time showing horizontal lines

I was quite satisfied with how things were going, I had some Emperors in the Esky and was catching a few interesting fish and getting the hooks straightened on my lure regularly! I had drifted off the reef and saw a patch of reef that looked like it might hold a GT or two, so I took my normal outfit (50lb) out and using the Heddon lure that I have become attached to made a couple of casts at the reef. On the second cast after 4 or 5 flicks or the rod a big black GT came head and shoulders out of the water to hit my lure! He sped off the reef towards the boat and then dived deep as i set in for a fight. A diving tour boat was going past and decided to stop and have look, so I was fighting a good sized GT with an audience! About 10 minutes into the fight my line went slack... I supposed that the line had hit a rock or something.... but as I wound in, my new favourite lure came with it! Happy Days! It seems the hooks had come loose.
My fun over and my audience disappointed, I headed back to the main reef to resume my light tackle casting. After fishing with heavy gear for the last few months, getting back to light tackle was a real pleasure as I could finesse the lure more. I had been getting buzzed by some nice Blue Fin Trevally but they weren't at all keen on the lure when they got close to it. The loved the action and kept chasing but didnt seem to like the appearance when close - something was putting them off. 
Finally I caught one but I dont think he meant to eat the lure!

Unlucky for him, lucky for me! Sashimi for dinner

By this time I was marveling at the fact that I hadn't lost the lure yet. I was using a 20lb leader and had been taken into the reef by a small Red Bass but I still had the lure! Thats when it happened, a 4 foot black tipped reef shark blasted the lure and set off for Mexico! Sure in the fact that I was going to get bitten/broken/rubbed off I played the shark as it screamed around the reef. 20 minutes later I had the shark along side the boat when the lure came out of his mouth. PERFECT release! Perhaps using these crappy weak hooks has some benefits!

Palau's #1 lure thief the Red Bass. This one had me in the coral but came back out after I released the bail.

The tide was starting to drop and the fishing was getting slower. I had made a couple of fruitless passes over the reef and had decided to head home. I was still casting the same little lure (minus one of its hooks by now) that was thoroughly beaten up when a MONSTER barracuda slid up to it and bit it! OH SHIT! There was no way that this was going to end well! The fish realized it was hooked and bolted. I had about 200m of line on my little reel and was close to getting spooled when the hooks straightened again, saving the lure!
I had had a great time catching a nice feed of fish (8 Emperor between 40 and 50cm, I Blue Fin Trevally 58cm and I Red Bass 42cm) and I hadn't lost a lure all day!!
Coming back I noticed a big ball of bait on the surface of the water and couldn't resist a cast. I cast a 150mm Surface GT popper for about 10minutes without luck. I changed over to a Duel Surface Slider 140f and on my 4th cast got ambushed by a very large black fish (i guess a big grouper or a very large Red Bass)! I saw it from a distance but was confident that with my 50lb gear and relatively deep water I would be able to stop it! Just as I was enjoying the fish's first run I felt my line rubbing on coral.. How could that be?? We were in deep water (8-10m) and the fish hit on the surface! Answer: I got schooled and lost one of my favourite lures in the process and $5 worth of upgraded hooks!!! I'll be back to get my revenge!

Lure of the day. Rebel Pop-R. This lure was brand new 4 hours ago!

Inaugural Hit and Miss Trophy November 6, 2010

 The three boats headed off from Malakal Harbour at around 8.30am (a little late as is local custom) for the designated fishing grounds of Ulong, some 45 minutes away on a beautiful sunny morning with a light breeze.
The combatants' teams were:

1. Kaleb (C), Francis and Richard
2. Casmire (C), Victor, Dave, and Sam
3. Ben (C), Sem and Brian

 Smooth seas greeted us and allowed full speed motoring to the island passage whereby Kaleb headed to the South West to an area that had produced GTs the week before and I headed South East directly to the fringing reef and Casmire followed, stopping at a well known GT hangout on a large sandbank.

The fishing began a little quietly as we drifted over the shallows, hoping for an early fish. Nothing much happened for the first 20 minutes as the three of us worked surface poppers targeting Red Bass, BFT and GTs. Finally after what seemed an eternity, Brian hooked up and landed a nice little GT,

Brian's first GT in Palau. A quick pic and she was on her way

A couple of minutes later Sem hooked up on another juvenile GT and it was looking like we were in for a good day!

Beautiful Palaun waters and a lure that was almost swallowed by this GT.                                                       Pic: Brian Glass

Next up both Brian and Sem landed a pair of Blue Finned Trevallies, with Brian's eventually being credited as the biggest of the day.

The winner of the Blue Fin Trevally category - a solid 4.5kg specimen

Sem with a good sized BFT taken from the shallows                                   Pic: Brian Glass

Eventually I managed to catch my only fish of the day, a small Red Bass.

Big Lure - Small Fish. Red Bass of about 3.5kg                                         Pic: Brian Glass

11.30 came along and we decided to have lunch and a quick swim due to the stifling temperatures and lack of breeze. It was to be the end of our fish catching as we didn't manage to land any fish after lunch despite a couple of notable Hits and Misses. The afternoon saw us fishing in crystal clear water with little of no wind, we could see just about every fish on the reef and they were particularly wary. We had had a tough day with little to show for it but we figured that the other boats would be suffering from the same problems, and so it was.

We hit the beach for the 4pm "weigh in" to determine the biggest fish in each of the categories. The results were:
Biggest GT: Richard (team Kaleb)
Biggest Barracuda: Richard (team Kaleb)
Biggest Red Bass: Sam (team Casmire)
Biggest Nannygai: team Casmire
Biggest Blue Fin Trevally: Brian (team Ben)

Biggest fish overall: Richard 15kg GT
Most Fish: team Casmire
Trophy Winner: Team Kaleb

Winners are Grinners! Franics, Kaleb and Richard soaking up the glory!                                                             Pic: Brian Glass

Close Runners-up, Sam, Casmire, Dave and Victor                                                                                       Pic: Brian Glass

Probable winner of the "most beer consumed" prize, Sem, Brian and Ben

All in all another great day on the water. Provisional plans have been made for the second H&M trophy in late February/early March 2011.
Congratulations to all category winners and the overall trophy winners - team Kaleb!

Fishing Report, November 5, 2010

So with an informal "fishing derby" organized among a group of friends for Saturday, Friday seemed like a good opportunity to get out in the boat and scout out the competition area. Three boats would be involved (mine being one), the other two would be captained by Palauans with 20 years or more experience in the area. So I hoped to gain some insight with a "warm up" the day before.
I enlisted the help of one of my neighbors to crew for me and we were off. We tried some jigging and some topwater casting with varied success. The area that we fished was once an extremely productive area but it has been overfished in recent years. It still holds some nice fish and we have had some great days fishing there but recently it has been a bit quiet.
The catch wasn't bad but the fish were generally skittish. We landed nannygai, long nose emperor, blue fin trevally and barracuda. The best fish were caught by my crew member Dave with a Blue Fin Trevally of about 5kg and a barracuda of a similar size. We must have looked quite a sight, a pair of large, bald, bearded HAOLES on the high seas, add an eye patch and it would have looked like a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean!!

Avast Landlubbers! A healthy looking BFT was taken as the weather turned dark

A good sized barracuda from a spot that I have never fished before

Catch of the Day: The above pictured Blue Finned Trevally
Best Lure: Williamson Jet Popper (blue)
Angler of the Day: Dave