Other than that, how was your fishing trip?

To begin with, we had a bit of trouble with the truck, boat and trailer.

 

 

 

 

We finally got that sorted but had to leave the truck where she sat.

 

 

 

 

Throughout the day we nearly ran out of hook as the crew kept leaving them in the places.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bite today was a bit different today than previous trips.

 

 

 

 

Running back there were a few issues with our mooring locations.

 

 

 

 

 

Ilya had a look to ensure the props were OK after the mooring incidents. He’ll be fine in about 6 months.

 

 

 

 

We nearly got it sorted out in the end.

 

 

 

Once we got the boat sorted, Ray had an accident putting away the spear gun.

 

 

 

 

Good day out all told!

 

See you on the water,

 

Hank

http://www.hongkongsportfishing.com

 

Off topic - Hong Kong Insurance needs

For all of your insurance needs, please drop by my wife's web site. There is a tab for the form "request a quote" on the left side of the page.
Hong Kong Insurance

Fishing Update from Sunday, August 11th

Nice catches from Sunday.

 

The largest wahoo and mahi mahi were over four feet long and just a tick over 20lbs.

The first blue marlin caught off of Hong Kong

I went back and looked at that fish. 

 

Two things about that fish make me call it a blue.  First, the pectoral fins straight and folded. Second, the skin covering the branchiostegals and gills under the throat ends just behind the mouth rather than extending to the pectoral fin.

 

That truly is a first for Hong Kong

 

From: Hank Terrebrood [mailto:hankt@hongkongsportfishing.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2013 10:38
Subject: FW: We Made History !

 

To my regular fishing crowd, see the story and pics below. Forgive Brad's ignorance (at the time) of the history of Hong Kong and marlin catches. The history certainly predates my participation in this fishery since 2001.

 

Congrats again to David Tuthill for a nice fish.

Hank

 

From: Brad Ainslie

Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2013 8:47 AM
Subject: We Made History !

 

A fishing report from the South China Sea, Hong Kong CHINA  

 

June 30^th, 2013   

 

There had been rumors of marlin in Hong Kong waters over the years …  a group claimed to hook up with a 100 lber a few years back but there was no proof.   We’ve been fishing these waters for five years and have seen a lot of dolphin (mahi mahi), yellowfin tuna, barracuda, and one wahoo but nothing big…  We  always wondered if these waters could sustain life for a marlin and if it one would even wander this far from the trenches off Pratas Island and the Phillipines.

This fishing trip was a special day even without the marlin…  The owner/captain of the boat Dave Tuthill was leaving HK in a few weeks so we knew this was going to be the last big fishing trip offshore in Hong Kong.     The end of an era of exploring these waters and having some incredible adventures along the way out there.  I don’t believe any non-Chinese fishing boat has ever covered as much ground as Tut and Murder One has over the years!   We are talking about 250 mile days of running looking for signs of life from 4am to sunset… (Murder One is a 33 ft Hydra Sport with triple 225hph engines) 

We left the docks of Aberdeen, Hong Kong at 4:00AM on the dot…. We had an amazing crew on board.    Myself, Greg Moore, Andrew Bazarian, Dan Shepherd, Carl Vine and Captain Tut.   We cruised past the old fishing junk boats and weaved our way thru the dozens of fully loaded shipping containers on their way to the US in the pitch black.   It was a perfect morning to head offshore… no wind and flat calm with a 3 foot ground swell.   We caught the perfect window just ahead of a Typhoon due to hit the next morning.    We cleared Stanley and Po Toi island and got her going 35 knots and began the long journey out to the oil rigs and blue water;   75 miles south east of HK Island. 

On normal day the water turns from the usual green murky water around Hong Kong into pacific blue at about 40 miles… today was different.    We didn’t hit the blue water until 65 miles and when we did at about 6:00 AM there was life everywhere.    More birds than normal working the waters.. small dolphin and tuna jumping everywhere and the water was dead flat.    We thru the lures in the water and Carl and Shep quickly hooked up with a few mahi mahi and got them in the boat.   Baz noticed a big group of birds working real hard just where the green water line hit the blue water line so we put a few dolphin lures on and started chasing the birds.    Not long after that at about 6:45 AM it happened….     The marlin attacked the blue dolphin lure on the right outrigger.. … It was an explosion.   The marlin came half way out of the water when it hit.. bill fully out of the water and his huge tail splashing away.   The fish went nuts… jumping 20-30x and going crazy off the back of the boat.    Tut jumped on the rod, I grabbed the steering wheel, the rest of the crew quickly cleared the back of the boat of rods, lures, beer cans, and the battle began.   Mooresy jumped on the rooftop and began filming.  She dragged us all over the place… not sure on how far but we must have covered close to 10 miles fighting her.    Three and a half hours of sweating, swearing, and fighting later the fish was done.    She fought very hard but died and drowned herself out as she got wrapped in the line around her body.   This was the first marlin we had ever caught that was coming home with us.  (We have always had the chance, and always tagged and released)  There was one last problem though.     The fish was down about 20-25 ft in the water dying and was dead weight away from the boat… the line was worn and we couldn’t get her to the surface as we were sure it would snap.    There was no way Tut was letting that fish go to waste as it would have never lived at this point.   He threw on a mask, snorkel, and fins… grabbed a gaff and dove down to the fish and dragged the beast to the surface !!!   HAHAHAHAH    ( NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY EXAGERATING)   It took him 2 solid minutes down below and kicking!!!  We quickly got a couple gaffs in her and got it to the side of the boat.       We knew there were big mako sharks and oceanic white tips in the area and with a dead fish of that size on the side of the boat we needed to get Tut and the fish out of the water as quickly as possible.   It took all six of us to get the marlin over the side of the boat and into the cockpit.    (Three gaffs and a massive rope tied to the tail, with a pulley system from the hard top)  The fish was beautiful and an incredible animal.  We all had mixed emotions about an animal as majestic as this dying but it was meant to be.. this fish was ours.   It was our Hemingway moment and it capped off five years of exploring these waters in the most epic way.    The fishing gods wanted us to catch this marlin !!!   

 

Seven hours later we were back at the HK Yacht Club with a 505 lb Black Marlin, a few yellow fin tuna, a bunch of mahi and successfully drank the Yacht Club out every bottle of rum it had!    Here are a few pictures below of the beast.    We fileted her up with a bowie knife and have been feeding as many people marlin since!  

 

We measured her length, width and shoulders and based on the IGFA equations the fish was somewhere between 500-560 lbs.    We called her 505 !

 

For you fishing fans…  It was caught on a 50W Shimano Tiagra reel (a 50lb class rod), 100 lb mono leader on a black & Blue R&S #44 made in Fort Lauderdale lure...8/0 Mustad Hook...   the type of hook you catch large-mouth bass with !!   hahaha   

 

Here are a few photos but there are many more to come. 

 

Brad  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overnight trip this weekend

We plan to leave Saturday at 17:00 from Aberdeen and fish into sundown on our way to the rigs.  We should arrive around 23:00 or so and tie off for a bit of jigging for those that are interested.  I'll also take live bait. 

Sunday we'll troll the area around the rigs and then about noon troll back toward Hong Kong .  By around 15:00 we'll pickup lines and head in for a return to Aberdeen by around 18:00 Sunday evening.

We have 5 confirmed now and I'll take 1-2 more. 

We'll need to keep our eye on the weather:

http://www.hko.gov.hk/wxinfo/currwx/ffish.htm

Latest:

     Outlook for the next 48 hours

     South to southeasterly winds of force 4 to 5, becoming southwesterly winds of

     force 5 to 6 later. Isolated squally showers and thunderstorms.

I don't usually go if blowing a steady 5 (will go in winds of force 4-5) or higher.

Fishing Report 20120403

Going tomorrow, Wednesday, April 11^th.  We will leave from the public pier in the first “alley” of the marine industrial area just past the old departure point which was the public pier next to the Aberdeen Marine Police Station.

 

Departure around 07:15 and return around 18:00

 

--- Fishing Report 20120403

The trip out looked promising as water was grey-blue by the mid channel and blue on the tip of Leema Island.  There were also several schools of sardines on the surface but nothing apparently with them. 

 

Just a half mile or so bearing 120 the water went green again.  We proceeded the 9 miles to the first wreck seeing one school of small tuna with no takes.

 

From that wreck there was an obvious line due south of us by a couple hundred meters.  As we approached there was a school of small tuna on the north side and we made several passes without a strike.  We continued south and saw it was a wind line with wind stronger on the north side of the line marking blue water of 22.3 degrees celcius on the south side and 19.8-20.1 on the north side.  There was a good trash field in the line with dozens if not hundreds of small birds floating in the line for as far as we fished it.  There were also hundreds, if not thousands of cuttlebones in the line making the area look like there was a wholesale slaughter of an entire school of cuttlefish either by predators or a trawler/trawling pair.

 

We fished up and down that line seeing a few small baitfish and a mahi mahi or 2 cruising in the trash line without experiencing a singles strike.  From there we trolled south to another wreck about 9 miles away coming across large patches of seaweed and F&J.  As we neared the wreck we saw water temperatures as high as 23.2c or a tick under 74f.

 

The trip south yielded nothing and by now it was about 2pm so we turned north to troll back toward the first wreck to see what we could find.  In blue water we had zero hits, but shortly after the troll toward home from the first wreck, in water that was extremely green, we caught a 4 pound mackerel tuna.

 

From about 2pm onward there was little wind.  The surface of the ocean was like glass.  As we came back toward Leema we found many schools of sardines in balls being harassed by small mackerel tuna.  We hung out jigging until nearly 6pm hoping to find bigger predators in the area, but nothing doin’.

 

We had a miss on a very hard strike and extremely fast run that lasted 25-30 seconds.  The pickup was on a TLD30 with plenty of line so I set the drag a little harder and gave one pull to make sure the hook was set, felt the fight on the other end and then just let it run.  Unfortunately the run ended as abruptly as it started with the lure being dropped.  That was the most exciting part of our day.

 

Shing’s 40’ Egg runs like a top on filtered and polished used vegetable oil.  The cat 3208 is a fairly smooth engine to begin with as it’s 636 cubic inches producing only 425hp with a .67 hp to cubic inch ratio it’s not working hard.  The experience on waste vegetable oil is smoother still and apparently we got a little better economy using around 300 liters the entire day.

 

I should be ready to be out in mine for the first time of the season on Saturday as I’ve had my generator being rewound.

 

Hank

Fishing, Saturday, Sept. 17th

The original plan was a meet up at the "public ma tau" between the Aberdeen Boat Club and the Aberdeen Marine Police station at 07:15 for a swift departure. Instead, a couple of guys were running late and we ended up with a 07:45 departure into slightly stronger than forecast winds and a 2-3 foot chop with occasional larger seas. Having come by passenger ferry from Discovery Bay, I was a little surprised as the waters south of Lama Island and Hong Kong harbor were nice and calm.

I was expecting a day with water about as flat as we saw in the harbor that morning.

Once we began running offshore I got a second shower in the salt water with a little spray making it to the flybridge once in a while. But, the temperature was already around 29c (or 84 in man degrees) making the bits of spray not unwelcome. We were running out at a leisurely 17.5 to 18 knots as there was no rush to get into a tide as we didn't really have much of a tide movement forecast for the day.

After having run 45 miles two weeks ago to find blue water it was pleasant to find the change about midway in the ship channel leaving Hong Kong with Po Toi Island barely 4 kilometers behind us.

We caught up to Kim Stuart and his crew on Kiduzi about 8:10 and watched him run around the mid channel marker twice while guys slowly made it out of the salon and into the cockpit to start running the rods out that I had put in place and rigged with lures earlier. We then took a couple of swings around and boated 2 tiny tuna (one of which was extremely green and looked like a mackerel from the flybridge) and 1 tiny mahi mahi. First fish was over the side at 08:30.

These guppies prompted us to leave that buoy and head out to look for trash/weed lines and signs of life.

As we were bringing the lines in two container ships passed in front of us about half a kilometer away. I got in behind one to run in his flattened out wake for 20 minutes or so and then left him to run a little more southerly. We saw Kim stop to fish around a stopped fishing boat and that was the last we saw of him until pulling into Aberdeen at 17:30 later.

After seeing a couple of flying fish and a larger containership at anchor we put the lines back in to begin fishing again. We trolled the ship's starboard side with zero results and got almost the entire length of the port side before a small mahi mahi came out from under the bow to get hung and end up being thrown back in. We then trolled down the starboard side again with nothing doing so started off away from the ship.

At around 500 meters away two rods went off and we caught 2 more small kawa kawa tuna. This was the beginning of a day that saw fish continuously, often in double and triples hookups, averaging 1 or 2 fish on every 30 minutes.

From there we trolled slightly west of due south and headed for the near wreck which is about 9 miles south south-east of the north east tip of Lema Island.

After making a couple of large circles in the area of that wreck we headed on a little bit south south-west parallel to Lema Island leaving a couple of darkening storm cells in our wake.

That path was very productive as we had several more tuna, the largest mahi mahi of the day and three wahoo during that run.

I had taken a break from the flybridge to adjust the spread and was going around the rods bringing the lures in a little closer and putting rubber bands around the lines attached to the reel handles to keep our rigs running right and tangle free. The port corner had just been reset when it went off in front of me in a serious scream.

I thought the excessively loud sounding drag was because it had been adjusted light and so cranked down on the lever just a bit. That was when the wahoo knew I was there and started to give a bit of a fight. It was only maximum 12 pounds however and it was in the boat in just a few minutes

We put the lure back into the pattern and continued the troll. It probably was not 2 minutes afterward that 2 more rods were singing. This time Van Sternbergh and Greg Mclaughlin were on the rods to bring in 2 more wahoo between 10-11 pounds.

Again, we put those rigs back in the pattern and quickly set off on the troll again when another wahoo came straight out of the water with a lure in it's mouth. Unfortunately it wasn't hooked and that one took off.

We started the boat forward again and Jeff Fisher was in front of the short corner rod on the staroard side where a nice mahi mahi had taken a red and white islander.

Unfortunately that fish was freed when the net and the fish made

contact creating just enough slack for the hook to fall from the fish's mouth. That mahi mahi would have been the largest one of the day as it was around 30 inches and was probably 8-10 pounds. It was Ingvar's second week in a row to execute a "release" on the day's biggest mahi mahi!
From there we took an offshore route to avoid a nasty downpour that had been chasing us. Before heading off I entered a waypoint in the GPS so that we could return to fish that area. Once the storm passed we returned only to find that the wahoo were no longer in that piece of ocean. We trolled the area for another 2 hours or so before beginning the troll toward home. Again, we were picking up a fish or 2 every half of an hour or so.

The water was a gorgeous, deep blue all day, as seen in this picture with Ingvar's feet; he captioned this with one of his favorite sayings: "it doesn't hurt anywhere now."

We picked up the last fish on the north eastern tip of Lema just before entering the ship channel as we trolled back toward Hong Kong. On the day we had more than 30 strikes, boated over 20 fish and kept 6. I saw 3 types of tuna on Saturday: kawa kawa, skipjack and bluefin. Along wih the wahoo and mahi mahi it was a great day with plenty of action and variety.

Fishing, Sunday, August 28th

We met up Sunday morning at the "public ma tau" between the Aberdeen Boat Club and the Aberdeen Marine Police station with high expectations to fish an overcast day at the new moon. It was already a warm 29c/84f with near shore water almost as warm at 27c/81f and very humid - we were on the way to 34c/93f with an Accuweather "realfeel" of 42c/107f.

The trip offshore was done at a gentle 19 knots with the thirsty 800hp Man diesels just ticking over at 1,600rpm. The sea state was very calm except for 8-10 foot rollers with very long intervals. It was a great, comfortable trip out.

I watched the water in our wake turn from green to green/grey about in the middle of the ship channel and saw that the water temperature was getting warmer as we moved offshore at 27.8/82f. Just past the Northeast tip of Lema Island the water was another half degree warmer but the water was not yet blue.

I headed out about 150 toward the near wreck that is 9 miles or so off south southeast of the tip of Lema. Over the next 5 miles the water gradually changed to all grey, then grey-blue and finally beautiful “put the spread out” blue. We went lines wet at 08:30 and around 3.5 miles from the wreck and started trolling toward it. The water temperature was about 29c/84.5f. Monday the northerly winds replaced the previous southerlies

We trolled around the area of the wreck seeing birds, flying fish and small baitfish continuously. However, over the first hour and a half we had one strike resulting in a missed hook-up; a very slow start to a day for which I had high hopes.

That area was left behind as we headed further offshore in search of tide/current lines, flotsam and jetsam. Tide and current lines were difficult to distinguish with the rolling seas.

By about 11:00am we were in a large trash field about 26 miles offshore and picked up our first mahi mahi of the day. We fished that area for another hour picking up and dropping fish almost continuously.

During one of our runs through the area, one of the bent butt rods went off that was towing a Williamson rubber mullet. The drag is tightened down fairly hard on that reel just to keep the rubber mullet from pulling drag when it dives. That reel started screaming in a very high speed run, my first thought was: wahoo. Van grabbed the rod and held it up and as I brought the boat to a stop he shouted up – it’s still pulling hard and fast. Unfortunately, the fish was either not hooked well or was just holding the lure in its mouth in such a way as not to be hooked. The scream stopped and we reeled the lure back in to have a look: there wasn’t a mark on the lure.

My guess is that it was a large sailfish, which nobody has caught one of this year by the way, or a marlin that had mouthed the lure in such a way not to have been hooked. A wahoo, barracuda, large mahi mahi or tuna would have left marks in the soft rubber.

We had another boat get fairly close and it looked like a Bert 46 or 50. They had started fishing the area we were in and I thought it was time to give that area a rest. Besides, there was a large Maersk container ship about 5 miles further offshore that had been drifting all morning practically begging us to come pick fish out from under her.

The first pass saw mahi mahi bolting out from under her bow and we had one hook-up and three misses. Over the next hour or so we had similar strikes with a triple strike resulting in 2 fish boated and one missed.

While the guys were taking photos with the larger of the fish caught on that run, someone dropped the fish and it bounced through the sea door. By the way, let me know if you find my sea door as the hinge screws pulled out and it fell off of the back of the boat on the way offshore!

As we left the container ship we fished back through the trash field catching and missing a couple more mahi mahi and 4 small kawa kawa tuna. We fished from there back toward Hong Kong coming within 5 miles of Lema before the water had turned green-grey again prompting us to bring the lines in, put the outriggers up and headed for the barn.

It was a good day of fishing with the final tally being 8 mahi mahi (4 kept for the table) and 4 tuna (2 kept) with 6 more mahi mahi lost or dropped back in. We used a large salmon landing net leaving the gaff put away – all returned safe and sound.

Hank

Trip to the rigs July 23rd and 24th

Planning overnight trip leaving at 4pm July 23rd and returning around 7pm on the 24th.

The plan is to leave from Aberdeen at 5pm and run out to fish until the bite stops and have a beer or two. We'll nod off while the coxswain operates overnight and we arriving at the rig area for a bit of early morning jigging and the sun up bite.

We'll start trolling at sun up, hopefully hooking up yellowfin, mahi mahi, wahoo, marlin, etc on the troll and be back in HK around 7pm that day.

The number per trip will be a maximum of 6. Let me know quickly if interested. If we have six of us going the cost will be HK$2,200 per head.

I have 2 slots available this Saturday, anyone coming? If you are interested e-mail me ASAP.

hankt@hongkongsportfishing.com

Upcoming Fishing Trips

Planning overnights to the rigs July 16th-17th and 22nd-23rd.

The plan is to leave from Aberdeen at 5pm. We'll run out by 6pm, fish until the bite stops and have a beer or two. We'll not off while the coxswain operates overnight and we wake up arriving at the rig area for the sun up bite.

Hopefully we'll hookup yellowfin, mahi mahi, wahoo, marlin, etc on the troll and be back in HK around 7pm that day.

The number per trip will be a maximum of 6. Let me know quickly if interested and I'll give you cost per head.

I have a slot available this Saturday after a cancellation - anyone game?

hankt@hongkongsportfishing.com

Fishing in July

I'm out of Hong Kong for the next 10 days and will be back on July 1st.

Anyone like to go out on July 2nd?

Also planning overnights to the rigs July 16th-17th and 22nd-23rd.

The plan is to leave at 10pm arriving at the rig area for the sun up bite and fish for yellowfin, wahoo, marlin, etc on the troll and be back in HK around 7pm that day.

The number per trip will be a maximum of 6. Let me know quickly if interested and I'll give you cost per head.

hankt@hongkongsportfishing.com

Second Saturday in a Row With a Marlin (updated)

Hard to believe in HK waters, but with the same pattern and same lures we had another marlin on the short rigger with a chugger/rubber fish combo. This fish was not as acrobatic and was only in the air during the strike.

She hit, dropped the lure and then hit again as Curly reeled line in. The marlin then took off for parts unknown leaving Curly to watch the spool of line getting ever smaller. I gave chase with the boat and the fish turned to run straight at us allowing Curly to bring in some line.

I hopped down from the flybridge to fight the fish leaving a Chinese coxswain at the helm with no English skills. Unfortunately, he ran over the line early on and frayed a 10 foot section that ended around 50 feet away from the fish. I fought the fish for around thirty minutes and the Penn 80lbs rod ("made in USA") snapped below the top three eyes. Moments later the line parted in the frayed area with a "ping."

Unlike the fish we had on during the tournament, this fish was too strong to bring into the boat. We got her within 20 feet of the boat and around 6-8 feet below the surface twice during the fight. Big fish.

Also caught 13 fish Sunday while another boat that was out got NADA.

Tournament Winning Marlin

We had only been lines wet for 20 minutes yesterday when I spotted a large green current line next to the first wreck about 7 miles SSE of the NE tip of Lema. I turned and ran the edge of the line seeing flying fish and tuna and a the long portside rigger went off within 30 seconds of the turn.






Curly had just decended the ladder from the flybridge and jumped the rod nearly as quickly as the marlin broke for the horizon. After a 45 minute struggle on 30lbs line with a TLD20 that was acting up, crewman Van Sternbergh leaned over the transom to grab the leader and call it a release while I stayed on the flybridge to operate the boat.

















The winning team aboard Reel Affinity consisted of capt. Hank, first mate Rebecca, "Curly" Chris Hirst, Van Sternbergh, Melissa Petros, Al Mok and Ilya Zaystev. Great job crew!





You may view full sized originals here:
http://whitebalance.smugmug.com/Sports/Fishing/Fishing0528

Fishing Saturday, May 28th

Be ye man, or mouse?

I have a couple of spots open.

http://www.hongkongsportfishing.com

HK ban on commercial trawling

You may be aware that the Govt has proposed a ban on trawling, however, the government has been VERY sneaky by having the deadline for protests falling one day after a public holiday, so we will all be either too busy or lazy to react.

WWF are coordinating members of the public to petition legislators to support the ban.
THE DEADLINE FOR WRITING TO THE GOVERNMENT IS TODAY, WEDS, MAY 11th. PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW AND FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS.

If you do nothing, then we may well not have ANY fish left at all in Hong Kong waters soon as we all know how low the fish stocks are.
http://apps.wwf.org.hk/eng/sos2011.php?utm_campaign=sos&utm_source=wwf&utm_medium=enews

Saturday was a good day out!

Fishing was excellent on Saturday. We took home 10 mahi mahi and 1 bluefin tuna, put 5 back and dropped a large mahi mahi bring it over the rail; I had the leader in my hand so we can call that a quick release!

I started out at the tip of Lema at 07:50 and put our first fish in the cooler in under 5 minutes. We had three lines out and had just put a fourth when the starboard short corner running a small silver streaker went off. In the pattern for the day we had 7 rods out with the other short corner running a red & white islander, the short port rigger had an orange and white chugger, the long port rigger was a combo bird and 10" chugger, the starboard short rigger was running a blue and white chugger, the long starboard rigger was running a combo rubber mullet and 10" chugger and the stinger was an dark pink and white 12" chugger. The spread and color combinations were perfect - we didn't change a lure all day.

From there we trolled out toward the first wreck around 8 miles south east catching fish all the way there. During the long slack tide period mid day we headed to the weather buoy which is 45 miles south of Hong Kong. We fished the buoy and surrounding area for an hour and then trolled toward home until around 17:30 - only 2 fish caught on the way home.

We mostly had the TLD 20s out with matching rods making the smaller fish were were catching a sporting event. I did get tired of the tidlers though and ran away from huge schools of 5-8lb fish and hoped that the inline bird/chugger combo, would scare away the little guys. I could have made it a wholesale slaughter and swamped the boat in fish. Fish were even hanging themselves on lures dead in the water as we were bringing in other fish. We also caught one while reeling in the rods to head to the buoy.

I had a couple of bent butt 50s out on the long riggers running the bigger lures and on one was the combination rubber mullet behind a 8" chugger that must be 20" long in total. We caught a 6lb dolphin on that rig that thought he was a giant. I think that fish was no more than 30" long!

Early in the day there were only 2 colors working: white/silver (the small silver streaker) and red/white islander. Between 09:30 and 11:00 we caught on every color combination and every size lure. I even caught on an orange and white combo - maybe the first fish that lure has ever landed in the ten or so years I've had that particular lure.

Strikes seemed very aggressive, although that could have been the affect of running 4 TLD20s.

I fished within sight of my buddy Shing on his Egg Harbor 40' and was on the radio with him throughout the day. Being able to share info for where water temperature differences were and which colors were working likely increased both of our chances to keep the fish coming over the rail.

Winds were near calm and the sea was like a mill pond. Water temperature is already 78f in spots.

Hank

offshore fishing machine?

Yes, nutters in the US are running 50 miles or more offshore to fish from jetskis. '




http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg115/JetSkiBrian/fishing%202010/DSC_0001i.jpg

Vereker Banks trip

I've been out twice this year and caught fish both times. Although last weekend it was only 2 kawa kawa.

This weekend I am planning a long range trip where we leave on Friday April 28th and come back on Sunday. Anyone interested?

We'll split the cost of fuel and coxswain - I expect the total to be around HK$10,000 for the three day trip. I don't have great sleeping arrangements as there is only one stateroom on my boat. However, there is couch space for 3 and a very large salon floor for sleeping bags.

The goal of the trip is to get to Vereker Banks and troll the drop offs and anchor up that night in 30 meters of water to jig and fish. We will bottom bounce and fish bait at night while anchored on the Vereker Bank and may stop during the day Saturday to fish structure.

Sunday we'll fish all the way back to Hong Kong with an arrival sometime Sunday night.

This online chart of the S. China Sea from Macau to Taiwan shows the Vereker Banks (N. and S. bank) as well as Pratas Reef:
http://www.nauticalchartsonline.com/n.c/Charts/chartViewer.html?viewChart=93006

Hank

*ring ring* FISHNG SEASON is officially here.

*ring ring* FISHNG SEASON is officially here.
I went out with a buddy on his boat Saturday, April 2nd for his
first trip on his 40' Egg Harbor.
We bloodied it a bit with 8 fish: 5 mahi mahi (all returned)
and 3 kawa kawa tuna (2 taken home - see attached pic).
We were offshore and fishing by 09:45 and wrapped up on the
way home by 13:00 - unusual early retrun.
The water offshore is 19.9 - 20.2c (17c in Victoria Harbour)
and FULL OF LIFE. The fish were all caught on a red and white
islander and a blue and white bullyhoo/lure combination.
It looks to be a great 2011 fishing season. The first trip on
my boat (48' Egg Harbor "Reel Affinity") is this Saturday. We
depart at 07:15 from Aberdeen.