Trip Report - May 28th (happy anniversary Becks!)

Saturday was a good day out. Not as many fish on previous weekends and not as large. However, we were FISHING and it doesn't get much better than that.

In this photo is Jeff Fisher and daughter Caitlin with his catch from Saturday's trip.

We headed out at around 07:45 – a little later than usual as someone had missed the bus and as it was his boat the entire crew had to hang out and wait. The ride out was fast on a very flat sea making the 20 mile trip go by in a flash at a 25 knot cruise. We saw the changeover from inshore to blue water just past Po Toi in the ship channel.

Arriving a few miles from the wreck we planned to troll around saw flying fish but no birds and very little flotsam. Our first 2 hours saw a single strike which the guy had on for 5 minutes before the fish threw the hook. With nothing to help for sighting we continued to blind troll and by 11:30 had our first fish over the gunwale – a very small mahi mahi. At about 5 minutes past noon Jeff was nearest the rod that went off and brought in the fish in the above picture. There was a mate with that fish as it came to the boat so we quickly had the lure back out and trolled back through the area. The bull was caught and ended up on Ray Bond’s plate Sunday.

Throughout the next couple of hours we caught two more tiny mahi mahi making it 5 fish boated and one missed on the day but only 2 keepers.

The winds had kicked up to force 5 and the nice gentle swell was blown out to a small chop with whitecaps prevalent. That plus an electrical storm made us accelerate our plans to return, however, we stopped and trolled about 5 miles before the Leema Islands through the color change back up against Po Toi but without a further strike.

-Hank

Fishing Tuesday, May 18th

The day's fishing was aboard Kiduzi with Kim Stuart running out of Hong Kong at 07:45 in near dead calm conditions.

Offshore it was the same with nice calm seas and near cloudless skies.

I was next to the rod that went off first and boated a mahi mahi of about 18 pounds. We went on to catch more than 20 fish, all mahi mahi, keeping only 7 for the table.

On the troll home I was also next to the rod for the last strike of the day. On the Hong Kong side of Leema in the ship channel between there and Poh Toi we came on another nice mahi mahi. It jumped once and went deep and with a violent head shake threw the hook.

Another brilliant day of fishing offshore from Hong Kong.

Hank

Hank's Trip Report Saturday, May 15th

Saturday, May 15^th was not a cracking day to be on the water but was a good day of fishing. The 07:45 run from Aberdeen to Po Toi was fine with three of us on the Reel Infinity leading Kim Stuart and crew of Kiduzi at a comfortable 19 knots. Once past the smaller islands and into the ship channel we ran over 3-4 foot waves that would be with us all day.

Our first fish was in the box at 09:30 with an 8 pound mahi mahi caught. We then trolled between a couple of anchored cargo ships and met up with Shing and crew on the Silverton who had just boated 4 mahi mahi as well. As we trolled past the Silverton and another ship at anchor we had a triple hookup of mahi mahi but managed to drop all three. We had one fisherman down with Mal de Mer leaving two of us to bring in fish and clear lines. It was one step below unmanageable.

Throughout the rest of the day rain came and went and the seas stayed at a slightly irritated level.

Trolling on the way back brought a double strike from two medium sized mahi mahi of about 20 pounds (by length and girth measure the calculated weight was 34.56lbs), Greg brought in the cow and I dropped the slightly larger bull. Both fish were in the air on their first take of the lures. We had both fish on for several minutes and I realized there was no way to bring these two fish to the boat without making a right mess of the other three lines still out so I backed down on the drag a bit hoping my fish would run for home and give me just a second to bring in the other lines. I got one line in and checked over at my hooked up rod to observe that it was already straight and the line slack – my fish was gone. We boated the cow in the photo and continued fishing.

We came upon a pallet and had a quadruple hookup of schoolies – the Chinese coxswain began shouting: “too many mahi mahi, too many.” By that time Ian was ready to bring in a fish and he boated on mahi mahi of 4 pounds. As we trolled away from the area we had a double hook up and Ian landed another fish of maybe 5 pounds and Greg released his two fish of about the same weight.

On the way home we suffered a drive by from a wahoo or a barracuda with the reel screaming for less than a second. I brought in a line with no lure and could see that the loop where the hook had been was sliced cleanly.

We brought home 5 as seen in the picture, boated and released 7 more and dropped 6 (conservatively) for a total of 12 fish caught on the day. This was the second Saturday in a row of good fishing.

Saturday, May 8th: Crazy day of fishing!

For the first time EVER we came back early (left the fish at 1:30 and dropped off in Aberdeen around 3).

We missed 3-4 fish, threw 7 or 8 back, kept 13 for the table. Bluefin and mackerel tuna to 12 pounds or so, two small mahi mahi.

In nearly 10 years of fishing in Hong Kong, this was the first time I've found fish under birds. The school of fish was several hundred square meters large and we could have stayed with it and
sunk the boat with fish. No sign of larger predators.

Visibility on the trip out was 100 feet to start and gradually cleared to about 2 miles. Light winds and a little rain. Seas were 3-4 feet.

Carmine's Fishing Trip Report

HK fishermen:

May 9, 2010

Onboard:

Alex Pozza
Gianni Balzano
Raffaele Impagnatiello
Rune Evensen
Carmine Vastola

Departed cwb: 5:15 am

Returned cwb : 4:30 pm

We departed with a forecast of good sea conditions and reports of early morning fog from  the previous day.  After heading for fuel the reality that the visibility was fine sunk in and we were off to the 60 mile rig and tanker…  lines were in by 8:30 with 80f water and some old sea which was flattening out.

We trolled the rig, tanker and nearby mooring drum with some action.  Most of the fish were dorado with a few barracuda boated.  Total 5 dorado to 15lbs and 2 small cudas.  We did not see any tuna or rainbow runner.  Looking back at previous spring fishing this seems old as many tuna and rainbow runner were boated during previous year's spring trips.  After about 4 hours working the area we trolled for home, we found dorado under all significant sized debris , with the first fish of the season  tagged, released.  We did not see many flying fish which again seemed odd as there were many last weekend fishing inshore.

We picked up at about 47 miles for a short flight home!!!!

Looking for good weather and some overnight trips in the coming weeks drop me  a note I  you are interested

p.s. with chef Wong being out of commission for this trip "Gianni" who's restaurant "ONLY BUONASERA"  is located in Tst Center brought along an outstanding lasagna….  Thanks Gianni we will be looking for you on future trips…