Hi people, I am back. The mission to fly fish for sailfish failed but we still had a wonderful trip up there nevertheless.
The situation up there now in Kuala Rompin is very hazy. You will not have clear blue sky at all as the haze situation is really bad and somehow, sailfish are holding in deeper water than normal. You will still see sailfishs near the surface but not so common when compared to those fine weather in August and Sept.
My two friends from Finland, Juha and Lasse, both had a wonderful time up there and we had so much fun up there too. Both of them are now comtemplating about extending their stay to go for another trip next weekend!!! Hahaha...
Next weekend would probably be my last trip for this year. The monsoon will soon be here and I rather be safe than be sorry to go out there in Nov.
The trip's photos will not be out so soon as I need to consolidate all photos from three sources.
I believe the weather had affected our mission but this is not going to stop me from trying again. I will do my best to acheive sailfish on fly outfit again next year.
I hit the first sailfish on jig while I was jigging for spanish mackerel with my Majorcraft Offblow PE 0.8-2 combo'ed with Daiwa Caldia KIX 2000. My 20lbs phamton red Power Pro got stripped bare in less than a minute. I was holding onto the hot spool with my bare fingers hoping that the line will not snap. Fortunately, the leader snapped. The jig I used are from Smith, 60grams.
My Daiwa Certate 2500R-CUSTOM continues to perform flawlessly as it had the chances to connect with several sailfish during this trip. The sailfishs were not landed as the sailfishs were all holding deep beneath the boat during landing. The leaders burst off after several attempts.
Finally, I landed my first decent spanish mackerel this time. Almost 5kg on the scale, the fish's speed is amazing. At this size, the spanish mackerel seemed to lag in endurance as it only always dash short dashes which made my reel screamed. The sudden sheering pressure the fish put on the Daiwa Caldia KIX 2000 is amazing to me as it could make 20m dash that fast but that's all I get from it. As usual, most spanish mackerels swim in during the fight. Anglers have to be fast to retrieve line as many experienced slag line for even a few seconds but actually the fish is still on. The blood from the fish splattered all over me and even on my face. As the fish struggled on the gaff, the jig flipped out of its mouth and hit my knuckles... my knuckles were bleeding as well like the fish. After the jig was removed, I looked like I just had a fight... bloody mess all over me...
As usual, we had squid sashimi onboard but this time we had a Japanese chef onboard. I have learnt to prepare the squid properly to ensure 'no chewing gum' feel. The sashimi will just simply melt in your mouth... yummy... Now I know why Japanese cusine is expensive as it takes lots of extended effort to prepare something 'simple' to further enhance the taste of the dish. Not many will actually bother to go that far. To prepare squid properly, you have to remove three layers of skin! 3 damn layers!!! I tried but I believe I failed miserably by standard but at least I now understand why japanese chef are paid so much...
Stay tuned for the photos.....
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