Went out fishing on Saturday 12th November and caught 3 types of fish which I have not caught in my normal fishing ground before.

I recently changed my medium rod fishing line to a 10 lb mono so that I can cast the line further. Thinner lines allow me to cast a lot further and the result is I was able to reach areas in the bay which previously I was not able to reach.

Shown in this pages are three fishes, a catfish, a silver grunter and a baby flathead all caught and released that day.

Fishing have its ups and down and today was one of those day where the weather is good, the tide is good but the fishes simply not bitting.

My dad caught a flounder, not a big one but can't release it back because it swallowed the hook so deep that there is no way to remove it.

It fight for maybe like 20 seconds and then the line goes limp and it just swim towards me dad.

Anyway here is the flounder again.

Went fishing again today with my two brothers and a friend (Tony). We started fishing about 3pm and tested my brother fish finder. We found out the bay is between 11 feet to 15 feet deep and after throwing in the thing a few times we manage to register one fish on the display.

So anyway this is the second day we tested the so called Hong Kong Hook. We fished for an hour without anything, my older brother got a small grouper which we released.

When we finally caught one it is a whooper of a fish. Very nice size fish which put quite a decent fight. We landed the fish using a 8 lb line with 20 lb leader and a size 4 hook with a small ball sinker. The fish ran with quite a bit of the line put quite a decent fight which really put some strain on the arm. It ran with the line causing the reel to screech with a whiiizzzzzzing sound a number of time..... oh such a sweet sweet sound to hear. :D

This fish (Ikan Cermin/Treadfin Trevally) can really put a good fight due to the shape of its tail and body, however it gets tired pretty fast too, probably after 4-5 runs and if you ever be lucky enough to hook one, make sure you adjust the drag so that it can only pull the line when it go on the powerful runs. You should in fact adjust the reel drag before you cast your line and then re-adjust them again accordingly when you hook a fish. The idea is to set the drag enough to tire the fish without the risk of breaking the line. Do not ever reel the line when the fish go on the power runs, just let the fish run with it, adjusting the drag slightly if necessary and only reel in the line when the fish stop running. Always make sure you do not give the fish any slack line otherwise it will shook the hook out of its mouth and you will go home as usual with a tall tale of the 10kg fish that got away ;)


Above is my older brother Nico and a big fish and on the left is my little brother Ben also with a big fish.

We fished for a while until about 6pm. It rained a few times as you can see my brother Nico was wearing a rain coat.

As you can see we caught three large fishes or maybe it be the same fish but we each took turn to take picture with it ;) tehehe.. anyway lets not bore everyone with too much detail :D





Half an hour after that fish was caught I caught me self a small Trevally as shown below. On the right is me with a big fish :D




Our friend Tony which my brother Nico managed to convince to come despite of the rain also managed to land a slightly bigger Trevally than I did about 20 minutes later. As shown below.


















My brother Nico with a trevally. Overall I would say it is a very nice outing. We will probably fish again tomorrow. Our dad cook a nice fish head curry which my lil sissy say taste nice. Didnt manage to go home to eat the fish cos I had to bring out a visiting friend from Tawau for dinner .

Read a local Rod&Line magazine and they talked about a hook setup called Hong Kong Hook. It's a hook which have a sinker attached to it.

I can't find it anywhere in the local store so the closes to it I manage to get is to use a size 4 hook with a small ball sinker as shown on the right.

Anyway, off I go to test the setup. Recently I got a medium light fishing rod with a 8 lb line. This is out of frustration of not landing any large fish. So hopefully with this setup and of course a 20 lb leader any fish between 500gram to 2 kg landed will hopefully be a lot more fun.

Previous fish I got was like using a 15 lb line and 25 lb leader and big reel and 9 foot rod which is kind of overkill for the fishes caught from the shore in Kota Kinabalu.

Anyway I went at about 3pm local time and fish until about 5pm with my brother Ben. There was already 2 people there fishing that place. From the look of it they don't seem to have any luck.

So after fishing like for an hour, I got a tap on the line and whoosh the fish run witht the bait. I pull back the rod to set the hook and let the fish run while making sure not to give the fish any slack line. Overall it was quite fun although being a small fish it is over in a very short time.

Shown on the left is the fish on a plate, not a big one but big enough for dinner.