Non-Stop Action at Sister Island

I have make 2 more trips to Sister island since my last post here, after my last trip I learn more about the fishing method more on the pontoon and the species to target, so between trips different methods / rigs are thought through, and I am much more ready for these 2 trips then ever before.

More or less, I have decided to target Yellow tail Fusilier and Silver Moony (Sea Promfret in Hokkien), to a lesser extent rabbit fishes. Of course the conventional method to catch fusilier is to use prawn meat or tiny shrimps as bait, but at times when they come in a school, you might be hard press for time to bait up. So decided to use feather jig to go for them once they are within the vicinity, the by-catch of kunnings are wanted by other anglers, so I prepare a few set of feather jigs for the trips.

First Trip

I prepared White / Green / Conbi of both for the first trip, however it is not a good indication if it work well or not as on this trip, we are damn lucky to be hit by school after school of yellowtail fusilier, the lull period is very short, during the feeding frenzy, they will practically whack any colored jig, so I can't tell it my rig is good or they are damn hungry.

When the bite rate on jigs slow down, gargo (tiny shrimps) are used either as berley or as baits. As one of the angler helped the entire group to buy the gargo, we have a case of fish till you are drop dead tired.

As the picture shows, these are part of the catch from two every hard working angler, and most of the anglers on this trip have their cooler box filled up to the top, towards the end of the day, when they landed the smaller sized fishes, they decided to release them back, keeping the big big ones only.

The catch rate is so good that the next trip is already planned on the way from the island, smiles is all around, however, I have hatched some ideas to target for Silver Moony as after tasting one, it is pretty good fare.

Second Trip
On the way to the island, everyone is chatting about how good the last trip was, those who didn't manage to make it for the last trip listened intently about the almost non-stop action during the last trip. Hopes are high and everyone are in battle-mode. However, I felt that last trip is a freakish trip, it is just too good to be true, so on top of the White / Green / Combi rig, I also prepared a couple feather rig with added reflective strips. No idea why I did that but prepared something different just in case the usual stuff doesn't work too well.

And that's how it turn our, the fishing is terrible for most of us, the strip of channel between the 2 Sister island have the most unpredictable current flow, as the day wear on, most of us start to get the picture that it is not going to an easy day to get the fishes, the schools of fishes comes and goes really fast, BIG catches for 3 minutes or so and then it becomes a ghost town for a long long time. Fishing get so slow at times that most anglers decided to take shelter from the sun rather then to fish. Which is good for me as now I have the chance to try out my method for the Silver Moony, but with fishing that bad, they might not be around in the first place. After trying out many spot and many hours, I did get a very decent sized one, but another angler had already 5 or 6 before I get mine.

Though fishing is bad on this trip, it is pretty decent for me, had enough yellow tail fusilier to make fish balls, before I forget those feather jigs with the reflective strips works, and Silver Moony for dinner. They are arranging for a final trip before CNY, but unlikely I can make it due to other commitments. But that will give me sometime to think thru some of the rigs that didn't perform too well and what when wrong and how to rectify the issues. Finally, will need to prepare more variety of feather jigs, as what attracts the fishes seems to change so often.