first blood, with a small gopeng

noel with an even smaller gopeng

picture perfect sunset

one of the only 2 angkay that night

the cuttlefish that was caught by chen

me and my leopard ray

last weekend, i went fishing with john, chen and noel. hashim, our regular boatman at sematan had called john telling him that some other anglers have cancelled their bookings. since we had out trip cancelled on april 19th, we all agreed to take up the hashim's empty boat.

upon reaching sematan, hashim's dad aka obiwan told me that results have not been encouraging the night before, however, we were determined to go out nonetheless.

around 4.30pm we set off to our first location. 45 minutes later, we reached the area. using prawns brought from the market, i managed to draw first blood with a small gopeng. then it was noel's turn.

the bites were far and few in between, so we took the opportunity to enjoy the sunset. for the first time, i saw dolphins frolicking in the sea of sematan. terns were also flying abouts and on occasion doing nosedive into the ocean. i presume they were attacking the school of anchovies that were hovering just below the surface of the water. hashim said that ebeks were around also... but none of the ebeks took our bait.

night fall and we moved to many spots, guided by hashim, using his Garmin GPS and also fish finder. we moved to many many spots throughout the night as results were not encouraging. the sea was rolling and noel slept most of the trip. john slept about half the trip. chen and i only napped when we were on the move.

we did get some huge bites that night... but the end result were only rays. my rod caught 2 rays and so did chen's. the biggest ray was on my rod, a leopard ray of at least 4.5kg. the other were normal rays which were between the 1-2kg range. the best catch of the night was a 1kg MJ by hashim. other species caught were angcho, pekcho, angkay, gt and other coral species... but the size and quantity were almost 1 species 1 fish.

i attributed the results were due to unfavorable water conditions. fresh water from the river systems had flushed into the sea, making it less salty and full of debris.

anyway, what's fishing without the ups and downs. we shall be back again to sematan, in the near future.

p/s: sotong were aplenty that night... but the surprised catch was a 1kg+ cuttlefish by chen.