Date:8th Oct 08 till 10 Oct 08
Location: Rompin
Target: Sailfish/Billfish
Rompin has always been the most productive place for Sailfish fishing and the thrill on fighting a sailfish in the open sea is really fantastic and fun. The speed and strength of this monster can really test your endurance and one has to be physically and mentally prepared for the big fight under the hot sun. Once you got a hang of it, you will definetely love the challenge on the Sailfish and the awesome feeling of conquer this surface monster. In Rompin, there is plenty of Sailfish for all anglers to fight till you get boring.
On this trip, there are 12 anglers and we were divided into 2 groups of six. In our group, there is Michael, Winson, Cici, Sulin, Lam and me. After our American breakfast at the Seria Resort, we went back to our chalet for some freshening up, and soon we were on the way to the Jetty to board the speedboat whereby the Jetty is just 5minutes drive from our chalet.
Soon we were all speeding out from the estuary into the big sea. However, the weather is not pretty good as there's some drizzling and we can see some dark clouds hanging over our head. Luckily, after around 2 hours, the weather become better and the sea was just fine for fishing. During this time of the year, it is the peak season for sailfish fishing and we can see many fishing targeting Sailfish. Every stop we make, there will be some other fishing boats as well. After 45 minutes, we reach our first spot for bait fish and after changing a couple of spot targeting baitfish, we managed to land around 15 pieces of baitfish which is just ample for some Sailfish thrills.
Our first Sailfish spot, Winson managed to hook up a Sailfish with his PE1-3 rod pairing with a Caldia Kix4000 on a Trairao lure but sadly, due to the strength of the Sailfish and the gear used were quite under-powered, the main line snapped and the Sailfish managed to escape and not forgetting to take the lure with it as well. Soon, i managed to have a feel on the Sailfish fight. I was with my Zeus PE2-4 Red scorpion and my Torium 30 using live bait. It was a really awesome challenged and throughout the fight, the agony was clearly shown on my face. However, while the Sailfish was coming back to the boat, it made a final big jump and my hook was thrown out. I was totally speechless at that very moment. Sadly, my chance of landing it was diminshed.
Lam was the first person to land the Sailfish successfully but took him a long time to fight it. Due to his tackle was under-powered with not much drag on his Old school Penn multiplier, the fish was controlling the angler rather than the angler controlling the situation. On the last few minutes of fight, i helped Lam to land the fish onboard and both of us will happily posing with our victory catch. Both of us were actually first timer on catching Sailfish.
In total, all of us on our boat managed to land a few Sailfish on this trip. As for me, i caught the 5th and the 9th, which is the final Sailfish of the day all by myself. The last sailfish which i caught had the most fearsome and tiring fight. During my fight against the fish, everyone on board thought that it was a Blue Marlin. When it took my bait, it was dashing at a very fast pace and make a few jumping at the right of the boat and then making a split-second U-turn following by some surface dancing to the rear of the boat. Poor me have to run round the boat to make sure my line was still securely intact with the fish. At the very moment, i was like a crazy guy running and shouting around the boat as well as making sure no one will get hurt from my line. After going to the rear, the fish suddenly make a 150m sprint and i can see that my line from the Torium 30 was peeling off at an alarming speed. This mad fish definately had some steriod before taking my bait. It was a fight which no one had throughout the day. After approxiamtely 15-20 minutes later, the tamed fish was being reeled back. I had a cleared victory and this long and tough fight really makes me exhausted.
At around 6pm, we headed back to the Jetty and back to our chalet for some wash up. It was the best fishing experience i ever had and withour fail, i'll be back for more action in Rompin.
