Chronicles of Ronia: Team StMike Finally Scored!

FINALLY!!! After so many many attempts, team stmike can proudly hold up these creatures of the deep for a victory shot! As usual, my fishing partner-in-crime gave the ops order for our weekend little getaway. We also wanted to make sure Brooker's motor was ok after making sure the fuel hose adaptor is the cause of last week's problem. All it need was a rubber band trick. We did the usual and left for Tunks early. Passed through the green marker and Chen fired up Evinrude. Yes, it performed well and no sweat at all, brooker, u beauty! Got to squid spot in a jiffy and started rigging up. This time the drift was tricky, and we had to motor around many times. It just made us more eager to invest on an electric. Suddenly saw a boat came up near to our usual spot and started anchoring?! WTF?! I thought can't anchor there? Anyway, they are whiskey oscar golfs so I guess they don't give a F. I was trying out a new rig with 2 faulty squid jigs my hey-day fishing friends donated to me. Made a paternoster out of the 2 jigs and they practically were useful because of the missing weights on them. Put on some deodorant for the jigs and on the first drop, I'd already registered some hits on the paternoster squid jigs! At one point, I thought I got something and slowly pull in the rig, only to see 2 squids chasing the two jigs! But alas, was unsuccessful in jagging them. The drift was too dangerous and we had to keep avoiding the structures. We drifted quite far away only to make Chen in successfully getting one small specimen away from our usual spot. It was almost towards the end of the biting period and Chen decided to motor slowly away from structures when I still had my good ol' trusty Yamashita in the water. As soon as Chen turned off the motor, my ET reel was making sound! This squid pulled drag and was hardout! We were both shocked and I slowly and surely made sure the squid stayed on. Holy shit! Chen helped me net up my biggest Southern Calamari and we were both over the moon!

Roughly measured and the back to the head (without tentacles) is 30cm. First time I encounter squidding with drag pulling capability, awesome. With Chen's small arrow and my calamari, we reckon it'll be enough bait, plus the first light was starting to appear. We wrapped up and headed to soak some baits. Used Chen's arrow 1st and I took the head and rig up on my Jarvis Walker stick with Jialiang's donated Shimano 4000 reel with 20lb daiwa mono. With minimal weight and doing the 'Greenwich' rig, I "almost" bottom bash the squid head. Then while I was prepping the blackhole combo, the JW rod suddenly bend big time! But no hookup. We got excited but alas, continued with our other duties. Few minutes later, the rod buckled over and the line was peeling. All hell's break loose. Picked up the crappy JW and started battling this beast that seemed very likely to run like a king. Chen as pro as a good skipper reeled in the remaining rods and standby with GTK's donated net. The fight was on and the constant verbal encouragements from my skipper made sure it was like a Rocky Balboa movie. At one point, Chen was using tai-yu to cheer me up?! (i seemed to hear it) Hahahaha... good one bro! Luckily this one had played clean and I was practically just fighting it on the port side. Chen had no drama netting it and voila! A 63cm kingfish for Team StMike, HOOYAH!

Now, I must say this famous quote from GTK (but modified)... "I love.. jarvis walker man.." But, only that quote, cos' the later quote.. "I respect.. I respect I (kept) the fish.." is said by yours truly.. kekeke... Chen did the honors of quality control and made sure the fish was fresh for Team StMike's Sashimi Mob. Then, Chen passed me some new hooks he recently acquired called Hayabusa and they are bloody sharp carbon hooks! One hook one dollar neh! I rig up the hook and did cubing to pass time while bait soaking the other 2 combos. Suddenly, it felt like bream bites and so I striked thinking that it was the right time. At first the fish ran for short burst, and I thought it was bream. Chen asked me what it was and I said "bream". Then, my 'show-off' (hao-lian) ET reel made those zzzzz sound like no tommorrow. Chen said, "u sure bro?" Ok, don't think it's bream.. This bastard played damn dirty, ran hardout and took me from starboard side to port side of brooker. At the same time, I have to adjust the rear drag which made me look like an idiot fighting a king on my $30 combo. 6lb fireline and 10lb vanish was definitely punished, and to top it all off, I told Chen: "bro, I think I'm getting spooled". I haven't see my backing yet but the fresh lines were already exposed, and she was still zzzzzzz-ing on quite a tight drag I supposed. Then, without gaining much line, the inevitable happened. It got SNAGGED!!! WTF??!! Yup, I told Chen I couldn't move the rod or reel, like a stalemate. He offered to anchor up and move the boat over and see if there's any chance the fish will come out. Whilst he was doing it, I tried to gentle flick the rod and suddenly I could feel movements! The fish was still there! But don't know why later on, the line went SLACKED!!! ARGHHHH!!!! Wind in the line and honestly, it took ages as this bastard almost spooled me. To my shock, the whole leader was still there, but the hook and small sinker was missing. I suspected the knot gave way and thus that king earned a new "hayabusa piercing". Tally now becomes: Kings 5, Ronald 2. KNNBCCB!!!

Then, it was history in the making. Chen had never landed or even fought a king before, and today was the day of reckoning. He was using unweighted squid strip from his small arrow and there was a previous occassion when his Revros burst a few times but no hook up. I told him to let the fish take it longer before you strike. Soon, the scenario repeated again. This time, his drag was set loose and the fish took it but did the: "zzz.. stop.. zzz.. stop.. zzz.." Then, on a longer run, I told him to strike. He wacked the rod and the Revros went crazy! Unluckily, whilst he did that, the 8lb braid sliced through his finger and cut him very very bad! Anyway, the fight was on and this one was even better on his light 2-4kg Procaster and 2000 size Daiwa Revros. Woohoo.. my kingfish-virgin skipper was battling his long-awaited specie to add. I was too engrossed in making sure all other lines are in and standing by with a net that I forgot to grab my camera out and take a video of it, DIEW!!! It'll be like: zzzzzzz... stop (ok bro, wind in now!) then zzzzzz.. (bro, let it run!), stop (bro, pump and wind like mad!).. This was the encouragements I gave to my skipper, and he did it like a pro with his light outfit. I don't know if he did orgase but I know I would! This kingie played clean and moments later, we saw her and my lousy netting skill only managed to get it in at the second attempt. Sorry bro. But still, Chen beat me! He scored his 1st at 64cm! Tamade!!

Happy bloke and he sent a mobile pic to Jenny for bragging.. haha! U beauty! I was damn happy for Chen as he finally broke the duck on these elusive creatures. As usual, my skipper did the quality control. My bottom bash rod and unweighted transom squid had no takers. Chen passed me his last piece of hayabusa hook and I continued the cubing business. Got another bream take and did the same ol'. AGAIN! The 1st run was like a pussy bream burst, then I wind in a bit. 2nd run was zzzzz-ing longer.

Chen: "what is it bro"
Ronald: "nah bro, trevally, got headshakes"... "yup, definitely"..

Then, wind in the 2nd time and only for a bit then on the 3rd run, the zzzzz went longer and changed direction to the structure!

Chen said: "bro, u sure?"

Ok, I called for king by now. A second one on cubing!!! This one I did a major mistake. I was reluctantly in adjusting the drag, and she took it gutsily towards the structure. By then, Chen frantically wind in the other rods. But in split second, I knew I would stand no chance, because it was heading dead straight for the structure. True enough, this fight was short-lived and my line went slack. (Kingfish 6, Ronald 2) ARGHHHH!!!!! Mistake! Mistake! KNNBCCB!!! The leader this time was not there, I believe the structure cut the fireline. Another hayabusa-piercing king swimming around in the harbour.

The score tally was a sad reality. No wonder my grand master Jialiang told me before: "your $30 combo the reel not meant for kings lah". True, I've lost 4 kings on the ET stick, it has never ever landed one before. The statistics says it all. But.. but.. I never point a gun to king's head and asked them to bite my pilchard right? Anyway, it was turning out to be a kings mayhem day. Not long later, while I was crying over spilled milk, Chen's unattended rod had a solid run and he picked it up. The fight was short-lived too. Kings? He said probably no, but I reckon it was. It became pretty quiet on the kings front and we were boating a few breams, and they were on the small side! To be honest, I hooked up lesser breams that day compared to kings! With that shut down, we looked at the watch and decided to do our usual, rush for maccas brekkie!

Got back to HQ and started to process the kingies. Chen took one for his mate derrick and we certainly had plenty for the mob. I sashimi-ed one side and found that they had plenty of meat! It was definitely enough to fill up a plate full of sliced (instead of the usual cubed) HIRAMASA sashimi, YUM!