Species Hunting Adventures In Phuket: Part 2.

On our second day in Phuket, we decided to head back to Nai Harn Beach. Leaving our apartment, Lillian drew my attention to a butterfly. At first glance I thought she had mistaken a leaf on the stairs for one, but after a double take I realised she was right, it was in fact a butterfly camouflaged to resemble a leaf! 

Great effort but the legs gave the game away!

Returning to the seaward side of the sluice gate at the southern end of Nai Harn Beach to have another go at catching a juvenile silver moony, they once again proved to be very cautious and I didn't get any of them to bite. After catching about a dozen or so crested grunter, I spotted some tiny mudskipper sitting on some floating debris and turned my attention to catching some of them. 

Target acquired! Tanago hook time!

I caught a few, most of them were juvenile barred mudskipper, but the smallest I caught turned out to be minute mudskipper. A nice fish to test out my micro species viewing tank!

After spending a bit more time unsuccessfully trying to catch a juvenile silver moony, we drove around to the rocks on the right-hand side of Nai Harn Beach again. My plan for the session was to fish in the actual sea, but first I wanted to target the very fussy, algae eating blenny in the rockpools again. The tide was further out than the previous day, and it was also not as windy either. This meant that a large number of my target species were more concentrated, making it easier to sight fish for them. In a similar fashion to the algae eating mudskipper species on Pulau Ubin, dropping a small chunk of prawn down in front of them often resulted in them simply swimming off, at best they would just ignore it. There were dozens of them in the rockpool, so I just kept trying to tempt them, one fish after another. Eventually, a larger specimen showed some interest, more of an aggressive response than feeding behaviour I think, but quickly striking I managed to hook the fish. Lifting it up, showing it to Lillian, my gleeful expression didn’t last long. The blenny thrashed itself free, fell from my hand, landed back in the rockpool and swam off laughing. I hadn’t even taken a photo! Setting about catching a second, it was a struggle to get another one to have a go at my prawn chunk. I’d soon spent over an hour trying without any joy. Suddenly, I noticed a small group of surgeonfish in another rockpool, and set about catching one. After a few aggressive damselfish and wrasse had been caught and released into a different rockpool, one of them got an opportunity to take my bait, and I’d caught my first new species of the day. 

This is a yellowfin surgeonfish. My first ever surgeonfish in fact. Surgeonfish have very sharp needle like spines either side of their caudal peduncle. 

Turning my attention back to catching a blenny, I found another larger specimen that seemed to be annoyed by the appearance of my prawn chunk in front of his face. After striking a couple of times and missing, I succeeded in getting it to attack again and this time set the hook. This time the fish was popped straight into my photo tank!

Instead of fifteen minutes, I ended up spending slightly over two hours before I caught and photographed my second ever streaky rockskipper! 

Relieved to have secured photographic evidence of catching this incredibly fussy blenny, I began fishing at very close range from the rocks into the sea. Straight away, I caught several moon wrasse, a species I caught for the first time last year in Singapore. These were the predominant wrasse species in the area. In amongst dozens of them I caught a few other species of wrasse, all of them for the first time. 

From the same genus as the ornate wrasse found in the Mediterranean, I soon realised the moon wrasse could be just as much of a nuisance!

In amongst all the moon wrasse, I also caught a Jansen's wrasse,..

…both initial phase Pacific dusky wrasse…

…and the much more colourful terminal phase,…

…and a solitary Timor wrasse.

Happy with how the morning session was going, Lillian called me over to show me an amazing caterpillar that she had noticed crawling over a large boulder close to the one she has been sitting on. 

Perhaps the coolest caterpillar I've ever seen!

In the afternoon, we went for a trip up the west coast of Phuket. It was a nice drive on winding roads, climbing up and down rugged cliffs and passing through some up the island's smaller villages and also larger towns, including those that attract nightlife seeking tourists. Stopping in Karon Beach briefly for some lunch, we continued our drive north, stopping at a tidal creek so I could have a quick session. There were shoals of tiny fish in the margins, so I set about catching them to begin with. 

The tiny fish attacked the tiny pieces of prawn with much gusto, but it was a real struggle to hook them. Eventually, after a few dropping off as I lifted them out, I managed to catch two of them.

The turned out to be my first ever Javan ricefish. Owner smallest tanago hooks were just small enough. I understand there is an even smaller tanago hook called Migen that are great for the tiniest of targets with the most miniscule of mouths! I’ll definitely have to get some of those!

Switching to my ultralight rod, I fished a larger piece of prawn on the bottom out in the deeper water in the middle of the creek. It took a while to get a bite, and when I hooked a fish it got caught on the bottom. At least it felt like that. It was firmly lodged, and I was about to pull for a break, when suddenly the fish was free again. Winding what turned out to be my first whipfin silver biddy, upon unhooking it I noticed it has some fresh wounds on its posterior. Something had tried to eat it!

Not a great day for this whipfin silver biddy. I’ve caught fish with scarring from far worse wounds, so popping it back perhaps it still had a fighting chance.

Continuing our drive north, we eventually arrived at Banana Beach and parked the hire car. From there we took a stroll up a jungle path, following a stream uphill to Kluai Waterfall.

A beautiful spot tucked away in the jungle. 

Below the waterfall was a nice pool and I quickly set about trying to catch a fish from it. After a short wait, I got a strange tug on my line and wound in a small crayfish with ridiculously long claws. The sky had been quite overcast, threatening to open all day and when a few spots of rain began to land on the pond, I guessed what was about to come. Quickly packing up my tackle, I told Lillian we had better head back down the hill. Sure enough, it was soon raining torrentially, and by the time we made it back to the car, we were both soaked to the skin. Driving back to Rawai with the car’s heater on full blast to try and dry off, another day’s fishing was over. In the evening, we went for a walk into town and enjoyed a nice meal. With only two days left in Phuket, I was keen to add a few more species to my tally before we headed back to Singapore.

Tight lines, Scott.