Species Hunting Adventures In Phuket: Part 3.

The rocks at the right hand side of Nai Harn Beach had been very productive, so we returned there on our penultimate day in Thailand.

A very popular spot with locals and visiting species hunters alike!

During the previous session there, after annoying streaky rockskipper for a coupe of hours, I had focused on catching wrasse from close in on the rocks. This time, I freelined small pieces of prawn, casting them out and letting them fall down through the water column. This produced several different species of damselfish, the majority were new species to me. 

I’m not a huge fan of brown damselfish if I'm honest. They can be very tricky to positively identify. With some help from a friend, I discovered this was an obscure damselfish. My only plain brown damselfish of the session.

This is a threespot dascyllus. Also known as the domino damsel.

The Indo-Pacific sergeant, I have caught lots of these before.

I also caught this Weber’s chromis, followed on my very next cast,..

...by this green puller.

This mottled spinefoot crashed the damselfish party.

On one of the rare occasions my bait did make it to the bottom, I caught this beautiful checkerboard wrasse.

Breaking for a very tasty lunch in the restaurant up above the rocks, afterwards we headed a little closer to Nai Harn Beach, where I climbed out onto some rocks to try and fish over the sand out in front of them. Strangely, this didn't produce any bites, and I only caught a few wrasse closer in over the rocky bottom.

Not a very productive spot, sadly.

Slightly disappointed, we decided to head back to the rocks I'd been fishing from all morning. Fishing with a slightly bigger hook and a larger piece of prawn, using a couple of split shot on my line so I could cast it further out and also to get it down through the water column quicker, was my chosen approach. This soon started producing a variety of fish, several new species and not many repeats either, which was great!

A nice dory snapper,...

...my first two-lined monocle bream,..

...blackspot sergeant,..

...one spot snapper,..

... and banded sergeant!

I also caught a solitary redbelly yellowtail fusilier. A species I'd caught before but still an addition to my trip's tally, taking it to ninety!

So, it ended up being quite a productive day. I'd caught some cool fish and added another dozen to my total. Before the trip, I hadn't really set any targets, species wise. With two and a half days left, could I reach one hundred? I was quietly confident it was achievable, but doing so would depend on how many species I could add the following day, our last on Phuket. Visiting some different venues was in order to increase my chances. Besides, I think after three days of fishing at the same spot, Lillian fancied a change of scenery!

Tight lines, Scott.

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