Species hunting adventures in Phuket: Part 4.

On our last day on Phuket, we decided to make use of the hire car and headed up the island’s east coast to Yamu Pier. It was another dull, cloudy day, but the long pier had a roofed area at the end of it. Good thing it did, because just after we walked out there, and I started fishing, it started raining heavily. 

Yamu Pier, fishable in a variety of weather conditions. 

Keeping my hooks and baits small, it didn’t take me long to start catching a few fish, and most of them were additions to my trip tally or even better new ones. The diversity was great, and before too long I was approaching the milestone of one hundred species.

My first ever duskytail grouper,..

...was followed by a Chinese demoiselle. A species I caught in Singapore last year.

I was over the moon to catch a couple of these spectacled shrimpgoby. 

They do look like they are wearing spectacles!

Next up, I caught a couple of ponyfish species, both new to me. First was this toothpony,..

...followed shortly afterwards by this decorated ponyfish.

At first glance I thought this was a dory snapper, but it was in fact my first ever striped snapper.

After catching my first ever common silver biddy,..

... I freelined a chunk of prawn, which this houndfish greedily ate. Another first time catch!

By this point, the rain had stopped, and the clouds had lifted, so we decided to walk halfway back up the pier and try fishing there. This area didn't produce anywhere near as many bites, but I eventually caught a couple of fish. Nothing new though.

The first fish I caught was this conguturi halfbeak.

Shortly afterwards, I caught a whipfin silver biddy. Nothing tried to eat this one as I wound it in.

Requiring two more species to hit one hundred, I tried in vain to catch a Boddart's goggle-eyed goby from the muddy area near the beginning of the pier just before we left, but they were happily eating algae and despite my sustained efforts, I couldn't trigger a violent assault on my bait. It would have been cool to catch one of these colourful mudskipper, but it wasn't to be. Admitting defeat and heading back to the car, we hit the road again, heading further north to a pond that I'd been told had some juvenile Indo-Pacific tarpon in it. Now that would be a cool fish to catch, particularly on my Rock Rover!

Tight lines, Scott.

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More species hunting adventures in Singapore: Part 2.

Moving to a second shelter on the other side of Bedok Jetty proved to be a good idea. Letting my rig drift under the jetty was very productive, and before long, I was catching a few different species that I hadn't caught during the first couple of hours.

My first mottled spinefoot of the trip. These are venomous, so I try to minimise handling where possible.

This juvenile brownstripe red snapper was my third new species of the session.

It was followed by a couple of species I have caught before, like this bluelined hind,..

...and this diamond wrasse. Also known as the bubblefin wrasse, last year we caught dozens of them, but they were much scarcer this time for some reason. I only caught two all day.

Then I caught another new species in the shape of this peacock shrimpgoby also known as the bluespotted watchman goby. I love catching shrimpgoby and the iridescent blue markings on this specimen were simply stunning!

After a while, the sun was a little lower in the sky, and the shade offered by the shelter had all but disappeared. As there was no longer any real advantage to staying underneath it, we headed up towards the start of the jetty, an area I didn’t fish at all during my previous visits to the jetty. I wanted to try fishing over the sand there, to see what species it would throw up. Casting out away from the jetty, I caught a couple of Oriental sillago, had my bait stripped repeatedly, and then had my hook bitten off completely. Something toothy was around! Adding a couple of small rubber float stops above my hook to try and prevent it happening again, I soon caught one of the culprits.

This lunartail puffer was another species that was a new one to me.

Before too long a shoal of halfbeak showed up, and quickly changing my rig so I could freeline small pieces of prawn close to the surface, I caught one of them. To my surprise it turned out to be another new species.

This is a Congaturi halfbeak. The tip of its lower jaw is red. Last year, I caught lots of stripe-nosed halfbeak, the tip of their lower jaw is bright white, which appears to glow when they’re in the water.

Switching back to fishing on the bottom, but closer in to the Jetty, I got an aggressive little take and the culprit shot off under the jetty. I managed to quickly bully it back out again though, before it could get around the jetty’s concrete legs to cut my line. After a spirited little scrap out in the open water in front of the jetty, a small jack was soon brought to the surface.

Small but still great fun on my ultralight setup! Only my second ever bigeye trevally. I caught my first in Japan a few yeas ago.

Fishing hard on the bottom soon produced an additional two new species for me. First up was this sulphur goatfish, a rare capture around Singapore I would subsequently find out!

It was soon followed by this javelin grunter, my last fish from Bedok Jetty on the day.

Whilst my session on Bedok Jetty had come to an end, my fishing for the day had not. Walking back up to the Bayshore MRT station, we caught a train west and got off again at Gardens by the Bay. From there we walked south to the Marina South Promenade where I'd try my luck at a few spots as we made our way west along to another spot.

Tight lines, Scott. 

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