More species hunting adventures on Okinawa: Part 5.

On day three we decided to spend the morning in Naha wandering around some of its covered shopping streets. On the way there, we stopped off to check out a couple of potential bridge fishing spots that we could make use of if the rain didn’t let up, but neither looked particularly promising. After leaving the covered shopping arcade briefly to treat ourselves to a tasty Spam and omlette onigiri, the heavens unloaded, exposing all the leaks in the roof. After dodging them, the puddles they created and wandering in and out of various shops for an hour or so, the rain went off for a brief period. Luckily, just as we got back to roughly where we’d started, so we hastily returned to the open air car park where we’d left the hire car. From Naha, we headed southeast to spend a couple of hours at Okinawa World, a theme park featuring local nature, crafts, a snake sake brewery and a large underground cave.

With millions of stalactites and stalagmites, Gyokusendo is considered East Asia's most beautiful limestone cave. At an impressive 5km long, about 1km of that open to the public. It was reasonably dry inside too!

As well as a tropical fruit garden and various crafts like pottery and glassblowing on display, the park is also home to a Habushu brewery, where they make snake sake. A visit to such a park usually ends in the gift shop, but Okinawa World had a gift shop after each attraction, which we felt was a little bit much.

Habushu is believed to have medicinal and aphrodisiac properties. We didn't try any, but on reflection I wish I had.

Leaving the park, it was still overcast, but it wasn't raining. To the east there were a few areas of blue sky visible, so we drove in that direction, ending up at Tosoe Fishing Port, another venue where we could fish right next to the car. The fishing there was reasonably good for the short period before the clouds returned, and before long it was raining heavily once more. During this short session, it was my turn to repeatedly get snagged, lose rigs, and waste valuable fishing time retying them. As a consequence, Ryan caught a lot more fish at this spot than I did and several species that I did not too. 

I caught this redbellied yellowtail fusilier. 

Ryan caught this ochre-striped cardinalfish and was blown away by its incredibly deep blue eyes.

He also caught a solitary whitsaddle goatfish,..

…a solitary freshwater demoiselle,..

...and a brown damselfish. I'd later discover that this species, belonging to the Pomacentrus genus, is found around the eastern and southern coast of Okinawa and has not yet been studied and formally identified by marine biologists.

I really struggled at this venue, but after catching a few dottyback, I added a second species to our trip tally when I caught this half-barred cardinalfish.

While I focused on fishing at close range down the port’s walls, Ryan decided to have a few casts further out with slightly bigger baits. Towards the end of the session, this paid off when he caught a couple of common ponyfish. Shortly afterward he caught these, it started raining heavily, so we quickly packed up and headed off before we got too wet.

This small palm sized specimen was followed,..

…by this much bigger one!

Raining heavily the rest of the day, we visited a CoCoICHI for a tasty curry in the evening and checked the forecast for the remaining two days in Okinawa. Thankfully it had changed from non-stop heavy rain and there were a couple of dry spells that we could perhaps try to take advantage of. We’d caught about fifty species on Okinawa during our first three days, but we wanted to catch even more!

Tight lines, Scott.

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More species hunting adventures in Singapore: Part 6.

Arriving back in Singapore late in the afternoon, it was raining heavily, and we were both pretty hungry, so instead of going straight to our hotel, risking getting soaked, we got off of the MRT at Paya Lebar and went to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant in the retail mall that's directly connected to the station. We must have underestimated how hungry we both were, because between the two of us, we ate our way through about thirty plates! Amongst my selections, I had two favourites.

The marinated baby octopus was delicious,...

...and a simple, clean, wakame seaweed salad was very nice too. 

Riding the MRT along to Kallang, the rain had thankfully eased off. Checking in to our hotel, the same one we'd stayed in at the beginning of our trip, we decided to have a nap. Partly due to the early start we'd had, and also probably due to overeating. When we woke up a few hours later, we caught the MRT down to Marina South Pier and I had a couple of hours targeting nocturnal species. Cardinalfish were my main target, but I was also hopeful that some squirrelfish might be present. After catching a couple of candystripe cardinalfish, I got a much more aggressive take and the culprit shot off out into deeper water. It was a squirrelfish, and for a small fish, I was surprised that it put up as decent a scrap as it did.

This redcoat was my first ever squirrelfish species. They are venomous, so it was handled with care.

As I continued fishing, the bites weren't coming thick and fast but instead fairly sporadically. I then caught a nice Spanish flag snapper that also took my bait very aggressively and charged off. Putting up a spirited fight, it was great fun on ultralight tackle.

Not huge, but I think it's the biggest Spanish flag snapper I've ever caught.

Pleased with the way the session was unfolding, I was confident that eventually I'd catch a new species of cardinalfish before too long, as several are found in the area. We moved to a second spot, but the ground there was saturated with water from the downpour earlier in the afternoon, so we quickly moved back to nearby the first spot. Dropping my bait down again, I didn't get a bite for a while, but after a while I felt a very subtle take and lifted into something much bigger that immediately started stripping line from my reel at an alarming rate. It certainly wasn’t a cardinalfish! Applying some pressure to stop the fish potentially getting down into a gap in the boulders, luckily it instead swam out away from the wall I was fishing from into open water. It made a few more surging runs midwater, before it tired and I managed to bring it to the surface. Suddenly realising that my extendable net was back in the hotel, I had a decision to make, either swing the fish up with my rod, or put my rod down and try to hand line it up. I quickly decided just to go for the first option! Getting the tip of my rod as low as I could, I wound up my drag, and with one motion, lifted it up, over the railings and onto the grass behind me!

My first ever goldlined sweetlips was a cracker!

I admire the fish one last time before releasing it. 

My heart was pounding for a while after that. On a high, I carried on fishing, and after moving to a different spot I caught a couple of new species of cardinalfish almost straight away and both were nice big specimens too! It really had turned into an amazing nighttime session!

My first ever ochre-striped cardinalfish was shortly followed by,..

...my first ever three-spot cardinalfish!

Having achieved my goals for the session, and also been rewarded with the unexpected capture of the goldlined sweetlips, I decided to call it a night. In the morning, we were going to head back to Bedok Jetty for my last fishing session of the trip. The one I'd just enjoyed, would take some beating!

Tight lines, Scott.

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