Mostly contain my own notes.
I have a few rods in my collection including a custom rod. Majority of my rods are 1 piece. 1 piece rod might be the best for fishing, perfect bend,smooth load distribution and all but it lack most on the travelling convenience. Had my eye on Shimano's STC (Shimano Travelling Concept) but not quite bought the idea. How would I equalized 1 pc rod perfomance to 5pc. Until I went to a tackle shop in Norwich and have a closer look. Great rod! Even with its tiny diameter, I could still feel the power.The load seems nicely distributed. Thumbs up for Shimano. I waited for the sales and managed to get a good bargain in the end. Mine is 5 piece interchangeable 7ft & 8 ft in length. The only set back is I don't think it is not equipped with SIC Fuji Guide. For all that worth, I think what they give is still decent. This rod come with its nice black, cloth covered hard cylinder case. It is about 2 ft long and it fit nicely in my baggage.
Often when I went travelling before, I had missed the opportunity to fish.it is hard to get 6 ft rod on a plane and carry it around. What is the point of having just a multi-piece rod that are not going to perform. I am sure that I made the right choice of purchasing this one. I might have to let go 1 or 2 of my rod to recover the money. At this point, I am not bothered. I am waiting for the cold weather to ease a bit. I will have this rod to test then. I am sure that I would have a nice thing to write about it.
Tips for today: Get yourself a travelling set or you will miss great opportunity to fish.
Imagine to be able to lift out 1 footer squid out of water rythamically. One after another. Dodging those high speed water jet from its last effort of taking your bait into the deep.
Those who have not tried does not know what they missed. Those who has not try might want to take a few notes for best chance of good fun experience.
Handline could have been the oldest technique but efficient and still be the most popular technique used. However, since most of us already have at least a light spinning set, might as well use that to our advantage. Why..?? Less wet and more fun.
I think best way of this rigging is to use your lightest fishing set. Relatively, if you are a Shimano or Daiwa fan, bring your 1000 or 2000 series along. Scientist says that squid is one of the most intelligent marine creature.Not for fishing. They are the easiest and might be the dumbmest on beingfooled. their greed overpowered their intelligence. Before I forget, I chose to use rod and reel because I don't like to get thewater jet from the squid. Right before you brought it emerged to thesurface, they will blast the water jet and most of time to your face if youusing the handline. It is fun at first, but after a while and with the oceanbreeze, it will get too cold and too wet for comfort. My average catch size were ranging from half footer to 1 footer. This doesnot include the tentackles. Tail to eye measurement. Weight is about 3/4lbto 1.2 lb each. It does make your drag screaming with its propeller and yourrod bent. I had several rig in my tacklebox. Tried each one of them. I am sure you arefamiliar with prawn looking rig with umbrella hook lie at the tail. It surelook nice. But this is not the most efficient rig. The one that always workis the plain umbrella rig with straight middle shaft. What you do is take afresh bait and poke it through the shaft. The heavier the rig is better soit will not be drifted away by sea current. Tie it up to your main line...you got yourself a very efficient rig in your hand. Now you can start rigging. Don't sink your bait to the bottom. Squid emergesfrom the deep. You either catch it in mid water while it emerging or 10~ 20foot from the sea level. Tilt your rod once a while. When you feel somepulling, reel your squid in. Do not stop or will lose it. Squid does not gethooked, it hold on to your bait and not letting go. When you it emerging tothe surface, prepare yourself to dodge the water jet.By end of the session (lasted about 2 hours), half ice box were filled bythe 4 or us.
Many had gone to the pond and bought the ridiculously expensive live bait (prawn or fish) in hoping on hitting the jackpot. Is it really the most effective bait? Nah.. I think not.
Do we really know of where this fish came from. Was it from the wilderness of its natural habitat? Or was it born and raised in fish farming cage. I think most logical answer is cage. What do they feed these fish? Is it live fish or prawn that they can make good dollar out of each of it?
I know some fish farmers. Visited the farm a few times. One of the market is these private pond that you are paying for the admission to fish. These fish never ate live prawn rarely live fish. To cut the cost to the bottom, these farmers would go to the wet market each evening when the fishmonger about to close for the day. They bought or sometime even just helping the monger to clean up the fish remains to feed the fish. So these fish only eat dead fish. Of course its natural instint would remain as predatory and hunting live bait. But don't you think that it would prefer its regular diet?
There is a tip for you. Don't waste your money on buying the live bait.
I am more for saltwater rather that freshwater fishing. Basically it is because of the species is wider at most of the place, the fight better and it serve well on the dinner table. Sorry to say, I am not much to catch and release enthusiast.
On my early days, I had encountered with various and countless dissappointment. Most of the time, I know that the fish is there but it does not seems to have appetite to my serving. Even paid pond have it bad days.
On scale, I would choose to the natural habitat rather than man-made. The idea that I wanted to share here is when is which. The joy of cathcing a fish is very match to the dissappointment of spending hours to nothingness.
Sea always have fish. Let us do the basic first. When do we get ourselves on the boat and when to stay inshore. Frankly, whenever that is good on the boat is good inshore and vise versa. This is because it is all about the current... especially when you are doing the most common method of bottom fishing. Bottom fishing basics is simple, get your bait to the bottom or seabed. It is not really enjoyable to fish with weight to size of your fist and have to use heavy duty equipment for a couple ounces of fish. So, watch the current.
The easiest way is to follow the moon cycle. Full moon or no moon means high tide. High tide mean differences of lowest level of water level to the highest level is the greatest. Imagine a pale of water.. better yet your baby bathtub or your own tub. Put the water to half. Imagine that that is the amount of sea water in the world. Tilt it to one side and the water would flow to the other side. Put time constant on it. The faster you tilt it, the faster the water flows. Means, the bigger the difference of level over the same time would mean the greater the current. Narrow the middle section of the tub (imaginary). Now you have a smaller passage. That would be the straits current. It is even greater flow if you are fishing on the straits or channels. Don't get me wrong, the fish is still out there. It is just much greater challenge to get it and often dissappointing. Soft bait would easily stripped off the hook. You will fish blindly. Fish is not dumb to take just the plain hook. Fish bite is hardly detectable mostly because of the enormous weight that you have to put up with. Fish usually does not bite when the sea is currentless. They are resting maybe.
How do you keep track of the moon phase then? Easiest way is to have either islamic or chinese calendar with you. This is because those two calendars are moon base. 1st to 6th is the beginning of new moon, not good. 7th to 12th is good. Don't think of 13th to 17th for that is full moon. Again on 23rd onwards to forget about bottom fishing. Bare in mind that it is only either 29 or 30 days a month in these calendar. You could still do top water technique though. In fact, it is the most efficient time for trolling on the high tide days. We will discuss about that later.
So you got your days to be near see. Keep it in your wallet. If you still want to fish on the 'high current' days, do topwater techniques or just go to your nearest pond.
