The humble Madai produces the goods

Went for a half day Madai trip with Balya to the Southern Islands simply with the intention to catch a few Spanish Flag Snappers, but it turned out we caught more than we bargained for, in a good way.

Here's my all-time favourite fish, the Golden Snapper, landed on a $6 old bashed up Asari Madai Jig that I've been using for several trips already.

On the way out from the Marina, the weather didn't look too good, so I started heading towards sheltered waters when along the way I had a hunch there were fish below us (we were passing an old Spanish Flag Snapper spot). I stopped the engine and we let down our lines. True enough, there was a nice Golden Snapper waiting for me which initially grabbed my Madai, fought for a second or two, dropped, and came back to attack the same lure. What an aggressive fish!

Having caught some other nice fish like small Spanish Flag Snappers, we decided to move on to calmer waters for lunch, and fortunately, the weather cleared.

Here's Balya with our simple half-day trip catch. Sweetlips, Garoupas and Snappers.

After catching a few small fish, we decided to head towards the Garoupa Zone to land some big garoupas. We landed two decent garoupas in quick succession but the biggies were not around, it seemed.

The ever reliable Asari Madai produces yet another table fish.

As luck would have it, after landing so many assorted fish, including a large Sweetlip, on the Madai, I noticed that my 100lb kevlar leader for the assist hook was rather frayed. Thinking we were about to head back anyway, I let my line back down for one last try, and that was when the big one decided to bite. Sigh... you can guess what happened.

The fish pulled, I pulled back, it dragged out my 40lb line, I thumbed the spool to stop the massive fish from reaching the rocks, and the fish slowly but surely turned. I even managed to reel about 5 metres of line in, with a massive tugging weight on the other end. Thinking I was in the clear, I began my simple pumping motion, and that was when the fish took off on a slow but powerful run, and my kevlar leader's last surviving fibre decided to call it a day.

The moment I felt the fish escape, I knew what had gone wrong. I was staring at that frayed leader just a moment before... well, looks like another hard lesson learnt! And the big one got away!

Well, going back to the boatel with a large Golden Snapper and some other good stuff isn't that bad anyway, but why are there tears in my eyes? Sob Sob... haha.