I took the kids down to Jhunan on Sunday and met up with GK (seen catching all the groupers in the video), Austin and a couple of their fishing friends for an afternoon of salt pond fishing. I didn't have much luck personally, but GK caught several groupers and other friends caught black porgy and a drum of some kind. 

I tend to be a creature of habit when it comes to bass, and lately I've been relying more heavily on finesse baits at local ponds, like shaky worms or Texas and wacky-rigged worms. I recently decided to give my spinnerbaits a workout and ended up using them all day long. The cast-to-strike ratio may not have been quite as high as with a worm, but because you tend to retrieve a spinnerbait more quickly, this didn’t affect the number of fish hauled in on this particular morning.

Some local anglers may not have spinner baits in their tackle boxes because they can be hard to find in local fishing shops and when they do turn up they are inexplicably pricey. I avoided this problem by picking up a few while back in the U.S. this winter.

The usefulness of a spinnerbait is not limited to the bass pond. They can be productive in canals, around heavy weeds and other cover, making them a nice change of pace for snakehead anglers tired of the ubiquitous topwater frog. You can also toss them in estuaries for barramundi and red drum.

One of the tricks to using a spinnerbait is tying them on correctly. Here is a simple knot I use that works great.

I have made a lot of references to different ways to rig soft plastic baits for bass--Texas style, Carolina style, wacky style. I'm always on the lookout for a good guide that shows what these various rigs look like and how to tie them. I found a pretty good one on the Gary Yamamoto Web site. For those that don't know Yamamoto, he is a California-based angler and soft bait maker that revolutionized plastic worms with his much imitated Senko stick worms, that are the preferred style for wacky worming. I hope you find these useful.

Within the family of mackerels, bonitos and tunas known as Scombridae, the genus Scomberomorus includes a wide range of species commonly known as seer fish (sometimes seerfish), Spanish mackerels or king mackerels depending on geography and specific species. Taiwan’s waters are home to five varieties of seer fish—a term I’ll use generically for the genus.

Seer fish are among the more commonly caught near shore game fish on the island, and can be fished both from shore and boat. Fast and aggressive, they are both challenge and a delight on light tackle, whether one is throwing lures or fishing with bait. Seer fish can be found from inshore waters to the continental shelf including coastal reefs, bays, estuaries and lagoons.

Here is a quick breakdown of the common local species:

Scientific name: Scomberomorus commersonScomberomorus commerson

Common names: narrow-barred Spanish mackerel, barred Spanish mackerel

Chinese names: 康氏馬鮫, 土魠, 馬加, 馬鮫, 梭齒, 頭魠, 鰆

Size range: Up to 240 cm.

Scientific name: Scomberomorus guttatusScomberomorus guttatus

Common names: spotted seer fish, spotted seer, spotted Spanish mackerel, Indo-Pacific king mackerel, Indian Spanish mackerel, Indo-Pacific Spanish mackerel

Chinese names: 斑點馬鮫, 白北, 白腹仔

Size range: Up to 76 cm

Scientific name: Scomberomorus koreanusScomberomorus koreanus

Common names: Korean seer fish, Korean mackerel

Chinese names: 朝鮮馬鮫, 破北, 闊北, 闊腹仔 

Size range: Up to 150 cm

Scientific name: Scomberomorus niphoniusScomberomorus niphonius

Common names: spotted Spanish mackerel, Japanese Spanish mackerel, Japanese seer fish

Chinese names: 藍點馬鮫, 正馬加, 尖頭馬加, 馬嘉

Size range: Up to 100 cm

Scientific name: Scomberomorus sinensisScomberomorus sinensis

Common names: Chinese seer fish 

Chinese names: 中華馬鮫, 馬加, 大耳, 西達, 中華鰆 

Size range: Up to 218 cm

A wide variety of techniques can be used for catching seer fish, kings and Spanish mackerels. In Taiwan, most are caught on lures and jigs fished both from shore and boats. Trolling is also productive, though not as popular on the Island. Bait, both live and dead, can be used as well. Our friends over at Sport Fishin’ Asia have a nice write-up on rigging live bait for Spanish Mackerel.

Lure anglers prefer bright flashy jigs, spoons (particularly Clark spoons) and plugs that can be worked quickly through the water, whether vertically or near the surface. One may be tempted to rig a wire leader—these species do have notoriously sharp teeth—but keep in mind that these large mackerels have equally sharp eyesight and may shy from heavy wire. It’s a choice between more hookups vs. fewer strikes but more hooked fish landed.

Not sure exactly where this Youtube video was shot, but guy featured pulls in a what looks like a nice little spanish mackeral shore jigging near a harbor entrance. From the size of the ships in the background, I'm guessing this is in Keelung or Kaohsiung.