November Snakehead Morning

On a recent rainy Sunday morning, I headed to the fishing grounds we have dubbed "Tombstone" for its proximity to a hillside graveyard for some mid-Autumn snakehead hunting. This is actually a system of ponds with varying depths and amounts of cover. Joining me was new angliing friend and recent California transpant William Ting. Will is an experienced angler both on freshwater and in the ocean, but this was his first time stalking snakehead. He certainly seems to be a fast learner because in no time he bagged a pair of nice blotched snakehead on a hollow-body topwater frog, in spite of the chilly (for Taiwan) and wet weather.

Blotched Snakehead Surprise

I paid another visit to my neighborhood snakehead pond and got a pleasant surprise in the form of a relatively large blotched snakehead (Channa maculata). The online literature on the species says they grow to a max of 30 or 40 cm. This one was about 52 cm and I've seen others online about twice this size. So, it sounds like its time for a few "authorities" out there to update their data. I'm looking at you, Taiwan Fish Database and Wikipedia.

This fellow inhaled on of my soft platic Stanley Ribbit Frog right next to the bank. It was a pretty explosive take after about an hour of coninuous casting with just a few strikes. Landing him was complicated by the fact that a giant Taiwan wasp decided he wanted a closer look at me as I was reeling in my catch. I must have looked like a complete lunatic running in circles and waving my arms with a fish still on my line. It took a bit of work to pry his jaws open and get the big 3/0 hook out. If you are fishing for snakehead, its a good idea to have two pairs of pliers on hand for just such an occasion, since you don't want to be sticking our fingers into a snakehead's toothy maw. 

Buzzing for Summer Snakehead

Bass anglers like to talk about the summer being the best time of the year for topwater action. The same seems to be true for snakehead, although its safe to say that most snakehead fishing is done on the surface regardless of the time of year. This time of year, however, snakehead seem paritcularly irritated by anything that flaps, wiggles or splashes across the surface. Maybe its because many of the fish are guarding schools of fry. Their hair triggers may be all the more sensitive. 

This morning, revisited a pond I had not been back to for several years. Its near my home and I had written it off as containing nothing but tilapia. My error may have had to do with the fact that I was fishing the wrong baits on my last visit. This time I arrived with a tackle bag stuffed with frogs and buzzbaits. 

I started off with the frogs and got a few promising strikes, but no hookups. Then I reached for a Booya Buzzbait that I had originally picked up up for bass fishing. A couple of casts parallel to a bed of weeds and water lettuce and a small striped snakehead hammered it.

Looking closer at how it was hooked and it was easy to see why the hookup had been easier then with the frogs. While fish seemed to target the legs of the frogs I had been fishing, usually missing the hook, this fish seemed to home in directly at the buzzbaits skirt which hides a sharp 2/0 long-shanked hook.

I switching locations on the shore and was quickly into two larger fish. These fish were hooking themselves without me having to worry about waiting until they took the bait all the way into their mouths. This can be a problem when using frogs on small to medium-sized snakehead, as they have smaller mouths than the bass many of these lures were designed for. Again, we are talking about smallish to medium fish, not the big toman and haruan found down south.

The only drawback to the buzzabaits is durability. A couple of hard hits from snakeheads and my Booya Buzzbait's wire was bent out of whack. It was almost impossible to bend them back perfectly straight. 

Bass on the Fly

I hit Jinjihu Pond in Pingjhen today with an old friend, Joe, his son and a new friend, Abe. Abe has commented on a few posts here and recently started working for Yoshida Seiko, a new tackle manufacture. He was keen to come along a try some Taiwan style bass fishing.

On arrival, the pond owner Mr. Tsai warned us that the fishing had been bad lately and not to expect to catch much. He suggested waiting a few weeks until he restocked his ponds. Deciding that we had come to fish, we gave it a go anyway. Four hours in, we've caught nothing. It was starting to look like all that I would have to show for the morning was a bright pink sunburn (I need one of those nylon neck socks). 

Finally around 11 a.m. I land a little 1 kg. bass on a Berkley Power Worm. OK, the day isn't a complete loss. Just before packing it in, I grabbed the fly rod for a couple of lazy casts. Wham, bass number two--my first on a fly rod. Thanks to Juan Wei in KL for hooking me up with some custom shrimp flies made by a friend of his. Another angler managed to catch a little snakehead that I'm sure is the same one I spotted on my last visit.