It’s been years since I last fish for Dorados at Laiya Batangas.  Last Sunday I had a chance to do so.

We left Manila 12mn and arrived at Laiya around 2:30am with the weather not cooperating very well. But no matter, we had a few hours of waiting and hoping that the rain subsides when the sun comes up. We took a nap inside Alan’s Revo until around 5:30am when we decided to call our boatman, Roger. It took quite a while for us to get ready, Roger had get the squid bait from the talipapa which doesn’t arrive until 6AM. We took the opportunity to have breakfast of tuna spread, vienna sausage and bread.

7:00 am and we were all set! There was still a slight drizzle but eventually died down as we head out to sea. The last time I went went dorado fishing was about 3 years ago. that time, we were only using 20 lb line, 30 lb leader with a single 3/0 long shank hook. Now, Roger was asking for 70lb leaders and 2 x 3/0 long shank hooks. We only had 40 lb leader so we settled with that.

It was around the 3rd or 4th bouy that I felt a tug at my line, thinking that I have a dual hook rig, I flicked the rod to set the hook, reeled it in.. then silence… nothing.. I was surprised that my boatman told me that I should have dropped back the line. I had double hooks, why do I have to dropback? Nevertheless, I did what he asked me to do, opened the bail and fingered the line. In Just after a few seconds the fish took the bait! counted 1 to 5 then closed the bail and set the hook… yeah! FISH ON BRODA!! The fish did put up a fight but a sub 1kg dorado is no match for a 40lb braid and tica jigger. when the fish got closer to the boat.. wahahaha… durading!

That fish was the only thing we caught during the morning. We went back to shore for lunch and decided to sticked with hitting for dorado the whole day. We set out again around 2pm. On the second bouy, Alan had a strong strike and 20m away, a dorado tailwalked. Then, his reel was screaming like hell as the dorado hit open waters. The dorado swam for like an eternity and Alan’s spool was almost gone. The fish gave a really good fight, and adding the fact that Alan was under geared for that size of a fish did not help any. There were a couple of times that his rod was at the brink of popping. It took around half an hour to boat the fish and it was a great prize, a 7.2kg Bull Dorado!

After that adrenaline rush, we moved on to other bouys. The bankero changed the my bait to a fresh one as we neared one. A few seconds after dropping my bait in the water, I felt a tug. I dropped back the line counted to 3 and closed the spool. baahh.. no fish. Opened the bail and again felt a tug, this time I waited longer counted till 5 or 7 then set the hook… woohooo fish on! but baaahhh another durading!! damn slap me on the face and call me a big man! hehehe..

jpat will continue the story.. it’s his fish naman eh.. hehe