Written by Paulo Pagharion:

To start with, I just want to share some background on the sportfishing scene in iloilo. Basically all the spots in iloilo are very productive. Local angling clubs there are into bottom fishing primarily. The usual catch species are Jacks, african pompano, snappers, stingrays and sweetlips - Good sized actually ranging from 1 to 6KG on any given day. Trolling produces king macks, barracudas, queenfish and you can catch dorados and mammoth tunas in hte far off payaws. The local government plays a big part on the conservation and sustainability of fishery there…dynamite fishing is almost non existent and every barangay is required to put up artificial reefs - even the 2 local angling clubs also put up artificial reefs up to 400 pieces around there hunting grounds. (Nice no? )

We had no luck on bottom fishing since the current is very strong and rigs can’t touch bottom. Current and winds go on opposite directions making it very hard for us to position the boat on the exact spots. Trolling was productive though we landed 4 fish out of 7 strikes. The boatman said that he doesnt go below 5 strikes on any given day [yabang no? ] but he proved it nonetheless hehehe. Set-up was 3 rods out trolling rapala cd-11 (redhead), cd-14 (sardine), cd-14 (pearlwhite tiger) - all three were strucked alternately.

Anyways here are the pics:

Paulo's Barracuda

My biggest barracuda so far.

and another one for Paulo

My dad’s first barracuda and his first trolling catch! He’s actually a true blue bottom fisherman but now he likes trolling hehehe. He immediately bought his own trolling reel the next day - a left hand retrieved toman 4/0 levelwind conventional. He finds it hard to use the common right hand retrieved reels.

And the highlight of the trip. Here’s the story. WE had 3 barracudas already as early as 12nn. The 3 cudas strucked the 2 reels: a tica 3/0 reel loaded with 25lb line on a standup rod and a penn 4/0 reel loaded with 50lb line also on a stand up rod. Horsing the 3 fish was a walk in the park for these setup. This is what happens when I play with small gear - This happened 2 years back when I loaded my bass baitcaster - a small abu garcia ambassadeur (now with JL hehe sisi ako) loaded with 30lb braid line on a baitcasting rod. It got hit by a small dogtooth tuna but at 3kg, it almost stripped my baitcasting outfit with screeching runs hehehe. Now i did it again on this fishing trip. My baitcasting rod with a small penn baitcaster i borrowed from a friend loaded with 20lb line. I used a cd-11 on a light drag so as not to put too much stress on the rod. It was almost 4pm and it was raining hard. Left my other bag with the camera, sunblock, weighing scale and the jacket! I was all wet and freezing and almost decided to call it a day. I was praying the whole day for my setup to get struck ‘coz i know it will be so much fun to fight a big mackerel or jack with this gear! Actually it got a couple of short strikes the whole day but nothing solid. And finally after 5 minutes when I was about to quit, this beauty mangled the cd-11 redhead.

Monster QueenFish!

Don’t know how much it weighed but this queenie is surely pretty big and you have no idea how much fun it was playing with this monster!

Now I’m a big fan of light trolling!