Gone Fishing Part 3!

Hello everyone. So let's continue on with my fishing adventures.

After about an hour of hunting for crabs, it was time to get back on my rock to go fishing. I caught one more crab at this spot before leaving. Notice the orange starfish near my feet.

A cute little guy. Perfect for a coldwater reef or a tidepool display!

Here is another starfish that was near my feet. This unusual bat star has seven arms! Strange.

And among the kelp on the floor, a kelp spider crab. I once caught a huge one and steamed it up. It was super sweet, kind of tasted like Alaskan king crab!

As I put the little spider crab back, I noticed this beautiful sea anemone in a shallow pool. It evens has lavender tips!

I looked up at the water's edge and the water was definitely coming in, time to get back.

I hurried and got back to the fishing hole. The tide definitely was coming in. Notice the water rushing in through that channel that I was talking about earlier. The picture below is before the tide came in when we first got there.

So from calm to rough, it changed in matter of hours.

Time to fish! Here is the bait we use. Shrimp for fish and squid for the crabs. I have a special contraption to catch crabs with a fishing pole. You will see later how this thing works.

With #4 Eagle claw hooks and a nice piece of fresh shrimp, no fish can resist!

On the first cast, my wife Anne hooks a fish!

A medium sized striped surf perch. These species of perches dominate this rocky area. There is a huge species called rubberlip perch that live in these waters too. They can get 5-6 pounds (2-3 kilos). I caught such one a long time ago from this spot.

And it was my turn to catch one. This one measured 12 inches. It puts up a hard fight and loads of fun! One cool thing about fishing the rocky tidepools is that you never know what you are going to catch. I've caught rockfish, small lingcods, keeper cabezones, greenlings, monkey faced eels (actually it is a fish, although it looks like a eel), and almost a sea lion! I almost lost my fishing pole when a sea lion grabbed hold of my shrimp and took off. Of course it snapped my line as soon as I grabbed the pole.

Here is a close up of one of the striped perches. Coldwater emperor angel, is what I'd call it!

So I was re baiting my line and stuff, and I didn't notice my dog licking her lips and looking at me. How can you say no to that face!

She was thirsty and wanted water!

After a few more perches, I caught this undersized cabezone. A tasty fish that is popular at the Chinese restaurants. I let this one go. I'll be back to to catch him when he grows up a little.

So here is the crab catching contraption that I was talking about. When it lies flat, the sides lay down.

Once it is lifted, the sides close in.

Here it is in water. In this case, we can see if the crab goes in. In other cases, you cast this trap out and just leave it for a while and just reel in. I've caught fish with this thing before too. One time, a rockcod decided to munch on the squid and I reeled in this huge fish. The netting had got caught on the fins! It was pretty exciting.

We were busy catching fish and didn't notice this sun star had come to check out the squid.

Here is one unlucky crab! Like my economics teacher back in high school used to tell us, "there is no such thing as a free lunch"!

Ok that is it for today, on my fishing adventure. My last part of this topic will have pictures of the lighthouse and how we got caught with the tide in!

Now for some pictures from our Bali station.

A beautiful brick red chalice! This is probably an oxypora species. These usually come in with orange or pinkish eyes.

Another one of those tiger sponges. This one is yellow and purple.

Another nice tabling deepwater acropora. The edges are baby blue in color!

An encrusting montipora. This one is green and purple. This is a very stunning montipora, but needs to be under halides to see the true colors.

This is actually a large colony of a Superman montipora. Can't tell from this picture, but it has orange polyps. Needs some tender loving care with good lighting to bring out the full colors.

A brown Cali tortuosa looking acro! It looks dead on like a tort. I wish I had some halides to see what it turns into!

A nice pair of Maroon clowns.

A small blueface angelfish with adult colors. This is the perfect size. This fish is called "napoleon" here in Indo.

A pretty candy striped tilefish. Tilefish in general are hard to keep, because of their diet. Many of them also suffer from decompression problems. But this batch of anchovie looking fish came in perfect!

Some cinnamon clowns acclimating upon arrival.

Hey Nemo, are you in there?

Blue damsels are a staple in the aquarium hobby.

And here is our crew, sorting out the new arrival of fish. Each fish is thoroughly screened before going into the acclimation system. They will sit here for a day, and then move into the main system.

Wrasses are kept in sandy bottoms. They are happier this way.

So there's a freshwater shrimp that is getting to be very popular in Asia. These live in high ph waters of Sulawessi.

Here is a close up picture of the shrimps. My partner has been sending thousands to Asia and the popularity is picking up. They come in all sorts of colors.

Here is the holding system for the shrimps. Notice the freshwater plants that the shrimps live in.

Conclusion

Ok so that is it for today. In a few hours, I will be taking off to Banuwangi for a few days to look for corals. Of course I will have plenty of pictures to share when I return. So for now, goodnight!

cheers,
Eddie