Zambales [April 24, 2009]

My original plan was to hit the inland saltwater lakes and brackish rivers in Zambales. Unfortunately, finding a boat suitable for casting was a problem. Most boats that were available were quite small and you can only cast sitting down. Since I'm using baitcasters, casting while sitting down was a real chore. The wider boats were most of the time being used by their owners and were only available during non-peak fishing hours. There were a lot of bancas with inboard engines but I prefer non-motorized boats so I can sneak into hotspots quietly. To make the long story short, I abandoned the goal and shifted to freshwater fishing --- dalag fishing to be exact.

I fished early in the morning around 5:30am until 7am and then went back to the fishing area at around 4pm until 6:30. I was able to land 5, released 3 and took home a couple for my father in law. I got a hookup on what I suspect to be a 2kilogram fish or maybe even bigger based on the head. It jumped thrice and pulled line even when my drag was almost locked down. When I was about to land it, I cannot grip it with my lip grip because it refused to open its mouth. I tried to grip its neck but I was not able to grip it due to its size. I didn't have a landing net at that time so decided to keep on nudging its mouth with the lip grip hoping that it would open. After a few minutes, it gave a furious roll and opened its mouth really wide and gave a good head shake. To my dismay, it threw the hook and it slid back into the water. Because of pure disappointment, I threw the damn lip grip into the mud. That could have been the 2kg snakehead that I have been looking for.

Anyway, here are the pictures of the bigger fishes I caught.


Almost a kilo.


1 kilo each.