Play the odds

It's been a great season so far! We've stumbled across some fantastic kingfish off Ajman and Sharjah, but it wasn't all plain sailing.  It took hard work and a constant changing of tactics to catch consistently, but it paid off in the end.

It is oft quoted that ‘Ten percent of anglers catch 90 percent of fish' and it's not far from the truth. Here's why I believe this rule to be true...

Observation: A good angler will look around the area before he decides exactly where to fish. This means looking at sea charts for the area, searching out structures, ledges, reefs, etc... that may attract fish. Bird movement is another key; birds see fish that you can't, and when they crash into bait schools, it's a sure sign that big fish may be around.

Learn: Fishing is a skill and skill levels increase with practice. A highly skilled angler is one that has spent time trying new things, new places and techniques - but most importantly they learn from experience, store the lessons away and retrieve them when required.

Persistence: A lot of people will wait until they're not catching fish to try a new method, when they don't catch any fish they abandon it claiming it's no good and revert back to what they already know.

You need to be persistent when trying something new, give it a fair and reasonable chance to prove its worth - or not - as the case may be. Also, persevere with your fishing efforts. It's easy to get bored when you aren't catching, but this is the time you should be applying more pressure.

Luck: Something that does seem to favour the few. I can tell you that the more you fish the luckier you will get!

These principles worked for me recently during our kingfish hunting. We had spent an hour trolling in the main channel, but the result was one small king, so pulling in the lines we headed offshore to see what we could find.

A short ride from the channel we were on the fish, the birds were diving and kingfish rocketed out of the water. That morning we only had a short session, with the ocean to ourselves, but between the two of us fishing we managed 16 fish; a good haul but we also lost a lot more due to cut-offs.

I learnt a valuable lesson that morning; when kingfish are feeding aggressively, use wire trace.

We lost nearly all my good lures that morning, meaning we lost fish and time spent re-tying. We also found that a certain yo-zuri swimming lure was working particularly well. When I made a trip out two days later I came armed with very light wire trace and a bunch more proven lures and as well as some new ones to try.

This session was difficult as we had to contend with about 20 other commercial boats. We had to jostle for position and the fish were shy to bite. The wire trace made the difference however and we managed eleven fish, but I knew we could do better.

On my next trip out, a week after we first found the kings, there were probably 50 other boats out and the fishing was really slow!  We could see them working bait on the surface, but we where always too slow to get to them with the lures in the water.  After four hours we decided to try spinning with metal jigs; casting 80-100m meant we could get to the fish quickly. The reaction was immediate. Being able to quickly get on the fish had us getting hits on nearly every cast.

We had kingfish smashing the lures from below and rocketing 5 metres into the air with the lure in their mouths. My mate with a swimming lure was holding his own, so changing over to a swimmer improved my hook-up rate. That we afternoon we racked up about 30 kingfish up to 8kg.

By observing, learning and persevering we managed to develop a way to fish efficiently for this situation. Preserverance paid off. I hope to see you guys at the UAQ Fishing Competition on the 24th October to see if you can make that top ten percent!

Luke Chang was raised on a remote pacific island with little else to do but fish.  A childhood filled with wild fishing trips nurtured a passion for the sport, while tinkering with the family's boats led him into his profession as a Naval Architect. Based in the UAE since 2005 he has designed and built a number of recreational and commercials vessels in the UAE.

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