Hong Kong - Only a Pony

On the way back home from Melbourne, I had a three day stop over in Hong Kong. I stayed in the Tsim Sha Tsui area so it was pretty good access to the East Promenade near the Avenue of Stars where I fished previously. Bait wasn’t very easy to get as I didn’t know where the nearest wet fish market was and ended up buying some fresh prawns at Yau Ma Tei fish market which was about a 2 mile return trek from the hotel. I’m sure I could have got it somewhere closer. I found that a nearby supermarket had frozen prawns and fish, but I preferred fresh anyway.

Day 1 - East Promenade

I had only brought a single rod to Hong Kong, and set up a paternoster of quite small hooks and a small bit of prawn. I had many small bites but wasn’t able to convert them into fish. After a little while I landed a small silver fish with a black spot on the nape and front of the dorsal fin, various yellow stripes and spots, an extremely protrusible mouth and very slimy skin. I knew it was a ponyfish, but wasn’t able to identify it as a Spotnape Ponyfish [#139] until I got home.



Spotnape Ponyfish - Nuchequula nuchalis #139



Spotnape Ponyfish - Nuchequula nuchalis

I little while later, I had a different type of bite, it was more of a snatch than a nibble and out came a little goby. I could tell that it was a Tridentiger goby beause of the yellow band on the pectoral fins but was hopeful that it might be a species other than the Chameleon Goby. Well, hopes of a new species faded as I discovered that the only other Tridentiger species in Hong Kong, Tridentiger bifasciatus was an estuarine species that never enters 100% sea water. Like its cousin, it has also travelled the wolrd in cargo ship ballast water. In San Francisco Bay, both species occur but live at the different salinity levels.

I did catch a few more ponyfish and gobies, but not much else for the rest of the session. Just to point out, the Chameleon Gobies here seem to look a little different to the ones I have caught in Australia (see previous post). I'm not sure what it is but the jizz is slightly different somehow and the colouration, especially the darker patterns seem different to me as well.



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus

Day 2 – Hong Kong Ferry Pier

On the way back from Lamma Island, I decided to fish between Pier 7 (the star ferry pier) and Central Pier 8 which was being renovated. It was quite deep water here, but I fished using the same tactics as on the other side of the bay. Again, it was quite hard to hook any of the fish but felt a lot of bites. When I did hook up, I caught a Marbled Rockfish, a species I had caught on the previous trip. These little scorpionfish are called False Kelpfish in Australia because they do look a little like Kelpfish. I noticed that there were a few businessmen fishing with handlines catching small rockfish. They seemed to really enjoy catching them, enthusiastically placing their tiny morsels in a bucket for the pot later. I was only able to catch another tiny rockfish before heading back to the hotel.




Marbled Rockfish - Sebastiscus marmoratus




Marbled Rockfish - Sebastiscus marmoratus

Day 3 - East Promenade

I wanted to fish again at the Promenade to try and catch something different, but only more caught gobies and ponyfish again. They trip was quite disappointing, I had only caught 3 species even though one of them was new. The previous trip got me 7 species and was only 3 week later in the year than this time with only 1 overlapping species. Well better luck next time.